How to define life?

[Dov Henis]

See

 

http://hypography.com/forums/biology/8578-evolution-where-cracks-2.html#post135240

 

I think,

 

Dov

[durgatosh]

InfiniteNow

To answer the thread's subject question, "What defines life?"

 

Death.

 

The truth is contained by it's opposite.

 

Very true. Have you ever wondered what happens at the moment of death! What is lost at the very interface of life and death? What is the critical essence which makes the body alive and the absence of which causes the same body to die? The discussion may wander to philosophy; but never mind. At the edge of knowledge, science and philosophy merge. One has to complement the other.

 

Durgatosh Pandey

[Dov Henis]

Have you ever wondered what happens at the moment of death!

 

Death is not a point event, at the moment of...it is a cascade of events that ends with... it is the gradual failure of the totality of the constellation of the complex that serves as a temporary-bubble-of-energy, ending with the release back to the universal pool of energy of the the energy stored in several modes in the life form.

 

I suggest,

 

Dov

[durgatosh]

Dov Henis

Death is not a point event, at the moment of...it is a cascade of events that ends with...

 

You are explaining the processes or the failure of processes which lead to death. But death as such is a point phenomenon. The processes or cascade of events which lead to it are the mechanisms of death. Just analogous to a ball dropped on the floor: the ball hitting the floor is a point event, its route in the air, gravity attracting it etc are mechanisms of its fall.

 

DP