What is life, and why does it matter?

[3278]

<b>What is life?</b>
The commonly accepted view of life is that its critical property is that of self-replication. On the other hand, we deny the "life-ness" of such self-replicating structures as crystals, river mud, and stars, all of which not only replicate, but are also subject to the same sort of selection pressures organic life [by organic, I mean carbon-based, as in chemistry] is subjected to.

River mud which is highly sticky will cause more and more river mud to build up around it, even to the point of "taking action," by disrupting the flow of water, which can and does alter the possibility of "survival" for that mud. Now, some would say that's simply a property of mud, something it does without effort or intent, but that is exactly as true for organic life, which is nothing more than a collection of carbon atoms arranged in such a way as to self-replicate.

Ants don't follow scent trails because they "want" to. Want has very little meaning when speaking of ants. The ant is a tiny machine which responds to stimulus in a way no different from a non-biological machine whose buttons are pushed.

So biological life has no special properties that I can see which make it qualitatively different from non-biological life, other than the fact that it is marginally more capable of copying itself accurately than, say, crystals, which are still pretty good at accurate copying.

That's not to say there are no properties of biological life which make it "special:" I assume that if anyone knows of any, they'll comment, and I'll rethink my position.

<b>Why does it matter?</b>
So biological life is in no qualitative way different from crystals or mud or even ideas - "memes" - which can replicate themselves, and there's not even a compelling reason to give special treatment to something simply because it replicates. And yet - because we are biological - we treat it as something special, for no real reason other than protein chauvinism that I can see.

Moreover, we as humans have an additional selection criteria for "specialness:" complexity. The more complex an organism is, the more justified we feel its life is, and the more morally objectionable its death is. This indeed would be the reason for ignoring mud and crystals in the first place. By and large, people who kill ants don't mind, despite the fact that only two things seperate the ant from the person: complexity and intelligence.

I'm treading on nihilistic grounds now, but since it's my hometown, I don't mind. Without some kind of external arbiter, there is /nothing/ which makes self-replication, complexity, and intelligence [which is really just a subset of complexity] special or deserving of continued existance.

Now, I don't have a personal objection to people having a moral compulsion not to kill me, whatever their reasons might be, but I think we should be honest with ourselves and understand that nothing important separates us from diamonds or stars, and we have no more "right" to exist than they do. If murder should be illegal, so should the killing of ants, and so should the cutting of gemstones.

[Ancient History]

Cognito ergo sum.

Carpe vinum!

[3278]

Cognito ergo sum.

Which is, of course, another famous logical fallacy.

Carpe vinum!

No argument there.

[Ancient History]

Yeah, if only I drank alcohol...

[Marius]

I drink alcohol. Thus:

What is life?
.... So biological life has no special properties that I can see which make it qualitatively different from non-biological life, other than the fact that it is marginally more capable of copying itself accurately than, say, crystals, which are still pretty good at accurate copying.

Heh. I was going to type "Cogito ergo sum." And then I realized that it doesn't really address the question directly. What is it about thinking and being that makes a difference when asking about whether life is more than deluded automation? "Cogito ergo sum," is more of an answer to "what do I know actually exists, and how do I know it?" But it's not an answer to "what makes life special?"

So in answer, here's a question? Does information exist outside of life? I mean abstract, "I ain't got no body," floating-ether, falling tree, perception-recognizable-as-modeled-reality information? Because even if it's just illusion created by chemicals swirling in a fleshy matrix, that sort of information sure as shit has /reality/ in living things. The kicker is that it's more than a picture show. It's generative, even of novel things that don't otherwise exist. Shakespeare went with "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," but perhaps in answer to the question of why life is special we respond, "there are more things dreamt in our philosophy than in heaven and earth."

