> >The most fundamental property of living matter is chemical fecundity.
> >The chemicals in living matter take in chemicals unlike themselves and
> >convert those chemicals into more of the living matter's own kind of
> >chemicals.

Note of clarification: That's the most fundamental property of living
matter that distinguishes it from non-living matter. I thought that
would be obvious, but apparently not.

> From: tomhendricks474{at}cs.com (TomHendricks474)
> That's not quite right.
> Your definition implies that
> energy is available to do this.
> Thus you have to have FIRST an energy source before anything changes
> chemically.

We agree that a source of energy is necessary for life, but both living
and nonliving systems have energy available, so the source of energy
isn't fundamental to living systems as compared to nonliving systems.

Likewise a supply of materials (chemicals) is necessary, but again
energy and chemicals are necessary but not sufficient for life. Lots of
non-living systems have lots of materials/chemicals and energy flow.

Now it may be true that eventual development of life via abiogenesis is
virtually a sure thing given sufficient supply of chemicals and energy,
but that's not the same thing as life already being present. Until some
chemicals (A) are actually usurping other chemicals (B,C,...) and
converting them into more of the same chemicals (A), there's no life
yet.
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