h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay...... I would love to hear from anyone's point of view on how they would define life.

..Well as long as you don't ask any big questions..

42 maybe? Or was that a different question

My dad always used to say that Life is a sexually transmitted, fatal, disease. Whenever he was feeling particularly glum he'd say it was a PAINFUL, sexually transmitted, fatal disease.

I wouldn't say that that was my opinion, but I can't think of a brief, brilliant and very witty description just now, so I'll go over here and umm and err for a bit.

Would stop with the 42's already!!!

I like what your Dad said, aga...heheheee!

I like the description of - actual environment or reality; nature

Thats a pretty broad perspective as opposed to the thermological thingy...

Was thinking that mebbe we could get some stuff going about artificial life and err...ummm... other stuff?

Its a choice of paths to the same end

That's very philosophical sounding, gonna 'ave a and think about that one.....

got any biccies?

Will do?


I have a friend who thinks pregnancy is a sexually transmitted disease.


The Concise Oxford DIctionary says this about life:

1. The condition which distinguishes active animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity, and continual change preceeding death.


So then I had to know what an animal is because would that include really small things like bacteria?:

Animal 1. a living organism that feeds on organic matter, usually one with specialised sense-organs and nervous sytem, and able to respond rapidly to stimuli.

I guess so then.



I'm not sure that artificial life fits the definition of life. It would fit the definition of artificial life, although once it is self replicating we might run into definition problems....

"Life is a sexually transmitted fatal disease."

Life is the only fatal condition, but...
... it is better than the alternative.

Life is a joke......with an unfunny punchline.

localised, replicating, parcels of anti-entropy
BCNU - Crescent

Ah, good question. Could potentially keep us philosophers on the gravy train for life!

It still has not been defined. We seem to have an inate ability to recognise life in its myriad forms. But to define it is much more difficult. Artificial life does indeed conform to some definitions of life. i am also interested in artificial life although I have not been active in this area for some years, I did my final year degree project based on a-life principles.

Now the problem, the definition from the OED is as good as any I guess to start with:-

"1. The condition which distinguishes active animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, functional activity, and continual change preceeding death."

condition? death? 'active animals'? Inorganic matter? etc etc
So inactive animals are not alive? Define death other than cessation of life as otherwise you have circular reasoning there.
If death *is* taken as the loss of the attributes of life then we can define fire as being alive:-
It consumes resources to keep itself going
It moves around (thus active and mobile)
It is continually changing.
It grows if it can and multiplies. It can even produce offspring when a small patch of fire goes off in a new direction on its own, splitting from the parent fire.
functional activity? hmm, well as functional as any low order life, eg bacteria and so forth that just do what they are programmed to do.
Organice - well yes, fire consumes organic matter and is therefore made up of organic matter albeit it in an altered form
Then there are further similarities in that it 'breathes' ie requires oxygen, it can be killed if you remove the requirements for its life.

The trick of removing inorganic from the equation is a bit of cop out to my mind. All it means is that I can;t use the argument above to include mountains or the Sea as alive. Any brush that broad smacks of being a 'quick fix' rather than a carefully thought out and proven reason.

Hurrah Ictoan,

Weren't there seven "characteristics" of living things they taught you at school?
Some thing like : breathe, feed, excrete, grow, reproduce, respond to stimuli and... the other one?
It was never made explicit which of these are considered necessary or sufficient for "life", or whose opinion the whole thing might be, and in fact the whole thing was couched in maddening dumbed-down fluffiness, but I was only twelve. It might do as a starting point.

Do amoebae (amoebas?) grow? I don't know. Doesn't sound very likely.

Anyone know?

Amoebas do grow - when they bud off from each other they start out the size of one half of the original 'parent' and grow to be the same size. We saw a video all about it in GCSE Biology many many moons ago.

Well I like the gaia theory-ish altho it doesn't seem to cover everything enough for me, and does seem like a fairytale...but then again so did believing that the Earth was round at the time. I think that maybe it's the closest thing yet to describing life.

There is no single definition of life that is accepted by all fields, and I like that concept to stay the way it is, because if we stick to hard fast rules of the presently known boundries of chemistry and physics, then there is no opportunity to accept other forms of life.

*phew* I guess what I'm saying is I like to keep an openmind about everything, because what's that saying, oh yeh,.....everything is relative...

I need more

Life... is an illusion caused by lack of alcohol.

I hear you reddy, I hear you...

<>

I thought that was 'reality'

Perhaps something proves it is alive by dying.

az