If we're just chemicals that have gotten really good at replicating, then we have to notice where these particular chemcials have set up higher order structures, like emotions, and language, Congress, and singles bars, and we have to say, "Hey, these here chemicals done got a shit ton more complex than we give 'em credit fer. Why, lookit all the haphazard shite grown up like they ain't even aware of. All this abstraction built around them, like a great, ethereal stalactite grown from deposition of the logical debris cast off by the ordered replication of chemicals, repeated again, and again, and again. I guess since these higher order phenomena ain't so much the replication of chemicals as they is the ancillary waste products of 'em, then we should give 'em a differn't name. How 'bout everything higher order than this line here we call 'life'?"

[3278]

If we're just chemicals that have gotten really good at replicating, then we have to notice where these particular chemcials have set up higher order structures, like emotions, and language, Congress, and singles bars...

And I would agree that what we'd call second-order complexity is impressive and warrants things like study and special names, but why does it get to exist, and mud doesn't?

For that matter, mud creates second-order complexity, too, by altering the patterns of rivers into another form of complexity beyond that of the mud itself. We call them deltas, of course. Ants, obviously, have multiple orders of complexity; really, for such individually simple molecular machines, they're prodigously complicated in effect. I'm hard-pressed to think of another [non-insect, to be perfectly honest] organism which generates so much high-order complexity with so little individual complexity. If the difference in complexities were the significant factor - which one could argue is a hell of a lot more impressive than really complicated organisms making breast implants and health spas - insects would hands-down rule the world. Hmm. Well, I could try to make a case for viruses, but that's way outside the scope of my reply, which itself is tangential to your point.

I should like to mention that almost none of life thinks, and that thinking itself is just a higher-order complexity generated by progressively lower steps of complexity. Nothing makes thinking more impressive than, say, seeing - which requires a much more superficially complex device in any case. We only respect thought so much because it's all that makes us different from anyone else. I'm sure cheetahs, could they but do so, would laugh at our pathetic brains; what good is a giant bundle of nervous connections when that bundle can be chased down and eaten as easily as any other bundle? Speed being their strength, their chauvinism would lean - one would think - toward it.

Does generative information exist outside of life? God, I'm going to have to say yes, though I can't for the life of me give a decent example. Maybe with a better idea of what you mean by information? In any case, one has to wonder - this one does, at any rate - what's so special about the property of "generativity." Then again, since I can't for the life of me [if you'll pardon the phrase] think of anything that's special in any objective way, I'm probably likely to discard generativity as a criteria for specialness.

[3278]

Jesus. Could I /possibly/ have made up more words?

[Ancient History]

Sure. Why not? Webster did.

[DV8]

So is life intentional activity? Like a cauliflower growing around the stone, or me pondering if life is more or less than the collection of my own experiences at any given time?

[3278]

So is life intentional activity?

I wouldn't say that; after all, intent isn't the kind of thing you find in ants or bacteria, and we call them "alive."

Totally random addition: Some people question whether or not viruses can truly be said to be alive; they're such incredibly simple replicators, and such very very basic protein machines - compared to us, of course - that they end up looking more like inanimate collections of molecules than life. But it's a very easy slope from viruses to humans, and when you get down to it, we're just as "inanimate" as they are.

[DV8]

So is life intentional activity?

I wouldn't say that; after all, intent isn't the kind of thing you find in ants or bacteria, and we call them "alive."

So what are their responses, then, if not intentional? Pre-programmed reactions?

[Salvation122]

I'd think that's a good synonym for "instinct," yeah.

I have to collect my thoughts on this, and then I'll reply.

[3278]

So is life intentional activity?

I wouldn't say that; after all, intent isn't the kind of thing you find in ants or bacteria, and we call them "alive."

So what are their responses, then, if not intentional? Pre-programmed reactions?

I don't know if there's a word for it. It's not "pre-programmed," unless there's a programmer. It's...stimulus response doesn't work, because that, again, shows the chauvinism of life.

It's a property of that collection of matter, just as it's a property of hydrogen atoms to fuse when they get too densely packed. It's no less impressive for being a property of matter and not somer mystical "life force," and in fact, I think it's way more amazing, but it fails to elevate us above the stars.

