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Sure we can. Biological life is something that replicates autonomously using DNA contained inside the apparatus of at least one cell. Viruses are not alive beca
by morpheos137 6y ago
Sure we can. Biological life is something that replicates autonomously using DNA contained inside the apparatus of at least one cell. Viruses are not alive because they can not replicate on their own and do not produce their own cells. More abstractly life is something that follows the Darwinian program as demonstrated on Earth. If you had competing, replicating programs in a virtualised Earth-like environment I would say they were alive too if they could fully reproduce and establish resource economising ecosystems on their own.
- rhn_mk1 6y agoYou seem to be able to, but it doesn't seem to generalize to scientists in general: https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-life-its-vast-diversity-defies-easy-definition-20210309/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-is-life-its-vast-diversi...
- morpheos137 6y agoI was creating an operational definition. Of course others disagree. That is how words work. They have narrower and broader meanings to different people or in different contexts. The fact the others disagree with my operational definition does not invalidate my operational definition which stands on its own. Gp asserted "We don't know how to define life." I put forth a closed definition of life that makes sense. Others may have a less restrictive definition...my definition demonstrated that sufficient conditions exist to define life.
- n4r9 6y agoThe difficulty I think is not in proposing a coherent definition, but in capturing precisely the shared understanding of what people mean when they say something is "alive".
- morlockabove 6y agoThere isn't a shared understanding, people's intuitions disagree.
- n4r9 6y agoThere's probably an argument that can be made along those lines, but it's not self-evident.