Living Reality

[Obbe]

Can reality be considered alive?  Would you say reality is alive?

[Slave of the Beast]

The question is too vague to answer, Obbe. In what context are we being asked to regard 'reality' and how do you define 'alive'.

[unbreakable matter]

Kill yourself and find out

[Obbe]

The question is too vague to answer, Obbe. In what context are we being asked to regard 'reality' and how do you define 'alive'.

I think those terms are somewhat subjective.  If I defined them, the definitions would answer the question for me making this thread pointless.  I made the thread to start a discussion with other people and their perspectives.  If  you woild like to take part in the discussion use the definitions that make sense to you.  What does reality mean to you?   What does alive or living mean to you?  Would you say reality is alive?

[Obbe]

Kill yourself and find out

 

[FON]

No.

[Obbe]

To quote myself:

Would you say that 'you' are alive?  And that 'your' cells are alive?  Sure.  But would you say the molecules which make up those cells are alive?  Or the atoms?

If 'water' is not alive, does that mean that 'you' are also about 70% not alive??

There are no organisms where there isn't an environment to support them. Can we really separate the organism from the environment? Only with language.

Does "life" have to be this little pocket trapped within the nonliving? Life would not be possible without the entire picture, so why don't people consider the entire picture to be alive?

[FON]

I'm guessing people don't consider the entire picture to be alive because it would make things very confusing very quickly and render the whole concept of life pretty useless.

'woah, that rock over there is fucking ALIVE, man"

This doesn't really change anything. The fact that life is dependent on the environment doesn't mean that the environment must also be alive, at least not every aspect. I'm not following that logic. A rock still lacks just about every function we associate with life.

[Obbe]

A rock still lacks just about every function we associate with life.

So does an atom in your body.  But your body is still considered to be alive.   A rock may lack whatever it is you consider to be life, does reality?  Reality produces life pretty much wherever we look for it.  In a way, can't it be said to be alive?  Depending on what you consider life and reality to be.

Maybe the concept of life is useless already.   You are made up entirely of "nonliving" materials that happen to be organized in a way that allows you to grow and reproduce and define yourself as alive.  If we built complex robots that could replicate the functions of biological life, would the robots be alive?  Or what if they couldn't replicate every function of biological life but could at least build more robots,  and they were intelligent enough to consider what life is - would they consider themselves to be alive in some way?   Would they consider the concept of life to be useless or pointless?

I understand what you're getting at.  "Life" is just a word used to differentiate between things like mice and rocks.  But I think it can be more than that, to some people.

[Lanny]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

Composite objects can have qualities not possessed by their parts. Atoms may not be alive but humans still can be. Similarly, some of the contents of reality might be alive but reality itself can itself be non-live.

[Calzone]

Everything is organic matter. Rocks, trees, us, etc. Everything around you has either been part of a living organism at one point or will be at some point in the future. Do I believe reality itself is alive? No. That's some sci-fi shit right there. But if you bend your definition of alive, you could probably consider the Earth itself to be fully alive.

[GothicSeraph]

Kill yourself and find out

Worked in Wristcutters.

[Dionysus]

The question is too vague to answer, Obbe. In what context are we being asked to regard 'reality' and how do you define 'alive'.

I think those terms are somewhat subjective.  If I defined them, the definitions would answer the question for me making this thread pointless.  I made the thread to start a discussion with other people and their perspectives.  If  you woild like to take part in the discussion use the definitions that make sense to you.  What does reality mean to you?   What does alive or living mean to you?  Would you say reality is alive?

Aww shit, Obbe is doing that thing he does.

[stentor]

Reality would be the template for all living things, waves and particles aren't alive unless you completely skew the biological definition and parameters for what makes something alive.

[alphadog1]

Cells that divide and replicate are alive . Molecules are not alive. What separates humans from other animals and from plants and germs is the fact that we are also sentient, or self-aware