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> Is a virus a living thing? Maybe. I remember 20 year ago, at school, when the biology teacher was presenting this dilemma. Ever since, when I hear someone sa
by tcgv 7y ago
> Is a virus a living thing? Maybe.
I remember 20 year ago, at school, when the biology teacher was presenting this dilemma. Ever since, when I hear someone saying "doing this will kill the virus", it triggers my brain into this subject, since you can't kill something if it's not alive ;)
Somewhat related, I also like the concept of the "Viruses of the Mind" [1], which makes an analogy between the spreading of a biological virus and the spreading of an ideology.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viruses_of_the_Mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viruses_of_the_Mind
- Ericson2314 7y agoIt's easy if we say viruses and crystals are both alive.
- boring_twenties 7y agoIf you can kill a process, or a proposal I don't see why you shouldn't be able to kill a virus -- alive or not!
- whatshisface 7y agoProcess reproduce (through forking) metabolize (stdin->stdout) and maintain homeostasis (garbage collection). How could they not be alive?
- ethbro 7y ago(Morally) Because reproduction without purpose is not life. Necessary but insufficient.
- taylorlunt 7y agoThen you must know the purpose of our lives. Enlighten me.
- daseiner1 7y agowhat’s the purpose of an amoeba? or a mosquito? or a duck? or a chimpanzee?
- ethbro 7y agoWould you not say they each have more purpose than a virus?
- Cogito 7y agoYou're begging the question here; you need to establish they have any purpose before you can ask if one has more than the other.
- ethbro 7y agoNo. I'm pointing to the relativity of the term. Anything can be said to have, or not have a purpose, depending on how broadly or narrowly you scope the definition. For use in this conversation, I think it's self evident that the level of purpose exhibited by higher-complexity organisms is several orders of magnitude different than that of basic organisms. Wasn't sure if original poster would agree / disagree.
- Cogito 7y agoSee, I think this is exactly why you are begging the question. The word purpose has lots of usages, but the one that seems to be discussed here is some intrinsic purpose that an object or creature has for existing. I can perform an action with a purpose, which is different to my (personal) purpose for being alive, which is different again for some intrinsic purpose for why I am here in the first place. It's this last purpose that daseiner1 was referring to when they asked "what’s the purpose of an amoeba? or a mosquito? or a duck? or a chimpanzee?" They are questioning if that kind of purpose even exists. Your argument is: Some things have more purpose than others. Therefore purpose exists. In this next response you get closer to defining what purpose is - "level of purpose exhibited by higher-complexity organisms" - but we haven't really established what that purpose is or what it means to have more purpose. At best you seem to be equating complexity of behaviour to level of purpose, but I see no reason why complex behaviour should imbue some kind of purpose; all usages of the word purpose imply intent of some kind, and there are many complex processes that have no intent. I will say that complex animals seem to be more purposeful than simple creatures, but that just means that they perform actions with more intent than simpler creatures, not that they have some intrinsic purpose themselves.
- aaron695 7y agoIf there is no purpose to forking then why is it done? I'd go as far as to say if you kill the ability to fork, a lot of processes would go extinct and be replaced.
- zaarn 7y agoThe purpose of a virus is to replicate. The purpose of a bacteria is to replicate. They just do it the complicated way. That goes up all the way to modern humans; on a ground level, life is about replicating your genetic information. What you do beyond that is on you.
- pushrax 7y agoNone of those things are necessary to consider something a process.
- epistasis 7y agoProcesses also have a zombie state, where they are neither living nor dead.
- adrianmonk 7y agoFor that matter, you can kill a vibe or a conversation.
- saagarjha 7y agoYou can certainly deactivate things that aren't alive, though.
- gowld 7y agoIs a virus active? It can be considered a toxin that a cell reacts to by creating more of the toxin.
- throwanem 7y agoI might call it more of a reified meme.
- muldvarp 7y agoIs a dog active? It can be considered a collection of atoms that modifies its surroundings in a way to create similar collections of atoms. I kind of see the point of not calling a virus a living thing. But if viruses aren't even "active" I don't really know why a cell (or even a dog) would be "active".
- BitwiseFool 7y agoMaybe a better term is denature, like with enzymes?
- darkerside 7y agoRecursive toxin
- krustyburger 7y agoMy instructor was Mr. Langley... and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- saagarjha 7y agoI'm not sure if I understand the reference, if there is one.
- hahajk 7y agoIt reminds me of something I read in response to that question (I can’t remember where): People love to place things in tidy categories; nature doesn’t.
- blattimwind 7y agoAll taxonomies, but especially those concerning objects not made by man, are obviously subject to epistemic anthropocentrism.
- dwaltrip 7y agoEvery second, we are constantly and automatically distilling insane quantities of internal and external stimuli into much simpler -- but still incredibly complex -- webs of categories, associations, and relationships. Each moment of awareness is composed entirely from these mental constructions. We also analyze and modify our representations in various ways, both consciously and unconsciously. Science is one of the more explicit processes for doing so. Of course, much of reality is lost and distorted in the process. But we do the best we can :) I like to think we make better maps of reality now and then. I suppose, at the very least, some of the maps we currently possess can be used to enact more dramatic change in the world around us than ever before, which must say something about their truthiness.
- lordnacho 7y agoYou can kill it in the sense that you stop it being a mutating replicator. That is pretty much the bare bones of life, an abstraction you can't get away from in defining life, but also one that encompasses things that aren't "life". It also applies to things like memes (both the original form from Dawkins and the internet form).
- 01100011 7y agoA virus is not a replicator. It is information and a transport system. The machinery of a living cell is the replicator. It seems pretty simple to me: viruses are not living. They are able to co-opt living systems into making more of themselves. A virus may gain life while it is inside of a cell, but why is that any different than the organic molecules which gain life when assembled into a cell? We don't say carbon is alive.
- lordnacho 7y agoFor something to be a replicator, what does that mean? Surely just that it somehow causes more of itself to be made, and has enough variability to change its descendants. A particular organic molecule like say a simple sugar doesn't fit this, because its structure is always the same. But a DNA strand can actually be any of many similar structures. I think the distinction between what is doing the replication is spurious. The fact is even living replicators need some sort of base resource to exploit to pull off the feat. I could say that animals aren't replicators, because they inherently require other living creatures to be eaten in order to replicate.
- 01100011 7y agoTo me, for some thing to be a replicator, that thing must include the machinery for replication. Viruses do not include that machinery. Cellular life does not include the food required to replicate, but it has the information, the machinery, and the mechanisms to gather the required resources. It is, I think, somewhat arbitrary where you draw the distinction, but it seems useful to divide replicators which do not include machinery from those that do. There are probably things which sit on this divide and make it hard to draw a distinction. That's life. It's not required to fit into our mental and linguistic bins I suppose.
- SAI_Peregrinus 7y agoThat is not dead which can eternal lie, And in strange eons even RNA may die!
- zaarn 7y agoI prefer the names "memetics" to talk about the field of infectious ideas and "memetic agents" when talking about single instances. A "memetic agent" is something like a virus, just replicating in minds instead of meatspace. The SCP wiki started these terms to refer to objects which present anomalous properties when you're exposed to them, such as what the foundation regularly employs to protect articles; "memetic kill agents", basically information that kills if you consume it.