On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 9:19 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 9/25/2013 8:54 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 6:45 PM, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> On 9/23/2013 3:00 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >>>> >>>> On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 12:11 AM, John Mikes<[email protected]> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Telmo: >>>>>> >>>>>> would you have (by any chance...) a brief identification of something >>>>>> that >>>>>> comes to your mind when speaking about " l i f e " ? (And please, >>>>>> forget >>>>>> about the"bio" of this Earthbound Terrestrial Biosphere). >>>>>> (To identify " live " is a bit easier I think.) >>>> >>>> Hi John, >>>> >>>> If I understand your question, I think I do have a general idea of >>>> what I, informally, associate with life. I always tend to imagine some >>>> self-contained system that is capable of procuring sources of energy >>>> in its environment and use that energy to, more or less, maintain it's >>>> structure. >>> >>> >>> For 'life', in contrast to 'being alive', I'd add reproduction. That's >>> the >>> real defining characteristic of life. >> >> I tend to agree, but maybe we're on the verge of transcending that. If >> we clone some organism is it still reproduction? What if we tweak the >> DNA? > > > Sure. It doesn't even have to involve DNA. As Bruno pointed out cigarettes > reproduce too.
Ok! > >> >>>> None of the robots that I've seen so far fit this ideal. Even if they >>>> can look for an outlet and recharge their batteries, they are not >>>> capable of deeply fixing themselves. They cannot use that energy to >>>> rebuild some part of themselves that is damaged. >>> >>> >>> And your ability to do that is quite limited. So if a robot could >>> replace a >>> damaged limb with one from a supply cabinet it'd be one up on us. >> >> Sure, but I feel there's something to the deep mechanisms of living >> organisms, as I stated in my reply to John. I'm waxing poetic a bit >> here, sorry! > > > What's 'deep' is that there's a whole complex interdependent system of life. > You couldn't maintain your body if there were not all those plants and > animals from which you can get pre-built proteins. Just like cigarettes > couldn't reproduce without tobacco farmers. Also ok :) Telmo. > Brent > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
