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Member (Idle past 5930 days) Posts: 3435 From: Edmonton Alberta Canada Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Is there a border dividing life from non-life? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I think that this is an important issue that will simply become an even bigger issue in the next few decades.
So far, we have been able to observe only one form of life and only one form of intellegence. As we expand our observations to sites other than the earth, will we be able to recognize life, and even more so, would we be able to recognize an entirely allien intellegence? Aslan is not a Tame Lion |
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
produce waste?
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Well, kinda struggling there.
Living systems take in substances and output other substances. Plants absorb carbondioxide and release oxygen as a wast product. Animals take in oxygen and release carbon dioxide as a waste product. Are their similar cycles in non-living things? For example, an oxygen atom can combine with two hydrogen atoms to make water. But there it stops. They do not continue to add H or O or exchange old H for new H. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Sounds good. Let me know when you get back.
I think you misunderstand my position though. It is not the nature of the waste product but rather the functional aspects. Living things have a system where products are taken in, used and other products expelled as waste. Certainly Oxygen is a waste product and it is also a source. What differentiates the living from non-living is the continuation of the process. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
The molecules of life are much different than the molecules of non living material. How? Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Well DNA is not that different, relatively simple and just a chemical reaction. Nothing more. Infact, it's really questionable whether DNA is alive.
What is the second part of your argument? Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
If you look at the sun as an big nuclear reactor then you are looking at a machine. In that case the radiation is simply a product.
I think the difference here is between an object and a process. If you look at many chemical reactions thaere will be a series of changes. During those changes, there will be inputs and outputs. Radioactive decay is one example where there will be outputs, energy in or out, and a change in the composition of what remains. So how do you tell the difference between such non-living processes and living processes? You are right, waste may not be a defining characteristic. Let me try one other tack. What about uniformity and predictability? Is a defining difference between living and non-livings things predictability? When snow flakes form they can take on an infinite variety of shapes. But they are always recognizable as snowflakes. Living creatures though can reproduce to create something totally different and unique. We see this in the variety of life around us. At the smallest, simplest level, bacteria can mutate to build some new immunity. All life involves the same chemical building blocks, yet those blocks can be changed to produce something totally new and totally unpredictable. Is that a difference? If we combined hydrogen and oxygen and got water, that would be expected. But suppose when we took that water and reduced its temperature to 32 degrees F and it boiled, that would be surprising. If certain water molecules developed the ability to not freeze, or contract when frozen instead or expanding, would that be an indication of life? Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Sorry but I don't understand your point. I'm pretty much aware of how snowflakes form and why they produce the shapes. But that is my point. They will follow set rules. They will always behave according to the molecular structure even though the final product will be unique.
Living things though can do the unexpected. They mutate. They establish new sets of rules and combinations. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I don't think that is significant.
What we don't see in nature is chemicals coming together to produce something new in non-living matter. The building blocks are all the same. But in living things wer see evolution, new things happening. Through mutation it's possible to evolve a whole new critter that is different and unique. A good example is the petrie dish experiments. When combining non-living things you get the same results every time. But with living cultures, we find that the cultures themselves change in response to outside influences. And the behaviour is not always the same. I don't know if that can be the border, but it is the only realy difference I can imagine so far, that living things can be serendipitous, can change. Non-living things don't seem to show that. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Not quite.
Actually, you can see the same thing with non-organic chemistry and a petri dish. Add a spot of percholoric acid to one spot. Nothing happens. Add the outside influence of potassium carbonate and you get a new thing, a precipitate, something new that wasn't there before. But that's the point. In non-living matter you always see the same results. With mutations we are seeing new things. In your experiment you will always get the same precipitate. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I think it is more in the capability. Non-living systems do not have the ability to mutate. It just does not happen. We can describe what will happen in a non-living system under most any circumstances. But that is not true of living things.
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Nope. Because that is what always happens. In living creatures mutations lead to new and unique results. It is entirely predictable while the random mutations that happen in living things are unpredictable.
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
It's not an issue of predicting where the mutation will occur. But you can predict the end, rust.
With mutations you have no idea of what the end product will be. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
The issue is not that old mutations can be predicted, but new ones keep occuring.
Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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jar Member (Idle past 416 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
While predicting hurricanes or a tornadoes path is fairly complicated, we are getting better and better at understanding and predicting such things.
But the conditions that bring us hurricanes always bring us hurricanes. Given the set of conditions that leads to a hurricane never (at least so far) produces a blizzard. Mutations in living critters though is different. It would be the hurricane adding snow to its list of features or removing high winds as a characteristic. The only difference that I can see between living and non-living systems is that unique variation. New forms do evolve and those new critters are as different and unique as the hurricane with snow or one without wind. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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