Mike O'Hara wrote:
>The more I look at this discussion and similar I have had over the
>years, the more I think that the life is in the interactions, rather
>than intrinsic to the creature. I also am not positing a soul.
>>I would then return to my original question re the BSE agent (and prions
>etc generally) and suggest that the PrP 'system' is alive by the
>definition of interacting information. It is also alive in that it is
>part of a larger organism and its internal systems - or if not, at what
>point in the reduction process does it lose 'life'?
In other words, life is a matter of degree, not something that is
"there" or "not there". Perhaps a frozen spore is "less alive" than the same
spore when it's germinating. BSE is pretty low on the scale, ranking maybe
slightly above ordinary crystals and slightly below clays-- and way below
viruses. I think that if we composed a list of tests for "degree" of the
different features we attribute to life, and built a composite score from the
tests, we would find that rocks and rivers would have to receive a nonzero
score.
Steve
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