Virus's: Life or non life?

Discussion in 'Biology & Genetics' started by paddoboy, May 20, 2020.

  1. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    Virus ; Life or Non-life?

    Non life, by scientific standards. It does not meet all requirements of a living organism. Waxing poetic about it does not change the formula.

    OK, close the thread. Next question.
     
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  3. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    If it's reproducing I would consider alive

    Consider a seed. Is a seed alive if it sits there for a few hundred years doing nothing? Or would it be considered how I view virus - resting or dormant - temporarily inactive or inoperative?

    Put seed in suitable surroundings BINGO you have a plant released from the code

    Different animal

    Personality is non material, personality is a process with very flexible boundaries and no absolute value only arbitrary distinctions

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  5. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    can a brain dead animal/\women human\other animals re-produce ?
    there seems to be a bit of a slippery slope where the potential discussion falls into chicken versus the egg[which came first]
    did life exist outside and separate to the womb the egg and the sperm
    are all considered alive living entity's ?
    if so is 1 killed by becoming the singular living item of a human/thing/animal ?
    etc


    [side topic probably separate thread, is gender division by reproduction inherently flawed to establish concepts of insular life existence as an independent entity?[i.e & e.g hermaphrodites
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_hermaphroditism

    https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/parthenogenesis-how-animals-have-virgin-births
    Parthenogenesis
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis )
    quantum mechanics
    versus
    quantum physics
    im more theoretical quantum physics than quantum mechanics but that does not mean i do not believe in mechanics or some of its laws.
     
    Last edited: May 7, 2021
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  7. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    You gave me this situation
    My reply was
    Note ......alive........criteria.......reproduce

    Now you propose different criteria to wit,
    NO, a brain dead person is dead

    Brain dead people on mechanical devices are dead. Why on machines? Keep organs in a good enough condition suitable for possible transplant

    In rare circumstances it may be possible to obtain viable spermatozoa able to be used for in vitro fertilisation

    Such procedure does NOT constitute a dead person reproducing. It represents Medical Scientists (well some team of some sort) taking certain tissue from a dead body and processing it so it has the potential to produce a human

    Jurassic Park got it right in some respects (how long have dinosaurs been dead?)

    Definitions change and we have gone from dead = not breathing to brain dead = dead but we can keep some of the dead body organs viable for transfer to other people who require said organs

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  8. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_somatic_support_after_brain_death

    my question is on the nature of life being defined as brain activity
    if the body remains functioning
    but the medical term is dead
    and pregnant baring life
    life is created from death as a state of reproductive capacity to be deemed "life" by productivity of re producing

    my primary point is the difference between cell death versus death of what is deemed sentient life as a "living thing containing life" in a more broad concept of debate.

    thus at what point does working mechanisms become "alive or dead"
     
  9. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    Dealing with just this section

    brain activity
    if the body remains functioning
    but the medical term is dead

    In a brain dead person they are dead and NO there is no body which remains functioning

    The fetus in essence is the same as an organ in a dead body. Machines / equipment can keep organs and fetus viable but it is a uphill battle

    I will add this to bit about the complexity of brain death and its classification

    To deep for me to go into why individuals have particular views regarding brain death. I'm guessing personal experiences

    Evidence-based guideline update: Determining brain death in adults
    Report of the Quality Standards Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology

    https://n.neurology.org/content/74/23/1911.full

    If you are now questioning when a mechanical robot become alive I would contend we would have to totally rewrite the classification of LIFE to account for such a transformation as well as a few million laws

    It (the transformation) is on a par with abiogenesis. When do we classify a bucket of chemicals as having changed from JUST a bucket of chemicals to a bucket of chemicals with some of the chemicals being alive

    One way it MIGHT be achieved is to
    • claim we have life forms in the bucket
    • analysis the chemical make up of the claimed life form
    • check how much of each of of the chemicals in the life form
    • remain in the bucket NOT in life form
    • see if the percentage of chemicals in life form goes up while
    • chemicals in non life form go down
    Conclude - the life form chemicals are eating the non life form chemicals to grow and replicate

    Not sure we can leave a bunch of robots in a factory with a stack of material to make more of themselves and if they achieve that task we would call them alive

    I suspect now, with the complexity of a HUMAN LIFE at stake, we are now dealing with feelings in its widest range

    Good luck to those making that judgement because it wont be as simple as

    the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.

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  10. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Is there a third state between alive and dead? Seems that in a vegetative state the "individual person" is no longer present, but the body remains functional (with help) as a living organisms without self-awareness.
     
  11. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    You are either alive or you are dead.

