The most fundamental question that, surprisingly, does not have a definitive answer.
Biologists and philosophers, from Aristotle to Oparin, have made numerous attempts to provide insightful answers, yet the pure essence of what we consider life remains elusive.
While this is a deep mystery, why should we care? For a simple reason: it would completely change the way we think about ourselves and our place in the universe. Instead of being the triumphant pinnacle of evolution that we make ourselves to be, by exploring the broader range of the attributes of what we consider living, we could fall into the realization that we are nothing but one of the possible results of the process called life.
Furthermore, when you consider the broadness of it, life as we know it might be but a tiny subset of all the possibilities of life as it can be. We always hear about the search for signs of life in other planets, but what kind of life are we looking for? Could we even recognize it if we are only looking for our own familiar, carbon-based forms?
As a biologist –somehow surprisingly– I did not really think about the nature of life in depth, at least at the beginning: it was a concept that I took for granted. I mean, if you look around you, it is clear: all the animals, people, and vegetation around you –we can all agree they are alive.
However, something strange happens when you start looking at things in a microscopic scale: all these unfamiliar tiny machines, with their abstract shapes and configurations that seem to operate like little automatons.
What is it then, that elusive quality that distinguish in animated objects from living beings? To begin with, is life a discrete quality, or is it a continuum? Is it a binary state, where things are either dead or alive with nothing in between (in a similar way that one cannot be “a little pregnant”), or can we say that something is “more alive” compared to another entity?
As scientific breakthroughs have advanced, Biologists have come up with some sort of check list of basic characteristics that a living being must possess:
- Interactive with the environment, exchange nutrients and energy to function.
- Reproduction, being able to make copies of itself.
- Self-contained, transmissible information in the fashion of a executable genetic program.
- Evolutionary potential: possessing genetic information that can be copied and/or modified in response to environmental pressure.
- Self-organizing system, a mechanism that actively fights against entropy in order to prosper (this characteristic, termed Autopoiesis, is a whole fascinating topic in itself, which might merit its own article).
Based on this list we can get some insight regarding the nature of what we understand as life. For once, life does not seem to be a single property, but more of a meta property. Under this light of properties that life encompasses, we start to realize that life looks more like a continuum rather than a "yes or no" answer. In a way, we could say that some things are more alive than others.
Indeed, as we add to this laundry list of characteristics of life, we can see that things become problematic. Funnily enough, a great deal of the knowledge that has been obtained about living beings comes from investigating them from the point of view of them being a type of machine. However, when confronted with other entities that share characteristics that we use to describe life as a process, we suddenly feel a very strong reticence to consider them alive.
The study of a life outside of the carbon-based one that we are so familiar with, though, might be out of our conceptual reach. However, it is undeniable that such complex and continuously evolving systems of information exist. Some could argue that complex systems like cities are alive; also certain kinds of computer software... even the Blockchain!
There is one tool that can allow us to look at the process of life as an outsider of sorts (since it is obvious that being immerse in it creates some conceptual and philosophical problems), and that is the creation and exploration of life produced in silico, or as some have termed it, Artificial Life. This is a fascinating field that has helped to bring light to many fundamental issues in Biology, which merits a further discussion, so stay tuned!
We are constantly expanding our limits into the unknown, if we constrain ourselves into the limited fragment that we experience regularly, instead of trying to look at a bigger whole we are limiting ourselves to gazing to a fraction of the possibilities.
Keep an open mind, and let's explore together!
The first picture in this post was taken during one of the most interesting art exhibitions I have visited here in Berlin: An Ecosystem of Excess, by Turkish artist Pinar Yoldas.
Here, the artist "created" her own life forms as imagined in a far distant future were organisms had evolved to feed on the plastic waste created by humans.
Description of the exhibition by Cornucopia Magazine:
With An Ecosystem of Excess, the Turkish artist Pinar Yoldaş creates a post-human ecosystem of speculative organisms and their imagined environment. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a garbage vortex made up of several million tons of plastic waste in the North Pacific about the size of Central Europe is Yoldaş’ site of interest and the birthplace for species of excess.
According to the “primordial soup” theory, life on earth began four billion years ago in the oceans, when inorganic matter turned into organic molecules. Today, the oceans have become a plastic soup. Seeing this as a site of exchange between organic and synthetic matter, of fusion between nature and culture, Pinar Yoldaş asks what life forms would emerge from the primeval sludge of today’s oceans. Her answer: An Ecosystem of Excess– a new biological taxonomy of the species of excess.
She came up with all sorts of clever ideas for especial organs designed for the breaking and assimilating of their feeding substrate, as well as intricate designs for each organism, and even a little bit about the ecology and interaction between population of these fantastic species. Amazing, isn't it?
