Re: Essay: What is Life?

Robert Karl Stonjek <rstonjek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote or quoted:

> What is Life?

The Alife folk have done that one until they are blue in the face - e.g.:

http://informatics.indiana.edu/rocha/ss504_02.html#L1
http://www.ishpssb.org/ocs/viewsessionabstract.php?id=250

I find after a while it gets tedious. Not everyone agrees about
the borderline cases of viruses and simulated life; so no definition
is going to make everyone happy.

I rather like the definition described by J. Maynard Smith
and Eors Szathmary - in "The Origins of Life", p.3:

``What is life?'' ...

``An alternative is to define as living any population of
entities posessing those properties that are needed if
the population is to evolve by natural selection.''

....though it *does* have the side effect of making it hard to
tell whether individuals are "alive" or not.
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