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[Il Palazzo]

This is why the "what is life" debate is an exercise in futility.

Is it? I suppose it'd be good to know what is life before we start spending millions looking for it on other planets. Or decide on moral issues of shooting lasers at innocent Martian rocks.
I do agree that there is no definite answer, and what we call "life" is but a matter of consensus, but that's exactly why it is a debate and not a lecture.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Or decide on moral issues of shooting lasers at innocent Martian rocks.

I never really got why people were so concerned about that kind of thing. I've heard people say that if we ever find evidence of microbial life on Mars that we should never send anything there again. It strikes me as kind of crazy.

[MagmaMcFry]

Is being physically present a requirement of being alive?

Yes.

Why?

Edit: Reported Shock.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Is being physically present a requirement of being alive?

Yes.

Why?

Because ideas and behaviors, even infectious ones, only exist within the mind. They are not actually present. They are concepts. I don't know how else to put this to you, for something to be alive it has to exist within physical reality.

Can you make me a diagram of memes and classify them by species? I can do that for a virus.

[Il Palazzo]

Or decide on moral issues of shooting lasers at innocent Martian rocks.

I never really got why people were so concerned about that kind of thing. I've heard people say that if we ever find evidence of microbial life on Mars that we should never send anything there again. It strikes me as kind of crazy.

You mean there actually exist people concerned about that?

Is being physically present a requirement of being alive?

Yes.

One of the interesting aspects of this approach is the necessary conclusion that people, as in their personality, mind, consciousness, soul - the thing that is the effect of neural activity, and most of us think of as being ourselves, are not alive.

[MagmaMcFry]

Because ideas and behaviors, even infectious ones, only exist within the mind. They are not actually present. They are concepts.

Being alive requires physically existing because memes don't physically exist? That would only make sense if "being alive" were defined as "not being a meme".

I don't know how else to put this to you, for something to be alive it has to exist within physical reality.

That's just begging the question. Any real arguments?

Can you make me a diagram of memes and classify them by species? I can do that for a virus.

Is being classifiable a requirement of being alive?

[ChairmanPoo]

Or decide on moral issues of shooting lasers at innocent Martian rocks.

I never really got why people were so concerned about that kind of thing. I've heard people say that if we ever find evidence of microbial life on Mars that we should never send anything there again. It strikes me as kind of crazy.

You mean there actually exist people concerned about that?

Is being physically present a requirement of being alive?

Yes.

One of the interesting aspects of this approach is the necessary conclusion that people, as in their personality, mind, consciousness, soul - the thing that is the effect of neural activity, and most of us think of as being ourselves, are not alive.

I'd say that being self-aware is not a requisite for being alive im the biological sense, obviously. Being alive is possibly a sinequanon requirement for being self-aware, though

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You mean there actually exist people concerned about that?

Yes there are. They tend to be the extremist environmentalist type. The argument is that if Mars does or could have its own ecosystem that it would be inherently immoral for us to cross-contaminate it with Earth's.

One of the interesting aspects of this approach is the necessary conclusion that people, as in their personality, mind, consciousness, soul - the thing that is the effect of neural activity, and most of us think of as being ourselves, are not alive.

I could accept that idea. The mind is a projection of the brain's activities. It is as much a living thing itself as a fire is whatever fuel it is consuming.

Being alive requires physically existing because memes don't physically exist? That would only make sense if "being alive" were defined as "not being a meme".

No, being alive requires physically existing because in all definitions of life accept for your "ideas are alive" one concern things that physically exist. That is what the definition of life was created to attempt to quantify. This is an outlier.

Can you make me a diagram of memes and classify them by species? I can do that for a virus.

Is being classifiable a requirement of being alive?

Yes, hence taxonomy. Definitions must by nature be quantifiable.

[Loud Whispers]

what about the green sea slug? we don't know where to stick that. is that not alive? we can't classify it.

And what's the relevance? The existence of platypi do not warrant the reclassification of all mammals.

[alway]

Bah, you are all putting the cart before the horse. Classifications are meaningless; they are merely a tool we use to describe differences and similarities. And not just taxonomically, but even with things like life vs non-life. You know what the real difference between life and non-life is? Nothing; one just happens to be a subset of the other which satisfies certain arbitrarily imposed conditions. Nature recognizes no such boundary; they all run on the same physics and the same chemistry. It's a definitions game we humans play, but which, ultimately, is not a reflection of reality.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

Or decide on moral issues of shooting lasers at innocent Martian rocks.

I never really got why people were so concerned about that kind of thing. I've heard people say that if we ever find evidence of microbial life on Mars that we should never send anything there again. It strikes me as kind of crazy.

never send anything ever again shouldn't be the case, but in the interest of preserving *bio*diversity, or at least rare phenomena which we'd love to study, we should be extra careful not to destroy it by introducing invasive species of earth life

there's no moral issues against destroying life, we do it all the time when taking antibiotics. extermination of entire species maybe, but nullifying any irreproducible phenomena, classified as living or not, should be an issue.
the moral issues come into play when there is suffering involved, not life

[Il Palazzo]

the moral issues come into play when there is suffering involved, not life

At the risk of derailing the thread completely - I thought that e.g. the issues of abortion, stem cells, and in vitro are all challenged on moral grounds, despite the lack of suffering involved in any of these procedures.

[MagmaMcFry]

Being alive requires physically existing because memes don't physically exist? That would only make sense if "being alive" were defined as "not being a meme".

No, being alive requires physically existing because in all definitions of life accept for your "ideas are alive" one concern things that physically exist. That is what the definition of life was created to attempt to quantify. This is an outlier.

With the same logic, marsupials wouldn't be mammals, simply because they lay eggs but all previously known mammals didn't.

Can you make me a diagram of memes and classify them by species? I can do that for a virus.

Is being classifiable a requirement of being alive?

Yes, hence taxonomy. Definitions must by nature be quantifiable.

Okay, here.

[DrPoo]

1. What is 'life', what makes a rock different from a giraffe?

2. What keeps all the people in the world from suddenly snapping and killing each other?

1. Life is when something is constructed from cells. It starts in mothers womb then ends when your vital organs stop functioning.

2. Dear human, morality, even if murder was lawful, i would never do it, unless as last resort in self defense. If i dont want to die, then its logical that other people dont want to die either. People kill themselves though, because different people have different moral codex, or lack of one, and some people just dont realize that what they are doing is fucking worst thing you could ever do.

Sometimes suicide is neccesary, while most people arent elite soldiers or captured generals, its still not the worst thing you can do, since even if they keep you alive after telling that missile code or whatever, the consequences will be greater and you put other peoples lives at risk.

I dont even know why i wanted to object that. I feel horrible now.

Anyway, i define life as anything capable of reproducing and dying.
And the simple urge to survive and reproduce is why we arent just fucking each others up. By murdering someone you risk retalitation, or having a potential partners back turned.