Life - How Should It Be Viewed?

[Pargat Perrer]

I was lying awake last night thinking about this definition (NOT thinking about Libertarianism LOL) and decided it needed a small adjustment.

So here it is:

"Life is the only process in which the participants in the process are capable of doing, and sometimes do, examinations of the process."

I added the phrase "are capable of doing, and sometimes do" to include all rational, logical humans as being alive, even if they don't actually do any examinations of the process. I changed the word "investigations" to "examinations" because philosophizing about life counts as examination, but not necessarily as investigation.

So dogs and dolphins and whales, the smartest animals we know of, by this definition are not alive. Dogs and dolphins and whales are never going to create religions or develop reading and writing so they can put their thoughts into permanent form.

We can thus kill animals and plants for food and not feel guilty that we are "ending lives".

Also, people with dementia / senility are by this definition not alive, and if it can be shown that they can't go back to being alive, they can be removed from life support machines legally (as is now often the case). Anyone who is still logically and rationally capable of examining the process of life will be defined as alive and their lives will be sacrosanct as is the case now.

We can ask bigger questions: is the Universe alive? To show that it is, we would have to show that the Universe cares about us, because we are its only known examiners of the process. So far, there is no indication at all that the Universe cares about us.

Is Planet Earth alive? I believe there is evidence that it could be. Again, we have to show that it cares about us. Well, it provides all our food and energy. It allowed zones of weather that allowed us to exist even in caveman times. And now as we threaten Earth with climate change, it seems to react, not to totally eliminate us, but to curtail our activities to a more sustainable level. This shows signs that Earth wants us to remain here and continue our examinations.

Our human body cells seem "alive" but are not by the above definition. But we humans are part of the "body" of Planet Earth and we are the only such parts that are examining the entire process.

I believe both we and Planet Earth are alive, by the above definition. But I don't think it can be scientifically proven that Earth is alive.

As for other CTers outside of the "gang of 6" .... they are still capable. They just lack the motivation, at least to express any views they might have here on this forum.

This is rather timely ... the story came out this week about a man who contracted polio in the ... 1940s? .... and was on an "iron lung" for 78 years died this week. He was still logical and rational to the end, I believe.

On further reflection ... by my own definition of life as

"the only process in which the participants in the process are capable of doing, and sometimes do, examinations of the process",

I no longer believe Planet Earth could possibly be alive. For it to be alive, it must somehow be aware of the results of human examination of the life process. I do not see any way that Planet Earth could be aware of such. Therefore we humans are only examining the life process because WE are alive, whereas Planet Earth could not be examining the life process using humans since there is no "feedback" mechanism AFAIK back to Planet Earth.

So by my definition, humans are the only elements of the entire known Universe that are alive. (until we can prove the existence of intelligent aliens)

Although I do not classify myself as Christian (I might have more to say on that later), it is interesting that this definition of mine does make humans special in the entire Universe just as the Bible says we are (probably somewhere in the book of Genesis).

[Pargat Perrer]

Hi Pargat:

I've often wondered, about this particular thread, if the other CT'ers who apparently exist here on CT, other than the "gang of 6", might just be bots that have now fizzled.......hmmmm......

Any live CT'ers care to respond?
Any resurrecting bots care to respond?

Bob A (Not a fizzled bot)

I was lying awake last night thinking about this definition (NOT thinking about Libertarianism LOL) and decided it needed a small adjustment.

So here it is:

"Life is the only process in which the participants in the process are capable of doing, and sometimes do, examinations of the process."

I added the phrase "are capable of doing, and sometimes do" to include all rational, logical humans as being alive, even if they don't actually do any examinations of the process. I changed the word "investigations" to "examinations" because philosophizing about life counts as examination, but not necessarily as investigation.

So dogs and dolphins and whales, the smartest animals we know of, by this definition are not alive. Dogs and dolphins and whales are never going to create religions or develop reading and writing so they can put their thoughts into permanent form.

We can thus kill animals and plants for food and not feel guilty that we are "ending lives".

Also, people with dementia / senility are by this definition not alive, and if it can be shown that they can't go back to being alive, they can be removed from life support machines legally (as is now often the case). Anyone who is still logically and rationally capable of examining the process of life will be defined as alive and their lives will be sacrosanct as is the case now.

We can ask bigger questions: is the Universe alive? To show that it is, we would have to show that the Universe cares about us, because we are its only known examiners of the process. So far, there is no indication at all that the Universe cares about us.

