LIFE

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

What is Life?  I don't mean this in the sense of a 'meaning to life' or 'a purpose to life'. I mean..actually what is Life? 

1. Scientists believe Life is a product or result of certain molecules getting organised together.   Some molecules come together and suddenly..we have life. It is an Emergent Property.

2. Certain religious people believe that Life is something breathed into the body by God.

3. Some people equate Life with Consciousness.

The only organism that is somewhere in between the living and the non living is the virus. A virus is non living in the free state...but when it finds a host it suddenly starts behaving like a living being.

Hindus and some other people believe that Life is Prana or Chi.....a form of energy that is present everywhere and which is acquired by organisms which then become living beings. When the prana leaves the organism it becomes dead.  As the Prana reduces, a person becomes old and ill.   

In fact, the word for Life in Sanskrit, Hindi and other Indian languages is Prana. 

Prana can be seen as something like electricity. Almost all man made equipment are driven by electricity....which gives life to them and  without which the equipment is dead.

This Life or Prana is said to be present everywhere all around us and when certain type of organisms form, Life enters and make its a living being as different from a non living object. 

Objectively, nothing is known about this Prana, but subjectively, many people can and do control its flow in their system.   Illnesses can be cured, the mind can be controlled, general activity can be enhanced and so on,  through the regulation of Prana.

Most Yogic, Pranayama and meditative practices are based on the regulation and control of Prana. 

For information.

Cheers.

Sriram

[Sebastian Toe]

When the prana leaves the organism it becomes dead. 

Does that mean that technically, after a chicken has been beheaded, plucked, gutted and the parts all chopped up ready for dinner and put into the pot and boiled for 30 mins -
if the prana hasn't left, it is still alive?

[Walter]

Sriram,
thanks for your amusing post , you do make me laugh .

[torridon]

Hi everyone,

What is Life?  I don't mean this in the sense of a 'meaning to life' or 'a purpose to life'. I mean..actually what is Life? 

1. Scientists believe Life is a product or result of certain molecules getting organised together.   Some molecules come together and suddenly..we have life. It is an Emergent Property.

2. Certain religious people believe that Life is something breathed into the body by God.

3. Some people equate Life with Consciousness.

The only organism that is somewhere in between the living and the non living is the virus. A virus is non living in the free state...but when it finds a host it suddenly starts behaving like a living being.

Hindus and some other people believe that Life is Prana or Chi.....a form of energy that is present everywhere and which is acquired by organisms which then become living beings. When the prana leaves the organism it becomes dead.  As the Prana reduces, a person becomes old and ill.   

In fact, the word for Life in Sanskrit, Hindi and other Indian languages is Prana. 

Prana can be seen as something like electricity. Almost all man made equipment are driven by electricity....which gives life to them and  without which the equipment is dead.

This Life or Prana is said to be present everywhere all around us and when certain type of organisms form, Life enters and make its a living being as different from a non living object. 

Objectively, nothing is known about this Prana, but subjectively, many people can and do control its flow in their system.   Illnesses can be cured, the mind can be controlled, general activity can be enhanced and so on,  through the regulation of Prana.

Most Yogic, Pranayama and meditative practices are based on the regulation and control of Prana. 

For information.

Cheers.

Sriram

I don't think we have an all-embracing definition.  I'd go with something along the lines of a phenomenon of replicating evolving metabolism.  Not all life is conscious but all life metabolises, all life replicates, and all life evolves.

[SusanDoris]

I don't care how anyone defines life - I'm just very glad to still have it!

[Sriram]

I don't think we have an all-embracing definition.  I'd go with something along the lines of a phenomenon of replicating evolving metabolism.  Not all life is conscious but all life metabolises, all life replicates, and all life evolves.

Life first started with the replicating DNA/RNA.  That is the beginning of the survival instinct that is an essential part of all Life.   From this survival instinct, were probably derived the procreation and parental instincts. 

The question is, why did Life first begin?  We have no means of knowing for sure, of course. Merely saying that replication is an emergent property of DNA is a cop out. It is just an observation...and does not explain anything.

We cannot also be sure if the DNA replication happened only in one place and one time, from where it spread all around the world...or whether similar replication happened in many places around the world.   

