Virus's: Life or non life?
- Thread starter paddoboy
- Start date
If it's reproducing I would consider alive
Consider a seed. Is a seed alive if it sits there for a few hundred years doing nothing? Or would it be considered how I view virus - resting or dormant - temporarily inactive or inoperative?
Put seed in suitable surroundings BINGO you have a plant released from the code
Different animal
Personality is non material, personality is a process with very flexible boundaries and no absolute value only arbitrary distinctions
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
can a brain dead animal/\women human\other animals re-produce ?
there seems to be a bit of a slippery slope where the potential discussion falls into chicken versus the egg[which came first]
did life exist outside and separate to the womb the egg and the sperm
are all considered alive living entity's ?
if so is 1 killed by becoming the singular living item of a human/thing/animal ?
etc
[side topic probably separate thread, is gender division by reproduction inherently flawed to establish concepts of insular life existence as an independent entity?[i.e & e.g hermaphrodites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_hermaphroditism
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/parthenogenesis-how-animals-have-virgin-births
Parthenogenesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis )
quantum mechanics
versus
quantum physics
im more theoretical quantum physics than quantum mechanics but that does not mean i do not believe in mechanics or some of its laws.
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You gave me this situation
Now you propose different criteria to wit,
NO, a brain dead person is dead
Brain dead people on mechanical devices are dead. Why on machines? Keep organs in a good enough condition suitable for possible transplant
In rare circumstances it may be possible to obtain viable spermatozoa able to be used for in vitro fertilisation
Such procedure does NOT constitute a dead person reproducing. It represents Medical Scientists (well some team of some sort) taking certain tissue from a dead body and processing it so it has the potential to produce a human
Jurassic Park got it right in some respects (how long have dinosaurs been dead?)
Definitions change and we have gone from dead = not breathing to brain dead = dead but we can keep some of the dead body organs viable for transfer to other people who require said organs
My reply was
Note ......alive........criteria.......reproduce
Now you propose different criteria to wit,
NO, a brain dead person is dead
Brain dead people on mechanical devices are dead. Why on machines? Keep organs in a good enough condition suitable for possible transplant
In rare circumstances it may be possible to obtain viable spermatozoa able to be used for in vitro fertilisation
Such procedure does NOT constitute a dead person reproducing. It represents Medical Scientists (well some team of some sort) taking certain tissue from a dead body and processing it so it has the potential to produce a human
Jurassic Park got it right in some respects (how long have dinosaurs been dead?)
Definitions change and we have gone from dead = not breathing to brain dead = dead but we can keep some of the dead body organs viable for transfer to other people who require said organs
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_somatic_support_after_brain_death
my question is on the nature of life being defined as brain activity
if the body remains functioning
but the medical term is dead
and pregnant baring life
life is created from death as a state of reproductive capacity to be deemed "life" by productivity of re producing
my primary point is the difference between cell death versus death of what is deemed sentient life as a "living thing containing life" in a more broad concept of debate.
thus at what point does working mechanisms become "alive or dead"
Dealing with just this section
brain activity
if the body remains functioning
but the medical term is dead
In a brain dead person they are dead and NO there is no body which remains functioning
The fetus in essence is the same as an organ in a dead body. Machines / equipment can keep organs and fetus viable but it is a uphill battle
I will add this to bit about the complexity of brain death and its classification
To deep for me to go into why individuals have particular views regarding brain death. I'm guessing personal experiences
Evidence-based guideline update: Determining brain death in adults
Report of the Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology
https://n.neurology.org/content/74/23/1911.full
If you are now questioning when a mechanical robot become alive I would contend we would have to totally rewrite the classification of LIFE to account for such a transformation as well as a few million laws
It (the transformation) is on a par with abiogenesis. When do we classify a bucket of chemicals as having changed from JUST a bucket of chemicals to a bucket of chemicals with some of the chemicals being alive
One way it MIGHT be achieved is to
- claim we have life forms in the bucket
- analysis the chemical make up of the claimed life form
- check how much of each of of the chemicals in the life form
- remain in the bucket NOT in life form
- see if the percentage of chemicals in life form goes up while
- chemicals in non life form go down
Not sure we can leave a bunch of robots in a factory with a stack of material to make more of themselves and if they achieve that task we would call them alive
I suspect now, with the complexity of a HUMAN LIFE at stake, we are now dealing with feelings in its widest range
Good luck to those making that judgement because it wont be as simple as
the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.