[Szechuan]

Seeing as even us humans boil down to a bunch of chemical reactions, have any of you considered the idea that, say, the solar system is also alive, but ages on a time frame so vastly longer than our own that we are incapable of perceiving it?

[3278]

Totally depends on your definition of "alive," but yes, I've certainly considered it. At the very least, the sun self-replicates; this is at least the second generation of star to be born here. Larger stars even reproduce prodigously: a giant star that supernovas will generate an enormous cloud of dust and gas which slowly contracts in multiple locations under gravity, giving birth not to just one new star, but hundreds, as in the Eagle nebula. The new types of stars even have new properties which allow for "mutations," or different expressions of the physical properties, which allow for additional complexity, as in the case of terrestrial solar systems like ours.

It is, in fact, the life cycle of stars - from the original stars to our current generation - that has made life possible on earth. A position could easily be defended that we are not life ourselves, but analogous to cells in the solar system's body, more complex forms of self-replication made possible only by mutation in a self-replicating body.

[3278]

Which brings me to my actual point: I bet a nickel that today every one of you will end a life and not care about it one bit. You'll step on an ant, or sneeze out a bacteria, and you will not mourn. This is in spite of the fact that not a single one of us can think of a single reason that our mourning should be reserved for complex life forms like humans or apes. So why don't you all change your minds, and either start mourning for cut crystals, or stop mourning for dead humans?

[Edit: Those of you who assign mystical value to human life are, of course, exempted from the hypocracy of the situation, since, for you, the differentiation isn't the complexity or self-replication of an organism, but rather the "touch of god."]

[Gunny]

[Edit: Those of you who assign mystical value to human life are, of course, exempted from the hypocracy of the situation, since, for you, the differentiation isn't the complexity or self-replication of an organism, but rather the "touch of god."]

wut?

[Szechuan]

So why don't you all change your minds, and either start mourning for cut crystals, or stop mourning for dead humans?

Because we are capable of forming meaningful relationships with those humans, and we regret having lost them.

[3278]

wut?

Well, say, Christians aren't being hypocritical when they assign value to human life above and beyond the lives of ants, because in their beliefs, god has ordained that humans are "important," and that ants are not so much.

[3278]

So why don't you all change your minds, and either start mourning for cut crystals, or stop mourning for dead humans?

Because we are capable of forming meaningful relationships with those humans, and we regret having lost them.

Fair enough. So the /only/ reason we value humans over anything else is our ability to form meaningful relationships with them?

Crap. Now that I put it that way, I have to disagree. I /can/ have a meaninful relationship with a dog, but I don't mourn dead dogs I don't know.

[Gunny]

ah, okay.

[Szechuan]

So why don't you all change your minds, and either start mourning for cut crystals, or stop mourning for dead humans?

Because we are capable of forming meaningful relationships with those humans, and we regret having lost them.

Fair enough. So the /only/ reason we value humans over anything else is our ability to form meaningful relationships with them?

Crap. Now that I put it that way, I have to disagree. I /can/ have a meaninful relationship with a dog, but I don't mourn dead dogs I don't know.

And I don't mourn people I don't know, beyond perhaps empathizing with the grief of the people I do know who knew the deceased. It still holds firm.

Edit: That's the basest part of it, I think. I know I feel bad for dead dogs/people/other beings capable of forming a meaningful relationship, even if I don't know them personally. But that's because I can empathize, and some people do that better than others, so it all ends up being relative again.

[3278]

See, I was thinking about 9-11, and all the fuss made, but I think if someone had killed 3,000 dogs, there'd be a fuss, too.

So, now the question becomes - for you and I, at least - why can we only form meaningful relationships with other humans, and, in some cases, with our pets?

[Gunny]

I don't know if this is relative or not, but I get VERY upset at seeing a whole slew of trees cut down for a building that may or may not be built sometime in the next 15 years.

hell, I get upset seeing trees uprooted because they were dead and being replaced by a new tree.

[Szechuan]

It's a sense of relative scale (either physically or mentally), nurturing, and conditioning.