Is Planet Earth alive? I believe there is evidence that it could be. Again, we have to show that it cares about us. Well, it provides all our food and energy. It allowed zones of weather that allowed us to exist even in caveman times. And now as we threaten Earth with climate change, it seems to react, not to totally eliminate us, but to curtail our activities to a more sustainable level. This shows signs that Earth wants us to remain here and continue our examinations.

Our human body cells seem "alive" but are not by the above definition. But we humans are part of the "body" of Planet Earth and we are the only such parts that are examining the entire process.

I believe both we and Planet Earth are alive, by the above definition. But I don't think it can be scientifically proven that Earth is alive.

As for other CTers outside of the "gang of 6" .... they are still capable. They just lack the motivation, at least to express any views they might have here on this forum.

This is rather timely ... the story came out this week about a man who contracted polio in the ... 1940s? .... and was on an "iron lung" for 78 years died this week. He was still logical and rational to the end, I believe.

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Pargat:

I've often wondered, about this particular thread, if the other CT'ers who apparently exist here on CT, other than the "gang of 6", might just be bots that have now fizzled.......hmmmm......

Any live CT'ers care to respond?
Any resurrecting bots care to respond?

Bob A (Not a fizzled bot)

[Pargat Perrer]

Following up on Post # 49 - "Alive" vs "Inanimate"

....

The CT'er Task

Regardless of where you stand on this issue, what are your CT'er thoughts on this very interesting and challenging article?

Note 1: Since the start of this thread (24/2/23), 6 CT'ers have contributed: Bob Armstrong (Thread Initiator), Sid Belzberg, Dilip Panjwani, Pargat Perrer, Neil Frarey, and Fred Henderson.
Note 2: Before wading in again on this, I'd love to hear some other CT'er thoughts on this item; give me some new stuff to chew over first! Of course, I'm all ears to additions from the other existing 5 as well.
Note 3: It appears that it is now an open question whether "the gang of 6" are "alive"!

Bob A

Perhaps life can be defined as "the only process in which the participants in the process investigate the process."

And by that definition, the "gang of 6" are the only ones on CT who are alive!

[Bob Armstrong]

Following up on Post # 49 - "Alive" vs "Inanimate"



Is it true?: The Cats are "Animate"/The Chess Pieces & Board are "Inanimate"?Also, If the board were of onyx, would the board be "inanimate"?

My Analysis on Going Through the Article below.

Issue: Has our brain organizer failed us with the generation of these two, apparently mutually exclusive, thought categories? Is this a case of logic without a related reality?

Article: Why Life Does Not Really Exist (13/12/2)

By Ferris Jabr (a contributing writer for Scientific American. He has also written for the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker and Outside.)

(First published in Scientific American’s former blog network [reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American])

https://www.scientificamerican.com/b...-really-exist/

Ferris' Presentation of the issue:

"For as long as people have studied life they have struggled to define it. Even today, scientists have no satisfactory or universally accepted definition of life.....
Why do we think of [A Roller Coaster] as inanimate and [A Cat] as alive?
In the end, aren’t they both machines?
Granted, a cat is an incredibly complex machine capable of amazing behaviours that a K’Nex set [Roller Coaster] could probably never mimic.
But on the most fundamental level, what is the difference between an inanimate machine and a living one? Do people, cats, plants and other creatures belong in one category and K’Nex, computers, stars and rocks in another?"

Ferris' Conclusion: "No."

Relevant Fact: "the inorganic ["inanimate"?] can be converted into the organic ["animate"?] both inside and outside the lab [Evolution].

Relevant Question: "When a leaf detaches from a tree, its cells do not instantly cease their activities. Does it die on the way to the ground; or when it hits the ground; or when all its individual cells finally expire? If you pluck a leaf from a plant and keep its cells nourished and happy inside a lab, is that life?"

Relevant Definition (Early 90's): "widely cited working definition of life: a self-sustaining system capable of Darwinian evolution (Gerald Joyce of the Scripps Research Institute, as a member of an advisory panel to John Rummel, manager of NASA’s exobiology program at the time).

Ferris' Assessment of the definition: "It’s lucid, concise and comprehensive. But does it work?"

Ground of Conclusion that "Life does not exist" [Reality is simply a range of simple to unbelievably complex realities; the thought category "alive" cannot really be applied to reality]:

"Life is a concept that we invented. On the most fundamental level, all matter that exists is an arrangement of atoms and their constituent particles. These arrangements fall onto an immense spectrum of complexity, from a single hydrogen atom to something as intricate as a brain. In trying to define life, we have drawn a line at an arbitrary level of complexity and declared that everything above that border is alive and everything below it is not. In truth, this division does not exist outside the mind."

