Why Nothing Is Truly Alive

What is life? This is a complicated question that could be answered in a number of ways depending on who you ask. According to many researchers and scientists, life has 3 things; a container, a metabolism, and genes. Erwin Schrödinger said life “is that which resists decaying to disorder and equilibrium”. In my opinion, life has the ability to metabolize, grow, reproduce and adapt to different environments. Since life is “abstract”, it becomes a very hard thing to

I believe that viruses are living, just not in the same way as organisms you see on a daily

Life, it might be argued, is the distinguishing feature of all organisms and may most usefully be thought of as involving various kinds of complex systems of organization providing individual organisms with the ability to make use of those energy sources available to them for both self maintenance and reproduction. Underlying this deceptively persuasive definition, however, lie those persistent traditional problems inherent in the search for an essential, distinctive substance characteristic of all forms of life. Additionally, as evolution theory makes clear, there is the problem of borderline instances, organisms of which it is not easy to say whether or not they may be defined as being alive. One such case

Life exists in itself - there is no inherent meaning attached to life. However - as all human beings (and animals) wish for

The molecules that make life possible are arranged in patterns that make cell structures, as opposed to a random order. However, order alone does not make all things living. For example, DNA has order but it’s considered a building block of life, not life itself.

Life-the general or universal condition of human existence. This dictionary definition does not make the distinction between other animals and man in different aspects of the moral sense and if we consider the moral sense it is not only man’s highest faculty

People say life is a mystery and is not susceptible to anything except for death. Most say that there is even life after death. But what if all of that was just futile. That we were not even real. That we are just a dream or a simulation of some other world. This is the topic that could make most confused or skeptical and make some question our very existence. Are we real? Do we have free will? Is life a simulation? Life could be a simulation or a dream in the sense that we have the technology to do so. To be able to run a simulation, we would have to have the processing power to be able to interact with every A.I. and to process every thought and action that everything does. But we are decades away from that.

Are virus alive? The big debate is are virus alive or do they lack the mechanism necessary to function on their own. If we look at what defines life we will see that a virus mimics every function that is consider necessary to be alive. But some people still do not believe that virus are alive. If we look at all the characteristic of life a virus fulfills and meets each characteristics one may argue that a virus could not exist without a host but neither can the cells that make up the human body, one organ cannot exist without the others. A good example would be to look at the seed of a tree if it never gets water and soil it will never be a tree a living organism right, but once it is watered and planted it becomes a tree and we all recognize

Biologist have generally agreed that being able to reproduce, react to external stimuli, produce metabolism, adapt and is made of up 1 or more cells are the characteristics of a living organism. Viruses are alive, because they accomplish tasks that non-living things can’t. As well as they share many qualities with living organisms, even making their own category of life.

How Forests Think: Towards An Anthropology Beyond the Human by Eduardo Kohn and Pandora’s Hope: Essays on the Reality of Science Studies by Bruno Latour have an interesting dichotomy between what is considered alive (referred to by Kohn as a “self” and an “actant” for Latour), and what is not. It is important to note that Latour did not specifically refer to actants as being alive but they have agency, and this term is used in a similar manner to Kohn’s concept of selves. Through this essay, I will review both books and each author’s understanding of the concept of life. For Kohn, the boundaries of what is considered alive are limited to humans, animals, and organic matter. However, for Latour, we see a different, more developed understanding of the concept of life that incorporates essentially everything.

No because it does not have an internal environment, not made of cells, it can't reproduce, it has no DNA, it doesnt change or evolve over time, and it doesn't use energy. These traits are crucial for something to be considered "living" as they are esential to all living things. Even though water is made of atoms, which eventually are clumped together to create molecules or compounds, it is not alive because it doesn't have all of the essential traits to be classified as living. If the water molecules were to change over time and evolve into something better, first be scared because water never has nor ever should do so, but if it were able to do so, it would still need all of the other seven traits to be considered alive.

Throughout human existence, people have often contemplated about the meaning of life. Why do we exist? What purpose do we serve as human beings? Who created us? Is there a mission that humans are supposed to complete while alive? Richard Taylor sought out to answer these questions through his paper The Meaning of Life. He particularly uses the myth on Sisyphus and his life throughout the paper to help prove his point.

Have you ever thought about what makes you a living thing ? The characteristics of a living thing are Reproduction , growth/development , use energy , reacting to stimuli. The difference between A non-living thing and a dead thing is that a non-living was never alive , A dead thing was alive at one point . Non-living factors can affect living factors in a big way. Some non-living factors are temperature , soil , water , air and minerals . An example of a nonliving factor affecting a living factor would be temperature . The temperature being the nonliving factor can affect living things by either being too hot or too cold when a living thing needs a certain temperature to stay alive . However there

There is a distinction (of life and death!) between being existing and living. We ‘exist’ when our physiological systems are working. But we start living only when we become aware. Wakefulness is the way to life. You are alive only in the proportion that you are aware. Awareness is the difference between death and life. Life is the goal and awareness is the technique the methodology to attain it.

To answer the question, “Is there life on Earth?” one must first ask oneself, “What is life?” In many of the biology classes here at New Mexico Tech, that question has come up over and over again. The response is always the same and no one ever seems to get the question wrong, but no one appears to get it right either. That is because life is based on how we define it. It can be characterized as many different things, but there are three major characteristics that are necessary in order for something to be characterized as life. The three characteristics that characterize life based on our current understandings are metabolism, reproduction, and evolution. These characteristics are important in distinguishing between inorganic matter that is not alive and life. Metabolism is the collection of process that converts materials into energy. Living things also have the ability to reproduce themselves in sexual pair or individually. Life also undergoes evolution. Simpler forms precede forms of greater organization. Based on these classifications, there is life on Earth. This life takes many different forms such as “intelligent” life in humans and other forms in plants, animals, and bacteria. Another part of the definition of life is that life is cellular. The definition of life is to distinguish from inorganic matter. Does this definition really constitute life? Should inorganic matter still qualify? Should humans themselves even constitute life? As of right now, this definition