Re: What is biological life?

rich hammett wrote:
> Minä suojelen sinua kaikelta, mitä ikinä keksitkin sanoa, Ken Shackleton:
>
>
>>Gordon Hill wrote:
>>
>>>Ken,
>>>
>>>I thought again--after rereading the Wikipedia reference--and am still
>>>troubled that there is no crisp definition for biological life.
>>>
>>>My concern is not the lack of a definition, rather it leads to the
>>>question, "How can we debate the origin-of-life if we don't have a
>>>clear definition as to life itself.
>
>
>>I noticed a couple of things that seem to be common to all living
>>things:
>
>
>>1. They reproduce
>>2. They manipulate their environment to facilitate reproduction
>
>
> Again, this gets into a fuzziness of living "types," and not
> living _entities_, many of which never get the chance to
> reproduce.
>
> John, is there any sense of this sort of distinction in the
> philosophical debate? How do they specify that they aren't looking
> for individual characteristics but of group characteristics, or
> maybe of individual characteristics common in a group, or...

It's a standard problem - if living things reproduce, what about Aunty Mabel,
who never had kids? Then we get either into types, as you mention, or
"propensities" (had Aunty Mabel been in the right set of circumstances, then
she would have been able to reproduce).
>
> rich
>
>
>
>>>If you read Hazen's latest book, gen-e-sis, The Scientific Quest for
>>>Life's Origin, you may remember his opening quote in the Chapter, What
>>>is Life?
>>>
>>>"I know it when I see it." Justice Potter Stewart on his problem in
>>>defining pornography.
>>>
>>>I am convinced biologists have a similar problem: they know it when
>>>they see it, but do not have an agreed scientific definition.
>>>
>>>All the best, GH
>
>
>


--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project
University of Queensland - Blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com
Nihil tam absurdum quod non quidam Philosophi dixerit - adapted from Cicero

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