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

Him and Anita Dobson are about all we need!

Out of all the postings on here, I still like this one as a definition -

Life = Existing environment or reality - nature.

What does it mean though?

Ste

Well, to me, my personal view, it includes everything.....life on earth, the earth and stuff around it that helps support it. Its a very VERY broad view Let me try again...errr....*shuffle, cough*...

....I look upon nature as a material world containing forces and processes. Nature to me is an existing system of things, the world of matter, the creation, the universe. I define that nature as life. Did that make sense to you?

I'm afraid I'm not a learned biologist or an acedemic science type person, I cannot give out theories and such like, as easily as someone with say your experience and knowledge.

However I read allot, I like to study Natural History in my own time for pleasure, in fact one of my mentors is David Attenborough and I absolutely loved David Belamy....heeeeee!

Thank you for asking me ste

Pleasure to talk with you

maybe we are some kind of random accident occurring once every billion stars, perhaps. so we could say that life is a glitch in the ultimate universal theory that has altered it to a point where it actually had to become a 4(or more)-dimensional representation of itself.

So, in my opinion, life in this universe was just an accident. as for my other view (on the ultimate universal theory), it refers to the philosophical question: does a tree make a noise when it falls and is not heard by anything?

ste? where did you go ...what did you think of what I wrote?

I'm sorry vixen, I find it difficult to keep up with h2g2 a lot of the time, I sometimes wish they'd be a ceasefire/amnesty for a week so I can catch up.

Ok, so when you say "life", you mean what I and other people would call "nature"? As in the very fabric of the universe, reality, biology, the whole shebang. That does make perfect sense to me, as I think the defining boundary between life and non-life (or the 'rest of "nature"') is actually pretty fuzzy when it comes down to it. "Life" might even be a total artifact of our limited thinking. So, I think we agree, but just with different terminology.

"I'm afraid I'm not a learned biologist or an acedemic science type person"

Aaahhh, who cares? Einstein was a postal clerk.

"I cannot give out theories and such like, as easily as someone with say your experience and knowledge."

You just did

"Pleasure to talk with you"

You too

Ste

I would define life as, "WE LOVE YOU, BABY"

Ohhh thanks ste

Really..... Einstein was a postal clerk? Well I dinnae know that!