It’s pretty well established that the cell is the basic unit of life. As soon as the cell dies, the various organelles, reactions, and other cellular processes can’t continue on their own. When it’s alive those molecules are being driven to behave a certain way by thousands of proteins, and those proteins are able to exist under very specific conditions that the cell maintains through other proteins. It’s all a very balanced system, and without the direction of the cell’s genetic material and systems of expressing that genetic information, it’s no longer alive and those molecules will stop behaving in the way they need to in order to keep the cell functioning.
They are highly controversial. The consensus is that they are not alive as they don’t satisfy all the criteria established to define life, but there is constant debate as to whether or not they should count as living. I fall into the camp of believing they are not alive.
They are much more than just a membrane. Order is just one criterion used to define life. Others include the ability to respond to external stimuli, the capacity for growth, the ability to maintain homeostasis, the manipulation of energy, the ability to evolve, and the ability to reproduce.
the question of all questions. what is life, where does it come from. why can't we even copy it. why can't we build one. we don't know. that is the only true answer. life is the oppositite of the behaviour of the universe, which goes torwards increasing disorder, by chance, it is statistics.
and when a dude has an idea, why that untypical behaviour of the universe occurs, actually only on planet earth, they laughed about him. he got banned on youtube and TED Talk. even if the laughing ones have no clue what is going on. Rupert Sheldrake had an idea, why the universe built complexity and increases order, instead of doing the opposite. even so much, that it appears like a miracle. but they laughed about him. they laugh about everything out of the box.
I refuse to accept the answer, that we just a clump of molecules. we don't understand shit. that is what we know for sure.
Life exists NOT DESPITE of entropy
But BECAUSE OF entropy.
Well no one knows the truth. I agree with you. But it's our best explanation of reality SO FAR. It does not mean it doesnt make sense to you that it is not true.
Science does not know the truth, it does not claim to be truth. All our existing knowledge is the best we have SO FAR. keyword there, is SO FAR. If science leads to a god or anything, it doesnt matter. we are all trying to find out whats the point of all this.
The theories we have of reality is the best one we have so far. It is tested, repeatable, and proven. Theories are not the truth, it's only our description of reality so far
I would say we already created quite basic life: Computer viruses are exactly like the ones we suffer from: Just the information carrier are not sugar molecules but what computers use. Its information to trick the host to replicate it.
Ofcourse the question is: are viruses live? We don‘t really know where they came from. But if you look at the computer worm then you also have the missing active part. You can starve it of execution time. It replicates via networks. Sometimes you even let it mutate by algorithmically flipping some bits in order to hopw to breal anti malware signatures but still function.
Even Antivirus software works in good part like a immune system: Heuristics are the born with part, while updated signatures/removalntools are the adaptive part.
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u/Interesting-Bank-447 16d ago
It's fascinating too that we don't really know where to draw the line between the living and the dead at this scale.
Even before it's membrane melted away, it's just a clump of molecules, why is it alive?
When it became dead, it's still molecules.
There never was a time that you and i did not exist, nor any future we shall cease to be