Bells
Staff member
You are either alive or you are dead.
There is no actual inbetween.
And just because someone is in a vegetative state or in a coma, for example, does not mean they are no longer a person or individual.
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
very sensitive issue
i dont think we need a hard edge for decisions of people
however
example
when we move the debate to cellular concepts & AI
it becomes a lot more conflicting
and i think we need a hard edge
does an AI with a bio-gell pack that has living organisms in it fueling it or being used as part of its memory storage or processor...
become a living thing rating some type of life value in its own right ?
If brain dead is dead
Can we create a organ (not fussed about material) we can switch on to activate (your bio-gel pack???) as a baby brain and teach it exactly as a baby?
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Ooh I don't know.... How about "near death"?
There. That should bring Other Dennis out of the woodwork.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
I beg to differ. You said it yourself; " You are either alive or you are dead." You is the operative word. If your brain is dead your person is dead, even if your body may be alive.
Self-awareness is what constitutes a person. Is a vegetable a person or an individual?
Individual
Wikipedia
Vegetative state, that is the medical term, no? Alive but unconscious. Unconscious = no thoughts, no awareness = no person.
Can you pull the plug on someone in a vegetative state?
Moreover I answered the OP question in post # 101 . All other commentary is just philosophical waxing.
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RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
If brain dead is dead
Can we create a organ (not fussed about material) we can switch on to activate (your bio-gel pack???) as a baby brain and teach it exactly as a baby?
"teaching" a human
versus "teaching" a computer
"establishing an AI brain" that can "learn" seems to be a debate.
the warring factions of science versus religion
religion dictates the issue because religion dictates politics.
some of the irony
so the science debate of what is possible and what is not possible is irrelevant
because religion dictates all regulations
teaching a human baby is not standardized to a set range of knowable concepts in scientific terms
it is all conceptual belief
subject to subjective terms of inferred meaning by ends for those with control.
(the parents decide ultimately what will happen regardless of effect or value to knowledge learning benefit of the baby)
currently the main drive of conflict is between wealth sharing
primarily the minority elite wealthiest control the masses money by taking all their tax income and spending it as they choose
until the masses wealth is given back to the people who it comes from as the same profit as the elitists claim to have rights to
religion will dictate all political concepts of control
the hypocrisy must remain to validate the theft of the peoples control over their own money.
so when we look at who is chasing AI tech
it is the rich elite
the same ones attempting to remove jobs & increase profit reduce their tax rates and then get more workers tax given to them for free
the great con ...
only works if you control & deny education to the masses
through privatization and extremafying schools into religious sects
so what is the ultimate reality ?
handing those same elitist groups who are greedy and selfish
the ability to wipe out the majority population because they wont share things equally
even though they can afford to.
AI virus life
versus
human life
via jobs and universal wage and universal health & social services
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
I agree. The Nation's natural wealth belongs to all and must be carefully managed and maintained in a symbiotic manner to continue to yield sustenance to those who depend on its riches and diversity.
How is it possible that most of the current biology has managed to thrive for millions of years in spite of great natural calamities, but man has in a few centuries managed to upset this incredible balance of natural forces and plunged most higher life forms into into existential crises.
We know what "invasive species" do to their environment . Man has become an invasive species, wantonly destroying this little planet which we have been so fortunate to inherit by pure chance. This will only result in our own extinction. That's what happens to invasive parasites that kill their host..
I'm thinking along the lines of raising the AI brain as if a baby
Nothing preprogrammed into the AI baby except what would be in normal baby
RainbowSingularity
Valued Senior Member
maybe someone will employ me to adviseI'm thinking along the lines of raising the AI brain as if a baby
Nothing preprogrammed into the AI baby except what would be in normal baby
highly unlikely though
And as for the more abstract question of whether viruses qualify as life, Caetano-Anolles argues that if viruses are descended from living cells, they’re still alive now – but in a unique way: when viruses infect a cell, that reunion forms a complete living system.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/what-came-first-cells-or-viruses/?amp=1
One year - longer enough to have been asleep
Thank you sculptor for reawakening my interest in this thread with your Thread - curious sexual bias in fossils
https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/what-came-first-cells-or-viruses/?amp=1
One year - longer enough to have been asleep
Thank you sculptor for reawakening my interest in this thread with your Thread - curious sexual bias in fossils
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Dicart
Registered Senior Member
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Those who consider the virus to be the infected cell also believe that viruses are alive.[/quote]
Yep, waxing poetic.