What is Life? by Erwin Schrödinger (1944) [pdf]

Post by bookofjoe » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 3:23 AM UTC

8bitsrule wrote: post #2

Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_Life%3F "In the book, Schrödinger introduced the idea of an "aperiodic crystal" that contained genetic information in its configuration of covalent chemical bonds." Good to see it available (a classic; not so easy to lay hands on)

Post by occamschainsaw » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 4:17 AM UTC

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #16

ta1234567890 wrote: post #8

Our definition of life is very narrow, mostly self-referential. Life is everything. Just because we can't consciously communicate with something it doesn't mean it's not alive. Why wouldn't Earth be alive? How about the sun, the stars and the universe? We love separating things by arbitrarily naming and defining them, but the universe is completely connected, we can't exist outside of it or disconnected from it. If a…

I think you may be familiar with the Global Brain hypothesis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_brain ): what if the Earth is a large network system? And you know, the network is the computer... Given the current empirical evidences we have, it's not particularity persuasive, but an extremely interesting imagination and proposal indeed.

Post by ralf07 » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 7:09 AM UTC

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #14

Tell me I'm not the only one who read "What is Life?" and, despite it not being the correct lyric, immediately heard "baby don't hurt me / don't hurt me / no more" in their head.

Post by dotancohen » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 7:22 AM UTC

trevyn wrote: post #23

ta1234567890 wrote: post #8

Our definition of life is very narrow, mostly self-referential. Life is everything. Just because we can't consciously communicate with something it doesn't mean it's not alive. Why wouldn't Earth be alive? How about the sun, the stars and the universe? We love separating things by arbitrarily naming and defining them, but the universe is completely connected, we can't exist outside of it or disconnected from it. If a…

This is just a language issue. A fun technique: try to have this discussion with someone while banning the word “life” and its derivatives from the discussion. It usually turns out that you’re arguing over the preferred definition of an English word, and you can actually find a point of agreement on the underlying models.

Post by mpweiher » Tue, Jan 15, 2019, 9:08 AM UTC

GuiA wrote: post #21

atschantz wrote: post #7

It's remarkable how much this still rings true today. The idea that we should try and understand life as a battle against the second law of thermodynamics has had a significant influence on many of today's great thinkers - such as Friston [1] and Dennett [2], as well as countless others. [1] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsif.201... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ1YxR8qNpY

Would phenomena like rocks crystallizing or stars forming also be a battle against the second law of thermodynamics?