Be that as it may, it is possible (philosophically) to meaningfully speculate that something reacted or entered or coupled with the DNA/RNA and made it behave in the way it did. From there Life started.

This something is what we call Prana....a kind of Life  globule (containing some form of energy) that is believed to exist everywhere and which makes life prevail. It makes Life always find a way! 

Of course, lots of questions can be asked about the nature of the Prana, its chemical composition, where did it come from,  how and why does it enter organic matter, why not inorganic matter...and so on and so forth.  There are no answers.

The point is that this idea not only  attempts an answer to the question of how Life came about ...but that it also explains many forms of healing, health generating techniques etc. like Yoga, Pranayama (breathing exercises) and meditations which are are all based on an understanding of how this Prana works and moves around the body.  And all these techniques work!

I remember that Neil Tyson the astrophysicist was recently asked whether Life could exist in an amorphous form. He said that it is possible.

It is time scientists started thinking laterally and started investigating such matters.   

Just some thoughts.

[Walter]

I don't care how anyone defines life - I'm just very glad to still have it!

Me too SD .  I thought it was curtains for me at the end of august . 

[Walter]

Sri,
even more amusing than the OP , thanks again.

btw if you really want to know read some science books, I cant be bothered explaining it to you . It would be like trying to teach a potato.

[torridon]

Life first started with the replicating DNA/RNA.  That is the beginning of the survival instinct that is an essential part of all Life.   From this survival instinct, were probably derived the procreation and parental instincts. 

OK, but 'instincts' are way up to ladder of biological complexity.  You need a sizeable brain for inherited instincts and the vast majority of life, being microbial, has no brains and hence no instincts.

[Sriram]

OK, but 'instincts' are way up to ladder of biological complexity.  You need a sizeable brain for inherited instincts and the vast majority of life, being microbial, has no brains and hence no instincts.

An instinct is only an innate impulse or inclination or tendency.   Why isn't the DNA tendency to replicate, an 'instinct'?   Do Jellyfish have brains?  Don't they have instincts?

[SusanDoris]

Me too SD .  I thought it was curtains for me at the end of august . 

Have you posted anywhere what actually happened? Whatever it was, it must have been a very nasty shock.

[Walter]

Have you posted anywhere what actually happened? Whatever it was, it must have been a very nasty shock.

No I haven't SD, and for the second time in my life I have cheated the grim reaper , not sure how many lives I've got left now though, I must be running low on luck now.

[torridon]

An instinct is only an innate impulse or inclination or tendency.   Why isn't the DNA tendency to replicate, an 'instinct'?   Do Jellyfish have brains?  Don't they have instincts?

If we call the DNA tendency to replicate, an 'instinct', then we are making figurative use of language.  Language is like that, messy, full of redundancies and multiple creative interpretations.  If we stick to the stricter use of the word, such as 'mothering instinct' we are describing inherited behaviours of higher animals which of course don't exist as such at the simpler level of chemical reactions.

[torridon]

The question is, why did Life first begin?  We have no means of knowing for sure, of course. Merely saying that replication is an emergent property of DNA is a cop out. It is just an observation...and does not explain anything.

I don't see why 'cop out'.  Replication is one of the key characteristics of life but it is not only living systems that replicate.  Spontaneous self organisation and replication are phenomena arising out of thermodynamic law; matter self-organises and replicates to maximise the efficiency of its energy exchange with its environment whilst guaranteeing an increase rather than a decrease in overall entropy.

We cannot also be sure if the DNA replication happened only in one place and one time, from where it spread all around the world...or whether similar replication happened in many places around the world.   

DNA replication has replaced the earlier and simpler RNA replication which preceded it but RNA is outperformed by the greater efficiency and information carrying potential in DNA strands.  This is all part of a trajectory within chemical evolution that will occur wherever candidate compounds exist within appropriate conditions leading from simple organics through eventually to complex biological systems. Thus we expect to find simple biology widespread throughout the cosmos as chemistry inevitably has to lead to biology wherever appropriate conditions exist. Higher phenomena - multicellularity, intelligence, consciousness for example will be massively rare though.

[SusanDoris]

No I haven't SD, and for the second time in my life I have cheated the grim reaper , not sure how many lives I've got left now though, I must be running low on luck now.

Thank you for reply - I hope you do not have to risk any more lives/!

