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New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life

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Re: New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life

#31

Post by snissn »

cobbzilla wrote: post #26
meri_dian wrote: post #15

Here's a controversial view, but any good comments section needs a few of them: Viruses are no more "life" than bacteria are "life" or amoeba are "life" or ants are "life" or mice are "life" or humans are "life"... We're all just chemical machines, nothing more nothing less. Giving the word 'life' some special significance is misleading and confusing. In order to not confuse ourselves we should be talking about funct…

One of the (many and oft-debated) aspects of life is that via homeostasis it maintains a negative entropy gradient. That is, over time, it will coalesce more "order" within itself than the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says should normally happen -- more than if it were merely a random bag of chemicals. I like this definition, because it implies some kind of "trying" -- life must "try" to keep some balance that continues…

I think a virus has much lower entropy than a cell. It's tightly packed, ordered and semi-crystal-like. Viruses make more viruses. I think they may be winning if you measure them by creating pockets of deceased entropy!

Re: New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life

#32

Post by runeks »

Neeek wrote: post #8
sebazzz wrote: post #4

I never understand why viruses are not life. Bacteria are life because they are essentially a single-cell organism and act like any cell in our body: they consume energy and produce waste. Viruses may not be a cell, but they can be damaged, they die, and they appear to be more than a simple chemical process.

I thought the reason was that a virus has no means to reproduce without hijacking some other living thing's facilities with which to replicate itself.

Humans also survive by ingesting other life forms (plants, animals). We couldn’t survive without vegetation either, because it converts our waste products into useful stuff (e.g. CO2 to oxygen).

Re: New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life

#33

Post by Neeek »

runeks wrote: post #32
Neeek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the reason was that a virus has no means to reproduce without hijacking some other living thing's facilities with which to replicate itself.

Humans also survive by ingesting other life forms (plants, animals). We couldn’t survive without vegetation either, because it converts our waste products into useful stuff (e.g. CO2 to oxygen).

Ingestion isn't really reproduction though, even if the dependency is there. I'm not saying it's a perfect definition, just pointing out that it's never been "consume energy, produce waste".

Re: New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life

#34

Post by Synaesthesia »

cobbzilla wrote: post #27
Synaesthesia wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that analogy IMO is that machines can be comprehended by humans, whereas even the most primitive forms of life are more sophisticated than anything human created. Reproduction is an astonishing feat in itself - if only we could create a machine which could reproduce, but it's not so simple!

Reproduction is easy, and was done in software, on the Internet, in 1988 [1]. There is a lot more to life than mere replication, for example homeostasis. The Morris Worm did not make any efforts to maintain homeostasis, and thus became extinct relatively quickly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_worm

A physical man made object that can reproduce itself though - that is an incredible challenge.

Re: New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life

#35

Post by WJW »

nyc111 wrote: post #22

I consider legal entities such as corporations to be living organisms. So I don't agree that life is limited to organisms with a visible (biological) body.

In fact, corporations display many of the characteristics we typically associate with AI: perfect recall due to record keeping, ability to pay attention to many things at once, in theory immortal as long as it can keep up funding itself, can do projects that surpass the ability of any normal human to comprehend by itself, etc.

It's a bit slower than we regularly imagine computer-based AI to be, of course :)

Re: New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life

#36

Post by Neeek »

chii wrote: post #14
Neeek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the reason was that a virus has no means to reproduce without hijacking some other living thing's facilities with which to replicate itself.

but it's unclear that this definition really means anything, because you can say that humans lack the facilities to replicate itself, without access to food and water and air too!

We have the organs to reproduce provided that we, you know, exist... I'm not arguing how correct the definition is, more that it's what is 'textbook' from my understanding, and not really do do with the consume energy, produce waste comment or ability to react to an environment like some other posts suggested.

Re: New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life

#37

Post by thaumasiotes »

WJW wrote: post #35
nyc111 wrote: post #22

I consider legal entities such as corporations to be living organisms. So I don't agree that life is limited to organisms with a visible (biological) body.

In fact, corporations display many of the characteristics we typically associate with AI: perfect recall due to record keeping, ability to pay attention to many things at once, in theory immortal as long as it can keep up funding itself, can do projects that surpass the ability of any normal human to comprehend by itself, etc. It's a bit slower than we regularly imagine computer-based AI to be, of course :)

> perfect recall due to record keeping

I'm pretty confident there are not now, and never have been, any corporations with this characteristic.

Re: New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life

#39

Post by thaumasiotes »

novia wrote: post #18
Neeek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the reason was that a virus has no means to reproduce without hijacking some other living thing's facilities with which to replicate itself.

Neither do rickettsia or chlamydia, two bacteria. Honestly, whoever was deciding on the definition of "what is life" knew ahead of time the kinds of things they wanted to include and they worked backwards from there. We want to exclude viruses because they are too mechanical. There's no magic to them. That's the way it appeared before we started finding all these giant viruses anyways.

They're not more mechanical than cells are, and that's been known since viruses were distinguished from cells.

But the presence of a cell wall is a pretty significant feature nonetheless.

Re: New Giant Viruses Further Blur the Definition of Life

#40

Post by Santosh83 »

sebazzz wrote: post #4

I never understand why viruses are not life. Bacteria are life because they are essentially a single-cell organism and act like any cell in our body: they consume energy and produce waste. Viruses may not be a cell, but they can be damaged, they die, and they appear to be more than a simple chemical process.

Perhaps when we consider that viruses are unable to form complex structures like tissues, organs and entire organisms, we must rethink if they're the same level of "life" as cells? I don't think a single definition of life is useful or might even exist, just as I don't think a single universal physical theory is possible.
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