I've been brought up my whole life being taught that cows are food, thus I don't cry while I'm chewing on a Porterhouse. I'd eat dog (and, to be honest, I really want to get a taste of human flesh before I die) without a second thought if it were served to me, but I still wouldn't want to kill my pets for food.
I do believe that one should try to respect all life, regardless of how inconsequential it may seem. That doesn't stop me from swatting mosquitos.

It's all dependant on how you as an individual see the world around you. A good example that sticks in my head can be seen in the movie The Pianist. Sure, the Nazis thought Jews were no better than animals, but when the captain saw that the lead Jew was a virtuoso, he developed an impromptu relationship with the man and helped him escape.

Relationships and Relativism.

[3278]

It's a sense of relative scale (either physically or mentally), nurturing, and conditioning.

So if that's /why/ - and I think it is - the next question is: Is that /right?/

[Szechuan]

It's a sense of relative scale (either physically or mentally), nurturing, and conditioning.

So if that's /why/ - and I think it is - the next question is: Is that /right?/

I'll respond with: Does it matter?

But seriously, most people are too wrapped up in their lives to notice or care about things that do not directly hamper or help them in the 'here-and-now'.
I've only recently begun to achieve a state of higher awareness myself, and I still have a hard time worrying about that mosquito, or what millions of organisms I may or may not be stepping on.

My answer to your question? It's as right as it can be.
Every animal in existence acquires energy through the death of something else. A monkey flinging shit is killing as many organisms in its tantrum as we do; it is simply unaware of the consequences of its actions.
We may be sentient, but it doesn't exempt us from the simple reality that in order for life to exist, there must also be death.

Consequently, this is why I hate it when people defend the rights of, say, cows - watch the Discovery Channel for five minutes and tell me it's unnatural to kill and eat things.

[Cain]

Haven't had time to read it through, but This bit of google-fu might provide you with a few things to chew on, 32.
[edit: Stupid cut and paste function didn't want to work... ]

[Szechuan]

Usually links contain a web address, Cain.

[Adam]

But more properly, hyperlinks contain an URL, not a web address. ;-)

[Szechuan]

See, I was thinking about 9-11, and all the fuss made, but I think if someone had killed 3,000 dogs, there'd be a fuss, too.

So, now the question becomes - for you and I, at least - why can we only form meaningful relationships with other humans, and, in some cases, with our pets?

I'd like to also interject that I have formed meaningful relationships with all sorts of things; trees, my first teddy bear, etc.. Again, it's very relative (but slightly off-topic).

[Szechuan]

But more properly, hyperlinks contain an URL, not a web address. ;-)

And your mouth containsa great big black cock, so there.

[Wildfire]

Why we can only form those sorts of relationships is that we are looking for a...hmm...sync of sorts. Whether a mutual interest, mutual benefit, or simple curiosity, there has to be some connection to form a relationship. A dog may simply interest you if you never had pets, or perhaps its a mutual benefit as the feeling of recognition or dependancy of a pet makes you feel important or needed. Of course not all relationships are good, its just as meaningful to have a fixation of hurting something than it is wanting to talk to a friend, but again it comes down to something complementary or supplimentary about this other thing to ourselves, and the more like us someone/thing is, the easier time we have finding a reason for a relationship.

[Szechuan]

I think we can all agree on Wildfire's definition of a 'meaningful relationship'. It sparks another question, though:

'Meaningful Relationship' usually brings about thoughts of something positive.
However, does anyone here think that good can come out of something unhealthy and destructive? Like, couples who beat each other but don't ever seem to leave and find someone new?
Do you guys think that, if their personalities seem to require that sort of attention, should you seek to help 'cure' them or let them break each others' noses?

[DV8]

Well, to drag something from another thread in here; according to your definition Jestyr and the guy who hit her with his car have a meaningful relationship, too, since he had a huge impact on her life, and continues to do so. But do we really need to start discussing the validity of such relationships?