[torridon]

This something is what we call Prana....a kind of Life  globule (containing some form of energy) that is believed to exist everywhere and which makes life prevail. It makes Life always find a way! 

Of course, lots of questions can be asked about the nature of the Prana, its chemical composition, where did it come from,  how and why does it enter organic matter, why not inorganic matter...and so on and so forth.  There are no answers.

The point is that this idea not only  attempts an answer to the question of how Life came about ...but that it also explains many forms of healing, health generating techniques etc. like Yoga, Pranayama (breathing exercises) and meditations which are are all based on an understanding of how this Prana works and moves around the body.  And all these techniques work!

I would put that down as a nice simple allegorical notion for a pre-science age.  Given we know far more about the actual processes of life I'm not sure of the value of it in the modern age.  Maybe it is good enough metaphor for people not interested in nuts and bolts, which is most people, I guess.

[Sebastian Toe]

I want to know how to tell if my chicken dinner is still alive or not. It's well cold now. Will microwaving it get rid of any residual prana or not?

[Anchorman]

Life? Don't talk to me about life...........

[Sriram]

I want to know how to tell if my chicken dinner is still alive or not. It's well cold now. Will microwaving it get rid of any residual prana or not?

'Prana' is just a word...Sebastian. It is sanskrit for 'Life'.    If the electricity from your equipment is cut off, the equipment dies. Its the same with the body of any organism.

Prana or Life is the essential difference between the living and the dead. Only that instead of thinking of it as the result of some  sort of molecular organisation...it is thought of as an independent energy that interacts with molecules at a certain stage to make them 'living'.

So...go ahead with your chicken!   

[Sriram]

If we call the DNA tendency to replicate, an 'instinct', then we are making figurative use of language.  Language is like that, messy, full of redundancies and multiple creative interpretations.  If we stick to the stricter use of the word, such as 'mothering instinct' we are describing inherited behaviours of higher animals which of course don't exist as such at the simpler level of chemical reactions.

Instinct ...'Innate tendency or inclination'... is the dictionary definition. You can't cherry pick your definitions.

DNA has this tendency to replicate, which you label as Emergent Property.   It could be because of some form of Life energy that enters or interacts with the DNA at this stage giving it this property of Life....which automatically means instinct of survival and replication. 

As the organism becomes complex, the instincts are exhibited in more complex ways.

[Sriram]

I would put that down as a nice simple allegorical notion for a pre-science age.  Given we know far more about the actual processes of life I'm not sure of the value of it in the modern age.  Maybe it is good enough metaphor for people not interested in nuts and bolts, which is most people, I guess.

There is nothing allegorical about Prana or Life. It is about an actual energy packet that interacts with molecules and organisms.   

What does science know of the processes of life that prohibits a Life energy?   

[torridon]

There is nothing allegorical about Prana or Life. It is about an actual energy packet that interacts with molecules and organisms.   

What does science know of the processes of life that prohibits a Life energy?

Well the concept of Prana is just surplus to requirements, in a sense.  We already have concepts developed from base energy laws that serve more faithfully to observation.  We don't need a special new form of energy that is applicable to just living systems; as you yourself recognise with a brief mention of viruses, the traditional black and white division of things into living things and non-living things is a simplification, so a conceptual framework of understanding that transcends the artificial distinction between animate and inanimate is superior.

[torridon]

Instinct ...'Innate tendency or inclination'... is the dictionary definition. You can't cherry pick your definitions.

DNA has this tendency to replicate, which you label as Emergent Property.   It could be because of some form of Life energy that enters or interacts with the DNA at this stage giving it this property of Life....which automatically means instinct of survival and replication. 

As the organism becomes complex, the instincts are exhibited in more complex ways.

And innate means 'born with', and no molecules are 'born' in a strict sense.  This is just perpetuating the use of metaphor.

I didn't label replication as an emergent property, I said it was an inevitability due to thermodynamic law. The second law of thermodynamics is possibly the most profound of all natural laws, from it springs all manner of more complex observed phenomena such as spontaneous self organisation and replication and hence life.

[Brownie]

I don't care how anyone defines life - I'm just very glad to still have it!

You are so lucky to feel that way, Susan.

[Brownie]

Life? Don't talk to me about life...........

A man after my own heart.  Today at least.

Bah humbug.