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| BIOTRONICS The Silver Species |
After the lab sheets were completed, the class was asked what makes living things different from nonliving things. And from a very interesting lengthy discussion, two kinds of classifications came up on the board. The first one was according to how science defines life; and, the second one was according to how objects are created.
By the way, I was the one who proposed the second classification. I told my teacher that air, water, and dirt should be on the list of living things since they are all created by nature, while the rest of the specimens were simply non-living things since they are made by man.
My teacher responded by saying that my observations were not enough to conclude that air, water, and dirt have life. She told us that an object to be considered alive or with life must have or had all the following signs or characteristics.
•Living things consume food in the form of energy.
•Living things are moving or in motion.
•Living things reproduce with an exact copy of themselves.
•Living things react to their surrounding environment.
•Living things are made up of cells.
Aside from these criteria, animals and plants can talk, can walk, can see, can feel, can think, can swim, and can even fly. Objects with ALL the above characteristics are considered alive. Bioscientists name these living objects as organisms or species. I call these natural objects, including air, water, earth, and fire as Biophysies. Although water, air, soil, and flame have some of the above characteristics, they are not considered alive since they do not have cellular materials. However, this last criterion is somewhat shaky in the sense that there are non-cellular micro-organisms that exist without cells but are alive. On the other hand, there are living organisms that lack one or two of these characteristics but are still considered with life.
Meanwhile, medical scholars and legal experts defined death as:
•Total failure of the heart to function.
•Total failure of the lungs to function.
•Total failure of the brain stem to function.
However, nowadays, clinically dead persons can be revived to life by replacing dead hearts with artificial ventricular mechanical pumps or dead lungs with artificial rubber membranes as long their brain stems are still intact. The functional brain stem is the key that determines if a person is dead or alive.
As we have seen, science experts and medical scholars have contradicting views about life and death. Science provides a general description of life while medicine provides specific descriptions of death. Because of these opposing views, some concrete descriptions or general standards must be established that must be universally embraced by all-natural objects.
If life is characterized based on how medical experts define death, then an object is considered alive if it has a functional heart, lungs, and brain. But obviously, the definition is not applicable to all living things like for example plants. Trees and flowers do not have hearts, lungs, or even brains; yet, they are considered alive or with life. Another example is the Moner. It is an organism without organs. This animal life form can walk without feet, eat without a mouth, digest without a stomach and reproduce with new same species without reproductive organs. Others like Octopuses, cuttlefish, nautiluses, and squids have three hearts that pump blue blood, could change their skin colors faster than a chameleon, and walks with more than two or four legs. They are alive with more organs than the standard life.
On the other hand, if death is characterized based on how science experts define life, then an object is considered dead when it is no longer moving, consuming energy, reproducing, and reacting with its environment.
The latter definition seems satisfactory since each trait can be applied to both living things and natural non-living things. However, if the criteria for characterizing life are arranged based on their levels of importance and reduced through the process of elimination, then energy is the only criteria that will be left as a viable candidate.
Natural objects, either living or non-living, cannot be in motion without energy, reproduce cells without energy or react to their surroundings without consuming energy. Energy is the litmus paper that determines when a natural object is dead or alive. Non-living things like fire consume energy from the air in the form of oxygen. Non-living things like air are always in motion and when motion is present energy is consumed. Thus, everything consumes energy.
Moreover, Non-living things like water, air, and rocks also reproduce. There are various kinds of stones all around us. Thus rocks are reproducing too in some different ways. Air is a mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, and other gases. Air evolves from simple elements. Water when mixed with other liquids produces new families of fluids. The mere fact that all-natural non-living things react with each other, reproduce and possess the basic criteria of life provides us some evidence that they are conscious as well.
Furthermore, there are non-living things such as robots and space probes that possess the same criteria as a complex system. These man-made objects can talk, walk, see, feel, think, eat, and even die. They even exhibit mechanical "emotions" and "consciousness". They act and interact with the environment. They consume energy, are in motion, and are programmed to reproduce. They have mechanical organs like the brain and heart. Hence, if these mechanical objects possess the same criteria as living things, then where do we draw now the line if something is alive or with life, if something is conscious or not?
Excerpt: Evolution of Creation
"Life is chemistry, not biology."
~ Joey Lawsin
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NOTICE: Articles on this site are composed on random
thoughts. The transcript may not be in its final form. It maybe
edited, updated or even revised in the future based on the outcomes of the author's experiments.
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Patent Pending. 2000 © ®
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