"Anthony Buckland" telus.net> wrote in message
news:UcKdnbUbH6U_wQfVnZ2dnUVZ_sbinZ2d@giganews.com...
|
| "Androcles" wrote in message
| news:ENqmk.79920$dz3.61736@newsfe20.ams2...
| >
| > "Starman" wrote in message
| > news:489a2149$0$15876$edfadb0f@dtext01.news.tele.dk...
| > | Yeah but isn't our definition of life that it is organic
| >
| >
| > OUR definition is NOT your definition.
| > I happen to know the electrical sockets in my home are alive.
|
|
| Okay, but don't try to kill them by stabbing them with a sharp
| knife.
|
| Back to life. Is it organized, self-reproducing, and metabolic
| (in some sense)? To make it interesting, is it mutable without
| necessarily dying?
|
Organized... does that mean arranged in some sort of order, as in
organizing a piss-up in a brewery, or does it mean having lungs,
heart, liver etc...?
Self-reproducing...if you have a vasectomy invest in Xerox.
Metabolic -
1 a: the sum of the processes in the buildup and destruction of protoplasm;
specifically : the chemical changes in living cells by which energy is
provided for vital processes and activities and new material is assimilated
b: the sum of the processes by which a particular substance is handled in
the living body
If life is metabolic and metabolism is change in the living then we have a
circular definition.
Mutable without dying.
Now we come to individuals which die and species which do not.
Is larval stage to adult in insect metamorphosis mutable?
In particular, do caterpillars die?
It amuses me that the anti-evolution brigade where a species
changes to adapt to its environment (as man and dog have done)
find that idea preposterous, yet insects can do it within the
life span of the individual.
