What makes something living or alive?

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Reply Sat 17 Apr, 2010 07:30 pm
Does consciousness gives the inanimate animation? (change, growth, etc...)

Are solid, liquids and gasses not animate until consciousness is added?(obviously in a combination of the three)
 
north
 
Reply Sat 17 Apr, 2010 07:58 pm
@awareness,
awareness;153337 wrote:
Does consciousness gives the inanimate animation? (change, growth, etc...)


NO

Quote:
Are solid, liquids and gasses not animate until consciousness is added?(obviously in a combination of the three)


how does consciousness come before matter ?
 
HexHammer
 
Reply Sun 18 Apr, 2010 06:06 am
@awareness,
awareness;153337 wrote:
Does consciousness gives the inanimate animation? (change, growth, etc...)

Are solid, liquids and gasses not animate until consciousness is added?(obviously in a combination of the three)
Are trees concious? ..they grow.

Uhmmm ...when have you heard about a concious "soid, liquid and gas" ?
 
Wisdom Seeker
 
Reply Sun 18 Apr, 2010 06:58 am
@awareness,
an intelligent animated being capable of dying, the one who sustain more life to remain alive, his body is compose of many systems.
 
BrightNoon
 
Reply Sun 18 Apr, 2010 02:12 pm
@awareness,
I think that a living thing and a non-living thing differ only on the basis of the definition of life that is being used in that particular instance. The basic scientific definition usually includes homeostasis, reproduction, etc. - in what fundemental way are those properties different from polarity, solubility in ethanol, or any other? They aren't - the definition was not built organically (no pun intended) from the bottom up, i.e. based on observations of the actual phenomena themelves. The definition was constructed so as to fit an already established concept - life as we know it. The status of anything as living or non-living is fixed by its similarity to ourselves. A phenemenon wasn't observed and given a name; a name and concept existed and the circumstances necessary for the phenomenon to exist were found.
 
Diogenes phil
 
Reply Sun 25 Apr, 2010 01:14 pm
@awareness,
I think OP has been watching too many YT videos on the subject of free will.
 
onetwopi
 
Reply Tue 27 Apr, 2010 10:16 pm
@awareness,
I think the title of the post is an interesting question--I have done a bit of work on "Artificial Life"--a branch of artificial intelligence in computer science. If a machine, piece of software, etc. is autonomous and can reproduce itself, it meets most scientific definitions of life (although some would argue that life must be organic, i.e. carbon-based substance).

Check out: Darwinbots - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia if you're interested.

Cheers!
 
 

 
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