
Life ≠ Alive - bookofjoe
https://aeon.co/essays/what-can-schrodingers-cat-say-about-3d-printers-on-mars
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dota_fanatic
Since reading Christopher Alexander's _Nature of Order_ series (verbose,
probably could be trimmed down quite a bit), I find it much more natural to
view everything as living to various degrees across all sizes / compositions
of matter, which he argues for on a mathematical basis. Here's a snippet from
the first volume, lifted from the linked wiki page:

> _Centers are those particular identified sets, or systems, which appear
> within the larger whole as distinct and noticeable parts. They appear
> because they have noticeable distinctness, which makes them separate out
> from their surroundings and makes them cohere, and it is from the
> arrangements of these coherent parts that other coherent parts appear. The
> life or intensity of one center is increased or decreased according to the
> position and intensity of other nearby centers. Above all, centers become
> most intense when the centers which they are made of help each other._

Unfortunately, this perspective makes mankind's treatment of nature all the
more repellent as the horror of our actions towards the rest of life (and
ultimately, ourselves) is so, so self-defeating. We just can't seem to evolve
past self-interest where self is defined by the boundary of our body / family
/ tribe. :(

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_Order](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nature_of_Order)

~~~
JackFr
> Unfortunately, this perspective makes mankind's treatment of nature all the
> more repellent as the horror of our actions towards the rest of life (and
> ultimately, ourselves) is so, so self-defeating. We just can't seem to
> evolve past self-interest where self is defined by the boundary of our body
> / family / tribe. :(

You're packing a lot of 20th century cultural angsty baggage in that thought.
Your worldview is not universal.

~~~
dota_fanatic
I don't think you understood the previous paragraph; the view I'm espousing
that Alexander laid out is universal and objective. It has nothing to do with
culture, but everything to do with physical systems, it is a lens by which to
measure the nature of order, or in other words, life itself as a universal
quality of configurations of matter.

We are not sustainably increasing order on the planet Earth, and if current
trends continue, we will see an incredible amount of life / order disappear
into entropy. That's a fair prediction given current evidence. Your statement
about my worldview is akin to saying 2 + 2 = 4 is not universal, never mind
that that formalism is dependable in this universe. Maybe in some other
universe 2 + 1 = 4, but not in this one.

You can disagree with the model that Alexander lays out, but the correctness
of that sentiment has nothing to do with "20th century cultural angsty
baggage".

~~~
JackFr
You miss my point. I don't disagree that events are unfolding in the manner
you describe. But you have a preference it seems, to the way in which you
would rather have them unfold.

"Unfortunately", "repellent", "horror" are all value judgements, and they
might not be universal.

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jawns
I don't think the terms and definitions (life vs. alive) are the best possible
for making sense of this topic.

I think we can distinguish between:

* A living cat

* A dead cat

* A cat's living or dead skin cell

* A self-replicating 3D printer called Alice

I don't like the term "life" to refer to both the living and the dead cat. It
seems bizarre to have concepts of "living life" and "non-living life."

I would rather say "living organism" and "dead organism," the latter of which
implies that at once point it was a living organism.

And the cat's skin cell is not an organism at all; it is a living (or dead)
_part_ of an organism.

Alice, on the other hand, is not an organism or a part of an organism. I would
not use the same term for Alice as I would for biological life.
Philosophically, does Alice constitute artificial life? Maybe. But calling
Alice "living" with no qualifiers seems off.

~~~
cdirkx
Why is the skin cell not an organism though? The definitions for 'organism'
vary, but a common theme seems to be an interdependant system comprised of
'organs' with different specific functions that together form a greater whole.
But is a cell not comprised of organelles? Mitochondia have their own dna and
it is theorized that they were originally a seperate lifeform in a symbiotic
relationship. The same goes for other specialized structures like chloroplasts
in plants. On the other end of the spectrum, would we classify groups or
societies as organisms, with individuals carrying out specialized purposes? Is
a society, nation or company alive? Perhaps not in the biological sense we
commonly use the words, just like Alice. But that might just be our own
carbon-based bias ;)

~~~
corodra
A gear, by itself, is not a machine.

A skin cell, by itself, cannot function or survive as a living organism.

