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The problem isn't "we can't come up with a definition of life", it's "every time we define life, we don't like the results". We could make up any definition. T
by andagainagain 6y ago
The problem isn't "we can't come up with a definition of life", it's "every time we define life, we don't like the results".
We could make up any definition. The problem is that we instantly think "well, that's stupid, let's define it again". But I'll say it again, that wasn't ever the problem. The problem was when we thought we were talking about one thing, but we were really talking about something else - our own personal heuristic.
And nature doesn't care about your heuristic. Hueristics make terrible definitions.
Virus's are alive by a lot of heuristics. They act alive-ish. They're not alive by a lot of definitions. Bacteria are one species by definition. But since that's not useful, we make up heuristics that separate them into all sorts of species. Go through every situation, every time we are disappointed with the definition of life, and we find that the reason is that we just don't like it. We WANT something else to be called life, because it feels that way.
- k__ 6y agoYes. Sounds like a simple inductive problem to me.
- m12k 6y agoInterestingly, most definitions of life that would characterize a virus as alive, would also characterize ideas and culture as living (unless you add some explicit requirements like "must have DNA" or "transmission between hosts must happen by transfer of matter"). It's easy to reject that out of hand, but if you think a bit about the Ship of Theseus, then it might not be so crazy to think that what is important is the replication and mutation of patterns rather than the specific matter carrying that pattern. Cf. also The Selfish Gene, where Dawkins coined the term "meme" as a mental analogue to a gene.
- minikites 6y agoFire is "alive" by many of the same definitions, that's what makes it so difficult.
- wtetzner 6y agoYeah, trying to fit the complexity of reality into a taxonomy is always going to run into problems. That doesn't mean it's not a useful exercise (sometimes), but we need to keep in mind that it's just us trying to mentally organize reality.
- titzer 6y ago> The problem isn't "we can't come up with a definition of life", it's "every time we define life, we don't like the results". Well said. E.g., for almost any definition of life, we end up with superorganisms like ant colonies and bee hives being live things--not to mention cities and human societies being superorganisms too.
- cortesoft 6y agoThis topic is covered quite well in a couple of essays: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aMHq4mA2PHSM2TMoH/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aMHq4mA2PHSM2TMoH/the-catego... and https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yA4gF5KrboK2m2Xu7/how-an-algorithm-feels-from-inside https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yA4gF5KrboK2m2Xu7/how-an-alg... Humans need to categorize things; it is how we are able to navigate our complex world, by recognizing patterns and acting on them. We get in trouble when we think our categorizations are objective fact, or that we can ever cleanly categorize things in a way that will satisfy all our categorizing needs.
- jimbokun 6y agoSo in other words, it's more a question about human language, than a question about the empirically observed world around us.