What is the Nature of life?

Answer 1

The Nature of Life -- No Single Answer This is a question that has never been answered satisfactorily, and perhaps will never be. It has been the subject of many philosophical and scientific discussions. I recommend reading the effort at http://people.reed.edu/~mab/papers/life.OXFORD.html for a taste of the range of answers.

In truth there is almost certainly no single answer. A class of answers, each pertaining to a different form of life might be as close as we can get (I am aware that this is a circular argument - it demonstrates the value of circular arguments). Of course that class might continually expand without limit, and in unpredictable ways. Its members might have only one thing in common, namely their inclusion in the class. Accepting this thesis will allow an answer to the question, but it is not a really useful answer. The question being asked here is how to decide what to include in the class, not what is already in, or might at some future time be in, the class. Even so, this approach to the question can be instructive. For instance, is 'artificial life (AI) in the class? Is the computer program called "Life" in the class? Are viruses in the class? Yeasts? DNA? As with many important questions, this one may be incapable of a simple answer, but it raises some very interesting questions. There are some things that would usually be said not to be in the class: for instance an atom of hydrogen, a diamond, an iron bar. It is at least possible therefore that the class of 'Non-life' is not empty. Logic has it that a thing is either in the 'Life' class or it is not. If it is not in the 'Life' class then let us agree to put it in the 'Non-life' class. Now we are asking the opposite question: what is 'Non-life'? We may be in a vicious circle here (not all circular arguments are 'virtuous').

Having said all that, there are some attributes that must be displayed by any form of life. I will not pretend that this list is comprehensive (but it may be).

* It must reproduce itself

* the reproduced forms must have this trait also, and so on indefinitely.

We could specify here that any form of life must have a 'soul' of some kind, but I fear that many would disagree with this. Both the Rationalist who might say there is no such thing as a soul, and the Religionist who might say that only the higher animals (maybe only humans) have a soul, must certainly disagree, and perhaps others too. Anyway, to require a 'soul' would beg the question 'what is a soul'? It is a perfectly good question, but it is not being asked here.