Speaking of the parallels of the quality of "life" and blockchain, your little fluffy, neon colored friends in the artificial life image remind me of some of the cryptokitties I've seen. Looking at the blockchain from an evolutionary standpoint actually helped me with a mini-Aha! moment when learning of the technology.
As a healthcare professional, I think considering the scale of life like you mentioned from the living cities, to the human body, to the human cell will become important for understanding the intricate relationships.
Indeed! It is impressive when we take the parallels into account and how many of these biological concepts are embedded in familiar technology nowadays without us paying notice.
Thanks for this nice contribution to the article, @thedreamsteem! Steemians have always interesting things to say, that's why I love this platform :-)
Its odd, but even though I'm a biologist I feel like I'm out of my element when thinking about the concept of life. I think its because the more I learn about living organisms the more I realize I don't understand.
I know the feeling. I myself never thought of this seriously until I took a "Philosophy of Science" course in University with a Professor who was himself involved in Artificial Life and computer simulations. It is a mind blowing topic, indeed!
Could life be based on just information and no matter or energy?
What if consciousnes is the highest level of life...or what if life as we know it is there as a mean that leads to development of consciousnes....?
I think life at the most basic level is information, indeed. Information that can be copied, modified and transmitted.
It is hard to think about a definite direction or goal for life. However, it is difficult to take ourselves and our perceptions out of the frame and look at the phenomenon of consciousness from an outside perspective. Would it be a property that emerges every time life arises, eventually? I wonder...
Hi Irime, here is one not-very-scientific-but-still-interesting opinion about life:
The universe is alive. From the most distant star to the smallest subatomic particle, everything is inhabited by some form of consciousness. The universe is consciousness and energy combined. When anyone harms any form of life, they are damaging their own life.
If you wonder where does it come from, it comes from Tantra. : )
I'm new on Steemit and I would love to exchange philosophical opinions with you - life philosophy is what I will mostly write about. Cheers!
You are talking about pantheism, right? The belief that god is in everything and that everything in the universe is a part of god or the divinity (including the things we perceive as inanimate).
I do sympathize with that view. The more I started to think about it and look up at old and new philosophical ideas about the nature of being, the more it made sense to me. I know that being a scientist, it might strike some as odd that I hold this kind of beliefs, but I actually wanted to make a post about it to express my point of view on how I reconcile the two (even though in my mind it is crystal clear there is nothing to reconcile!).
I would also love to trade some ideas, @lifenbeauty, let's stay connected, I followed you :-)
Yes, I was referring to Pantheism, I like that view due to it's altruistic approach.
I'm looking forward to you article about how you reconcile science with this idea, sounds rather interesting (especially because I find it hard to reconcile)!
Sure @irime, let's stay in touch, I followed you too! : )
The miracle of life is that, just an inexplicable event for ordinary mortals. A cycle comprising four stages; to be born, to grow, to be reproduced and to die. Life is nothing more than the manifestation of the creator in the system that we know as a world and of which we are a part.
@higinio, that would cross into the philosophical and mystical side of looking at life, which I also find fascinating. I think may of us have at some point experienced this sense of unity with everything that surrounds us.
Well done.
Do continue to develop the embryos of thought you presented. In particular life as a continuum.
I would also like to hear more about life in terms of consciousness; whatever that is.
I will publish a continuation soon :-)
Thank you very much for commenting, @yulem!
Sometimes I wonder how is that I emerge from the billions of small pieces into a self-aware creature. Quite strange life is.
Alternative liffeforms, fascinating.
It feels like a miracle... I guess that is were all those religious feelings emerge from, quite understandably. The more you glimpse into it, the more ineffable things get.
Interesting article! The definition of life gets weird already on planet Earth when you look at things like viruses... Life outside the carbon-based forms we are used to will doubtless surprise us :)
@holothewise it is certainly hard to imagine non-carbon based life forms. However, computer based organisms could help us work on that abstraction. Thanks for commenting!
Could only hope its a symbiotic relationship. Great research and very interesting topic.
@gamainvegas Thank you for reading! :-)
The classic Plato vs Aristotle argument over absolutes and relative concepts. It is true that reality operates in analogue, Aristotelean, or process form. Yet, to not have definitions derived in absolutes would leave much of the academic disciplines in limbo. One could argue that biology is but a lower analogue of physics in a continuum of discipline we term "science," which in turn is but a continuum of discipline we term "philosophy" and so on.
Recently, the DSM-5 of the psychology/psychiatry attempted to redefine illness as a continuum, which then begs the question, what is disease and why are these people being paid to treat a continuum? The paradox of life is the necessity of both digital and analogue in comprehending a model of reality.