[Szechuan]

Your point leads me to think we need to further distinguish these meaningful relationships..

Does it simply require a huge, life-changing impact? (The workers in the Twin Towers and the men who flew the plane), or does it need to be on a deeper level?
Both of these are meaningful, true, but I'd think that in the context of this conversation, we're talking about relationships on a personal level.

[ThatWendigo]

'Meaningful Relationship' usually brings about thoughts of something positive.

Dude, you too?

All sorts of things make me think about Something Positive!

[3278]

Well, not to derail a productive line of discussion, but why does something's meaning /to me/ indicate that it's sacred or objectively important in any way? Why, once we realize that the only reason not to kill things is their value to us, don't we kill things with no value to us if it benefits us? We do that with cows, why not people?

[Szechuan]

Empathy. We don't know them, but we can assume they have hopes, desires, and people who value them just as we value those close to us.

Edit: Oh, and one more thing. Everyone means nothing to at least one other person. I'd rather not dodge bullets on the way to my car in the morning just because I don't mean anything to some random guy on the street.

[Anguirel]

I'll start from the bottom and work my way back, I think...

Why, once we realize that the only reason not to kill things is their value to us, don't we kill things with no value to us if it benefits us?

Because that would go contrary to the self-replicative instinct. You will note that we empathize and connect most directly with mammals which we can anthropomorphize. As things become increasingly different from our own physiology and behavior, we have less connection. Thus, we kill insects and bacteria without much thought, but hesitate to shoot a dog and further hesitate to shoot another human. Why, once you realize that there is no difference between ourselves and the replicative abilities of mud do you not kill yourself in a river and add to the mud? It is, in many ways, part of our creation process, instinct, automatic reactions, pre-programming -- however you wish to word it -- to keep those most similar to us alive and to destroy those dissimilar. Oddly enough, this follows a sort of wave form rather than, say, a bell curve. Those closest (family) we generally preserve to the utmost. Those generally similar next (racial traits -- all blond haired, blue eyed ethnic Swedes, for example). However, those beyond a certain point the initial instinct is to kill, because they can occupy our niche if allowed to survive. Thus racial hatred, demonization, ethnic cleansing. Then it swings back up for things that are similar but unable to overcome us -- pets, work animals, even food animals are preserved in some senses -- we monitor and maintain their population because it better enables our own survival. And then back down as things differ further again because after a certain point we are unable to determine quickly the niche that a given being occupies.

What makes life different from crystalline formations: differentiation. Life generally starts with cellular formations (virii being the possible exception, leaving them in an in-between limbo). This means that one portion generates a duplicate copy of something else. What sets life above non-life is that the replication is multi-faceted, symbiotic (well, not quite, but I can't htink of a better term). No longer is is simply carbon adding more carbon to make a larger hunk of coal or a bigger diamond -- now a chain of one chimical series is creating a copy of another series, which in turn will aid in the creation of a third, which in turn will aid the original in replication and maintenance of that replication. And thence from there to greater complexity, more diverse and symbiotic connections.

Why do we say that we are one creature and not a symbiotic collection? My liver doesn't need me to survive, though it helps. If it were suspended in an appropriate solution it could survive indefinitely. However, it supports the rest of my body, and the rest of my body supports it. And internally to that organ are individual cells which could act independantly, but don't. They work in concert toward mutual gain. And inside each cell, multiple organelles work together, including mitochondria which are, for all intents and purposes, separate cells which have become invalubale additions to the whole, and they support each other. Symbiotic associations, and the more that are possible and, at some 'normal' level, necessary, the higher-level the life form.

What makes us special over other replicating structures? Our ability to exceed our base instincts. That you can even consider violating the precept of self-replication that should be inherent in your sturcture, that you might commit suicide or mass-murder or fail to have children. That places us, in many ways, beyond a barrier of sorts, though I will grant that it seems somewhat arbitrary and it is difficult to determine if other structures have such "thoughts" or abilities.

