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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

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 7y ago
Under this definition, it's meaningless to speak of life on other planets. What would you call xenoreplicators?
- jhedwards 7y ago
  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.

dTal 7y ago

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

jhedwards 7y ago
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.