Can Things Without Bodies Be Living Things?

  • Ilikethepixies
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    • 3 years 7 months ago
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    		 Ok, free your mind.









    Now that your mind has been freed, consider this... things without bodies may be alive. Things like the rain, fog, wind, fire and even cities and the internet could be living organisms.

    Take, for example, the internet. One could posit that the internet is just using people as their hosts, just like a virus uses its host's cells to replicate. Think about it, it evolves, changes, grows, and self-heals. It does all this through people.

    Could this be true? What do you think?
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  • badfish
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    		 like viruses, which are not alive, because it needs a host to keep it going , it is not considered a living thing
    Sense_of_Self wrote:


    A spoonful of bullshit helps the medicine go down.
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  • Ilikethepixies
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    		 Good point... but does that mean that its dead? That its some inanimate object?

    I would say no. You can't put a virus in the same category as you would a hair drier or a shovel.

    Even though it doesn't meet the criteria for "aliveness", I would argue that it is alive.
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  • MissMaggie91
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    		 man creates the electricity to run the internet, therefore the idea that the internet is alive is predicated on man supplying the life force for it's existence.

    ergo, i can't remember what we were talking about.
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  • Ilikethepixies
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    		 If you can't keep up, don't post.

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  • MattNash
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    Ilikethepixies wrote:
    Good point... but does that mean that its dead? That its some inanimate object?

    I would say no. You can't put a virus in the same category as you would a hair drier or a shovel.

    Even though it doesn't meet the criteria for "aliveness", I would argue that it is alive.


    Not really. Viruses are nothing more then loose proteins. They don't move on ther own. They move with air or water currents, or from cell to cell. They're kind of like the microbial equivalent of "dust".

    But as far as inanimate objests being alive, there's many religions out there that believe that (Budhism and Paganism to name two).
    And the internet? It lives through us, and many of us live through it.
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  • Ilikethepixies
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    		 I can't believe that you don't think viruses are alive. Obviously they do not share the same characteristics as other organisms, but if they aren't alive, what are they?

    They don't fit into the category of inanimate object.

    So far no one has answered that.
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  • MattNash
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    Ilikethepixies wrote:
    I can't believe that you don't think viruses are alive. Obviously they do not share the same characteristics as other organisms, but if they aren't alive, what are they?

    They don't fit into the category of inanimate object.

    So far no one has answered that.


    I did explain it to you. They're the microbial equivialent of dust, or poison even. Poison isn't alive, but it'll kill cells just like viruses would.

    They actually are inanimate objects. Extremely smalll inanimate objects.
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  • Ilikethepixies
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    		 Poison doesn't reproduce and spread.

    Brooms don't reproduce and spread.

    Viruses reproduce and spread.
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  • MattNash
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    Ilikethepixies wrote:


    Viruses reproduce and spread.


    From what I understand, it's actually the cells they infect that reproduce and spread. The virus disrupts the cells DNA, so when the cell reproduces, instead of making more DNA for another cell, it makes viruses.
    ...but that's just a guess, I'm probably completely wrong.
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  • Ilikethepixies
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    		 Yeah, they spread by using their host cells. I understand how viruses work.

    Sounds like someone didn't listen to my instructions at the beginning of this thread.
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  • MattNash
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    Ilikethepixies wrote:
    Yeah, they spread by using their host cells. I understand how viruses work.

    Sounds like someone didn't listen to my instructions at the beginning of this thread.


    No, I did, I "freed my mind". Only problem is, I had to un-free my mind in order to continue reading. I can't read when my mind is free.
    You know, ADD and all.
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  • CHANCE SUNDANCE
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    • 3 years 6 months ago
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    		 Life and death are both concepts that arises with the Mind.

    Absolute Reality is fundamentally Empty ...

    Mind/Conciousness creates the illusion of motion/causality

    against a static/empty background.

    Most of us take Ourselfs to be JUST the body , wich is

    fundamentally wrong ...

    we are ALL 1 Conciousness experiencing Itself subjectively.

    there is NO such thing as death ...

    life is only an illusion/dream ...

    and We are the IMAGINATION of Ourselfs.




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  • Doctor Serious
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    		 So Chance, you still planning to destroy us all in 2012 or did John Cusack lame that up too much?
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  • Dyzfunk7ional
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    		 From my understanding and as mentioned before in the thread, they need a host to survive/reproduce. But to posses live as we usually see is still undecided in the scientific comunity.

    They resemble living organisms in that they have genes (DNA/RNA), reproduce by self-asembly and can evolve by natural selection... but lack cellular structure/metabolism wich are often seen as the basic unit of life and cannot reproduce outside a host cell.

    They are incapable of independently reproduce or having the metabolical process (use of energy) typically consider to be part of a living organism... thus, in general but still in debate, they are not living things.

    I see them as "highjackers" with genetic codes for other organisms (living cells)... outside them they are inert.

    As for the inanimate objects... "There is no dead matter, lifelessness is only a disguise behind which hide unknown forms of life; a conspiracy of objects."
    Bruno Schulz.
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