Complexity breeds the ability for thought. Though many in philosophy of mind rail against the concept because they want to believe that humans are, in some way, special, there is no reason to believe that the human brain is any more capable of thought than an appropriately wired computer, set of pipes and switches, or the entire country of China (all arguments against the computational model of mind that I fail to see as actual arguments but rather more closely akin to "I don't wanna believe it" crying). Therefore it is quite likely that our interactions constitute synapses for a planetary mind, though what it thinks and dreams is so completely alien at this time that it would be nearly impossible to fathom.

And, as a determinist, free-will, the ancient separation mechanism setting humans above all else, is mere illusion, but one you cannot help but believe in. Beyond a certain point, the interactions occuring are so complex that it is functionally impossible (though not theoretically so) to predict the outcome of a given set of reactions -- thus, knowing the initial conditions of a person's brain (a simplification -- you actually need to know the initial conditions of the entire universe -- anything capable of acting upon the brain's matter in even the most minute fashion) you could divine the outcome of any possible stimulus in a straight forward scientific fashion -- it's all pure physics and chemistry. However, there are so many effects at work at once that such a calculation is presently out of reach. Thus, although the outcome is pre-determined, the choosing is as important as it always has been since: 1) you're predetermined to worry and agonize over choices anyways; 2) although if you could see the entire system it would be evident that the choice is a deterministic element, we only observe a small fraction and thus within a bubble in which free-will seems evident, and that is reason enough; 3) choosing not to choose is a choice in and of itself, and thus also determined -- you can't escape fatalism. Choice, of course, is a misnomer; although multiple paths appear to exist, only one really does. Even so, since you are forced to live within the system (or opt out of consciousness -- you hope) it is best to continue to make choices as you always have since you are not capable of seeing the whole, but only within the bubble and you must endure the chain of events as it unfolds. Though you don't really have any choice, you should live as if you do in order to enjoy what you can, while you can, since once your chemical reactions cease the patterns for consciousness, that's it. Bleak, perhaps, but functional. Serve your purpose and don't worry; you'll enjoy the ride more that way.

[Cain]

Hey, 32, what did you think of the link I posted earlier? I still haven't had the time to look it over fully, but it seems to answer your questions.

As far as the rest goes-- I'm going to side with Szech here. Empathy is the key to our anthropomorphication of non-human things. I believe it was Simone de Beauvoir who described the human tendency to seperate things into "self" and "other"; the closer something is to "self", the more value we place on its existance.

[Szechuan]

...the closer something is to "self", the more value we place on its existance.

Which ties in nicely with my budding theory that peoples' motivations, however noble they seem, are essentially always rooted in furthering the self.

[Anguirel]

I fluff for 3278.

[Szechuan]

*Waits patiently*

[3278]

Sorry, I got nothin'. I think I said all the things I wanted to say, and nothing else said sways my - current - opinion that the only thing that makes life special is subjectivity: we think life is special because we're alive. And I think that's a lousy reason.

[Szechuan]

Sorry, I got nothin'. I think I said all the things I wanted to say, and nothing else said sways my - current - opinion that the only thing that makes life special is subjectivity: we think life is special because we're alive. And I think that's a lousy reason.

I think it's the only reason you'll ever find, since you don't believe in God. So, like, turn your fascination with civilization into a fascination with the human experience, and maybe you'll start liking it.

[Serious Paul]

I am so glad I'm too shallow to ask these questions, or care what the answers are. It makes things a lot easier.

[Anguirel]

I read this article, and thought of you, three-two, along with this post. Originally, I was just going to maybe log back into LJ or otherwise see if I could randomly track you down... but when I saw Bulldrek still here and my log in still working and you still posting, I decided nothing would be better than some forum necromancy. And the link. But mostly the necromancy.

[3278]

That's an excellent deconstruction of the issue! One of the commenters there brings up another important characteristic I never include in my reductionist definitions, which is the property of resisting entropy, of doing work to differentiate itself from its environment, but I tend to think of those as side-effects of life, rather than defining characteristics of it.