~~~
dual_basis
How long would the average human survive if placed in an environment with no
other humans?

~~~
PyroLagus
With food and water, pretty long I'd say. Whether they'd stay sane is a
different matter.

~~~
corodra
Meh, we're still losing sanity even when around other people. Sanity is
relative.

~~~
zumicts
You should see a psychologist if you feel like that.

~~~
corodra
So, are you unaware of the mental health crisis that's been popping up in 1st
world countries in the past, oh, I don't know, 10-20 years?

~~~
zumicts
I am, that's why I'm suggesting you seek professional help.

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jhedwards
I think it's simpler and more general to consider that "life" simply refers to
any member of a lineage of self-replicating cellular phenomena on Earth.
Anything else is just a description of said phenomena.

Alive/dead seems to me to be a generic descriptor for any dynamic phenomena
that has a limited time span. Stars that are actively maintaining hydrostatic
equilibrium could be called "alive", planets with plate tectonics and
atmosphere could be considered "alive", which is to say that they are a
dynamic process that is still active. It just so happens that _life_ is also a
dynamic process and therefore goes through a period of "alive" time followed
by a state change where we become inactive and "die".

~~~
dTal
Under this definition, it's meaningless to speak of life on other planets.
What would you call xenoreplicators?

~~~
jhedwards
That's exactly what I'm getting at! My idea here is strongly influenced by the
thinking of Stanislaw Lem, who tackles this problem extensively in his works.
He points out that it's very earth/bio-centric to assume that "life" on other
planets would resemble in any way life on earth, and comes up with
hypothetical life-forms that demonstrate this principle.

If we come up with some abstract definition of "life", then it seems like
"life" is a fundamental thing of which "life on earth" is just one particular
manifestation. Following that, we imagine that there are other specific
instances in the universe that implement that general principle.

On the contrary, I think biological life is highly determined by its history
and the geo-chemical particulars of earth itself, not by some fundamental
principle. If we find extra-terrestrial "life" it's possible that the history
and geo-chemical particulars of its evolution are so different from ours that
we fail to recognize it as life at all.

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pieterk
An incredible piece of work, thank you Santa Fe Institute!

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amelius
To be even more pedantic: how do you distinguish between different instances
of life? Do you require them to be a minimum distance apart? What if they are
sitting right next to each other? Do you require them to be separable by a
minimum distance? What if they need each other's presence (e.g. mother and
unborn child)? Perhaps the only thing we can say for sure is that the universe
is alive.

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pohl
The sofa is an example of the concept of an "extended phenotype," isn't it?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Extended_Phenotype](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Extended_Phenotype)

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tabtab
There was a long-running definition debate on the now-semi-defunct C2 wiki:
[http://wiki.c2.com/?DefinitionOfLife](http://wiki.c2.com/?DefinitionOfLife)

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cam_l
This seems to be a semantic argument. That is, an argument that attempts to
describe or reframe an existing semantic meaning.

It is interesting in the way it attempts to shoehorn this meaning into broader
idea of information theory (or perhaps also pan-psychism or stoic philosophy).
However, rather than taking the lead from information theory, that nothing in
particular is special or has meaning, the article digs it's semantic heels in
and claims a differentiation between life and not-life. Why? Or at least, why
the arbitrary line it has drawn?

All particles process information as far as we can tell. Why the
differentiation between those things we _" know"_ to be alive vs those we are
not sure of. Surely any decent improvement on the current semantic
categorisation of life cannot take as a starting point that very
categorisation.

Whenever i read someone trying to redraw semantic definitions always reminds
me of xkcd 927.

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dr_dshiv
Are ideas alive? They are the replicating units, after all. The concept of
capitalism is certainly alive and well.

Both genes and DNA are alive?Red blood cells are as dead as hair. But still as
alive as a non reproducing grandma.

James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis is relevant here -- even the earth's air is
as alive as our body's the intercellular protein matrix.