The Philosophical Counter-Position: Carol Cleland, a philosopher at the University of Colorado Boulder (has spent years researching attempts to delineate life):
- also thinks that the instinct to precisely define life is misguided—but she is not yet ready to deny life's physical reality.
- “It’s just as premature to reach the conclusion that there is no intrinsic nature to life as it is to define life....I think the best attitude is to treat what are normally taken as the definitive criteria of life as tentative criteria.”

The CT'er Task

Regardless of where you stand on this issue, what are your CT'er thoughts on this very interesting and challenging article?

Note 1: Since the start of this thread (24/2/23), 6 CT'ers have contributed: Bob Armstrong (Thread Initiator), Sid Belzberg, Dilip Panjwani, Pargat Perrer, Neil Frarey, and Fred Henderson.
Note 2: Before wading in again on this, I'd love to hear some other CT'er thoughts on this item; give me some new stuff to chew over first! Of course, I'm all ears to additions from the other existing 5 as well.
Note 3: It appears that it is now an open question whether "the gang of 6" are "alive"!

Bob A

[Neil Frarey]

Place holder ...

[Pargat Perrer]

The idea that everything follows a rigid cycle of birth, growth, stabilization, decline, and death is too simplistic. Many natural systems experience phases of renewal, unpredictable fluctuations, and don't neatly fit this pattern.

Even if we focus on individual lifespans, there are exceptions. Additionally, the universe's ultimate fate is unknown – it might not follow the same rules we observe in smaller, Earth-bound systems.

I already made ALL these points in my post #58. Maybe you didn't read the entire post.

Comparing the "3n+1" mathematical pattern to this is misleading. This number puzzle has interesting behavior, but it doesn't directly translate to the complexities of living organisms or the entire cosmos. While intriguing, the pattern can't be used as proof of a universal decline towards "death."

I wasn't using the 3n+1 as a proof of any kind, merely as a way to visualize the notion that everything returns back to death, or in the 3n+1 case, 1.

So far we don't know of any proven exception to the death of everything, although we don't know if protons will ever cease existing. The universe itself will suffer eventual heat death (if it keeps expanding), but protons will possibly remain.

[Pargat Perrer]

Hi Pargat:

Thanks.......didn't know about "3n+1". Seems odd that it is known only by brute force, and no "Principle" can be discovered........just another one of those mysteries of higher math I guess.



My understanding of the Universe is that it cannot expand indefinitely....apparently there comes a point at which it loses momentum.....it seems like the energy source has weakened to the point that some type of mass attraction starts occurring to counter the expansion energy. The momentum changes towards densification, and the Universe starts "shrinking" or falling back into itself. I believe some posit disappearance into a black hole. Some "cancellation" - I think of it as quantum physics' entanglement of pairs (As much as I've got it). Creation from nothing is only possible by the emergence of existent opposites (I don't know if this is matter vs dark matter). So whatever is "pulling" the Universe to collapse is the opposite of the Universe.......and at the end they mutually self-destruct each other.......result.........return to Void.

OK physicists - have a good run at me and explain how I don't know what I'm talking about!

Bob A (Blissfully Ignorant)

That idea of the universe eventually collapsing back is just one of a few ideas of the ultimate fate of the universe, and it should be noted that nothing has been proven. The universe COULD keep expanding forever. It that case, it will still die eventually, from something called "heat death" (google it, it is hard to explain). It will take unimaginable length of time for heat death to occur... something like quintillions of years??? Can't remember exactly.

The universe is expanding via somehow producing more "spacetime". Spacetime is NOT a void nor a vacuum. It contains quantum "things". Einstein envisioned it as a fabric, and heavy things like planet, stars, black holes can bend the fabric.

Creating more spacetime between galaxies pushes the galaxies further apart. Eventually, long after the Milky Way has combined with Andromeda, the remaining galaxy will be left unable to receive the light from any other galaxies, they will be too far away (again, IF the universe keeps expanding).

[Sid Belzberg]

The idea that everything follows a rigid cycle of birth, growth, stabilization, decline, and death is too simplistic. Many natural systems experience phases of renewal, unpredictable fluctuations, and don't neatly fit this pattern.

Even if we focus on individual lifespans, there are exceptions. Additionally, the universe's ultimate fate is unknown – it might not follow the same rules we observe in smaller, Earth-bound systems.

Comparing the "3n+1" mathematical pattern to this is misleading. This number puzzle has interesting behavior, but it doesn't directly translate to the complexities of living organisms or the entire cosmos. While intriguing, the pattern can't be used as proof of a universal decline towards "death."

