"John Wilkins"  wrote in message
news:bocb6s$f6o$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...
> Guy Hoelzer  wrote:
>
> > in article bo8kot$2dmi$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org, Tim Tyler
at tim{at}tt1lock.org
> > wrote on 11/4/03 8:39 AM:
> >
> > > Emiliano  wrote or quoted:
> > >
> > >> The memory is quite blurred, now, but it sounded
something like
> > >> c.i.t.r.o.e.n.s. (an acronymus meaning the list of
features that
> > >> define a living organismus).
> > >> If somebody can help me with that, it would be a
great help for me.
> > >
> > > Leslie Orgel's term for:
> > >
> > > ``Complex Information-Transforming Reproducing Objects
that Evolve
> > > by Natural Selection''
> >
> > This definition would seem to have a problem in that the
first organisms
> > would not be considered to be living things because they
had not evolved by
> > natural selection.
>
> They could evolve by a partial selection - the
continuation of chemical
> reaction hypercycles that more efficiently sequester and
employ monomers
> than the other reactions in the chemotron.
> >
> > I rather like the definition of living things as
anything that has a
> > metabolism and homeostatic mechanisms.
> >
> Circular - you have to define "metabolism" in a way that
excludes
> ordinary redox reactions, and the only way to do this is
to make
> reference to living things. Otherwise a burning pool of
hydrocarbons is
> living.

Yep! There really is no way to define living things to
include only what we want them to include IMO. To me, this
means there simply is a major flaw in the concept
"living"--i.e., there is no such definable category. I think
that anything sufficiently "complex" (ha! define that!)
having dynamic qualities of motion (internal and/or external
energy processing systems) should be considered no different
than life. "Life" is a meaningless term, physically and
philosophically, no matter how "special" we want to make
it--there is nothing uniquely "noble" about it, as much as
our egos make us pretend it is. By most old definitions,
_clouds_ are also complex "life!" There are many other
dynamic systems which are also. Why waste time trying to
create useless definitions?           ...tonyC

> -- 
> John Wilkins wilkins.id.au
> For long you live and high you fly,
> and smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry
> and all you touch and all you see is all your life will
ever be
>
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