    There is no actual inbetween.

    And just because someone is in a vegetative state or in a coma, for example, does not mean they are no longer a person or individual.
     
  12. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    7,447
    very sensitive issue
    i dont think we need a hard edge for decisions of people
    however
    example
    when we move the debate to cellular concepts & AI
    it becomes a lot more conflicting
    and i think we need a hard edge
    does an AI with a bio-gell pack that has living organisms in it fueling it or being used as part of its memory storage or processor...
    become a living thing rating some type of life value in its own right ?
     
  13. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    13,077
    If brain dead is dead

    Can we create a organ (not fussed about material) we can switch on to activate (your bio-gel pack???) as a baby brain and teach it exactly as a baby?

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  14. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    12,451
    Ooh I don't know.... How about "near death"?

    There. That should bring Other Dennis out of the woodwork.

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  15. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    I beg to differ. You said it yourself; " You are either alive or you are dead." You is the operative word. If your brain is dead your person is dead, even if your body may be alive.

    Self-awareness is what constitutes a person. Is a vegetable a person or an individual?

    Individual
    Wikipedia

    Vegetative state, that is the medical term, no? Alive but unconscious. Unconscious = no thoughts, no awareness = no person.

    Can you pull the plug on someone in a vegetative state?
    Moreover I answered the OP question in post # 101 . All other commentary is just philosophical waxing.
     
    Last edited: May 8, 2021
  16. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    7,447
    "teaching" a human
    versus "teaching" a computer
    "establishing an AI brain" that can "learn" seems to be a debate.

    the warring factions of science versus religion
    religion dictates the issue because religion dictates politics.
    some of the irony

    so the science debate of what is possible and what is not possible is irrelevant
    because religion dictates all regulations

    teaching a human baby is not standardized to a set range of knowable concepts in scientific terms
    it is all conceptual belief
    subject to subjective terms of inferred meaning by ends for those with control.
    (the parents decide ultimately what will happen regardless of effect or value to knowledge learning benefit of the baby)

    currently the main drive of conflict is between wealth sharing
    primarily the minority elite wealthiest control the masses money by taking all their tax income and spending it as they choose

    until the masses wealth is given back to the people who it comes from as the same profit as the elitists claim to have rights to
    religion will dictate all political concepts of control
    the hypocrisy must remain to validate the theft of the peoples control over their own money.


    so when we look at who is chasing AI tech
    it is the rich elite
    the same ones attempting to remove jobs & increase profit reduce their tax rates and then get more workers tax given to them for free

    the great con ...

    only works if you control & deny education to the masses
    through privatization and extremafying schools into religious sects

    so what is the ultimate reality ?
    handing those same elitist groups who are greedy and selfish
    the ability to wipe out the majority population because they wont share things equally
    even though they can afford to.

    AI virus life
    versus
    human life
    via jobs and universal wage and universal health & social services
     
  17. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    I agree. The Nation's natural wealth belongs to all and must be carefully managed and maintained in a symbiotic manner to continue to yield sustenance to those who depend on its riches and diversity.

    How is it possible that most of the current biology has managed to thrive for millions of years in spite of great natural calamities, but man has in a few centuries managed to upset this incredible balance of natural forces and plunged most higher life forms into into existential crises.

    We know what "invasive species" do to their environment . Man has become an invasive species, wantonly destroying this little planet which we have been so fortunate to inherit by pure chance. This will only result in our own extinction. That's what happens to invasive parasites that kill their host..
     
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  18. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    I'm thinking along the lines of raising the AI brain as if a baby

    Nothing preprogrammed into the AI baby except what would be in normal baby

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  19. RainbowSingularity Valued Senior Member

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    maybe someone will employ me to advise
    highly unlikely though
     
  20. KUMAR5 Valued Senior Member

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    1,221
    Pre-infection: non-live
    Post-infectíon: live
    ??
     
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  21. Michael 345 New year. PRESENT is 72 years oldl Valued Senior Member

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    13,077
    And as for the more abstract question of whether viruses qualify as life, Caetano-Anolles argues that if viruses are descended from living cells, they’re still alive now – but in a unique way: when viruses infect a cell, that reunion forms a complete living system.

    https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/what-came-first-cells-or-viruses/?amp=1

    One year - longer enough to have been asleep

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    Thank you sculptor for reawakening my interest in this thread with your Thread - curious sexual bias in fossils
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2022
  22. Dicart Registered Senior Member

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    465
    For reminding.

     
  23. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    20,069
    Those who consider the virus to be the infected cell also believe that viruses are alive.[/quote]
    Yep, waxing poetic.
     

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