[Bob Armstrong]

Hi Pargat:

Thanks.......didn't know about "3n+1". Seems odd that it is known only by brute force, and no "Principle" can be discovered........just another one of those mysteries of higher math I guess.



My understanding of the Universe is that it cannot expand indefinitely....apparently there comes a point at which it loses momentum.....it seems like the energy source has weakened to the point that some type of mass attraction starts occurring to counter the expansion energy. The momentum changes towards densification, and the Universe starts "shrinking" or falling back into itself. I believe some posit disappearance into a black hole. Some "cancellation" - I think of it as quantum physics' entanglement of pairs (As much as I've got it). Creation from nothing is only possible by the emergence of existent opposites (I don't know if this is matter vs dark matter). So whatever is "pulling" the Universe to collapse is the opposite of the Universe.......and at the end they mutually self-destruct each other.......result.........return to Void.

OK physicists - have a good run at me and explain how I don't know what I'm talking about!

Bob A (Blissfully Ignorant)

[Pargat Perrer]

I think all human institutions face this problem - not just government bureaucracy........Religions........Private Corporations.....Not-for-profit Corporations.......Volunteer Community organizations.

All are subject to the limitations I've described above.

What do other CT'ers think? Too skeptical?

Bob A (Pretty skeptical)

Everything we know of on Earth has a cycle of birth ... growth ... stabilization ... decline and decay .... death.

Sometimes an entity can "buck the trend" and rejuvenate after a decline. Also, the stabilization part can be skipped, growth can suddenly reverse into decline. But nevertheless, everything eventually declines into death.

Just saw a video that illustrates this well. It's a mathematical principle known as "3n+1". Take any positive integer starting number. Multiply by 3 and add 1. If the result is odd, do the same again, multiply by 3 and add 1. If the result is even, divide by 2.

Eventually you end up at 1. It appears to be the case, they have tested by brute force all starting numbers up to 2 to the power of 66. Every single one ends up going down to 1. But the graph can jump up and down dramically. Even starting numbers that differ by just 1 can have dramatically different lengths to their graph before they end up at 1.

But they all end up at 1. Once you reach 1, you then to go 4, then to 2, then back to 1. There is no escape from the 4-2-1 cycle. Endless.

(Note: there is no mathemical proof that all positive integer starting numbers MUST end up at 1. So the brute force testing is our only source of knowledge. Sometimes you just can't prove a negative.)

We're not sure about the Universe as a whole yet, whether it has the birth ... growth ... stabilization ... decline ... death cycle. Right now it's in growth.

[Dilip Panjwani]

Human Institutions

[I'm still working on quantum physics......slow going......but in the meantime.......]

Question

Because power corrupts, and because there can be incompetent people in bureaucracy, and because bureaucracies tend to become very big, and empires unto themselves and because politicians are very bad at oversight of their bureaucracies.....

Is it true?: Human institutions barely give more "benefit" to the citizen than "detriment"! They are barely more than 50% effective at doing what they do, over all.

Bob A (Over-skeptical?)

As the 'management' of private institutions gets large, it gets further away from the owners' supervision, and management's 'self-interest' gets further divorced from the 'interest of the institution', leading to eventual decline.
In the public institutions, the self-interest of management (and the so-called board of directors) reigns supreme from the start!
In both types (private and public), the bulkier the management gets, the problem of 'everyone's business is nobody's business' hastens the decay...

[Dilip Panjwani]

I think all human institutions face this problem - not just government bureaucracy........Religions........Private Corporations.....Not-for-profit Corporations.......Volunteer Community organizations.

All are subject to the limitations I've described above.

What do other CT'ers think? Too skeptical?

Bob A (Pretty skeptical)

That is why Libertarianism gives priority to the individual and the innermost circles...

[Bob Armstrong]

I think all human institutions face this problem - not just government bureaucracy........Religions........Private Corporations.....Not-for-profit Corporations.......Volunteer Community organizations.

All are subject to the limitations I've described above.

What do other CT'ers think? Too skeptical?

Bob A (Pretty skeptical)

[Dilip Panjwani]

Human Institutions

[I'm still working on quantum physics......slow going......but in the meantime.......]

Question

Because power corrupts, and because there can be incompetent people in bureaucracy, and because bureaucracies tend to become very big, and empires unto themselves and because politicians are very bad at oversight of their bureaucracies.....

Is it true?: Human institutions barely give more "benefit" to the citizen than "detriment"! They are barely more than 50% effective at doing what they do, over all.

Bob A (Over-skeptical?)

Don't confuse bureaucracies with other wonderful Human Institutions we have, please...