all we know is "forms" of life.

[buddhaboy]

We use the word "life" a lot... but what really is it? It seems to me that all we know are forms of life... you can cut open a patient, look at the heart, the liver the brain,etc...all these are organs that make the body able to live...but where is the life itself? has anyone seen it or realised it? Isnt it amazing, we are alive , hearts beating, brain calculating, all this is possible because of life and yet we dont know what life is!!!..were very knowlegable about "forms" of life..but what empoweres the form? makes it alive? i know the heart beats and how...but that doesnt show me the life. Just over 34 years ago, i wasnt here... i was created im told by a sperm from my father, fertilizing and egg in my mother,,, yet weeks before my conception, the sperms from my father that created "me" werent even created at that point... so where was the life? where was i... i read biology at school and foud it fascinating, and still do , but can anyone show me or say what"life " itself is? is it an energy, some unknown force? after all when life departs te body, its very clear, and undesputable that the body is a shell, or a vessel for this amazing, elusive thing called life!

[Moontanman]

Buddaboy, there is no "life" force or energy. Life is just chemical reactions, very complex to be sure but still just chemical reactions none the less. BTW we know of only one form of life , "Earth life". It sounds like you are trying to say consciousness, that comes from our brain which is at it's most basic just chemical reactions mediated by electricity, nothing mysterious or unique.

[maikeru]

It's all a matter of the tick-tock of the physics clock.

[Eclogite]

Life is an emergent property. It has characteristics that are not readily predictible from the components that make it up. One might argue that some of these characteristics are not predictible at all. That raises the rather interesting question of what next emergent property may arise from an increasingly complex universe.

There is no elan vital as Moontanman has pointed out, unless it resides in some abstract sphere of emergent propertieness. But that's for the Philosophy forum, not biology.

[Larv]

Originally Posted by Eclogite

Life is an emergent property. It has characteristics that are not readily predictible from the components that make it up. One might argue that some of these characteristics are not predictible at all. That raises the rather interesting question of what next emergent property may arise from an increasingly complex universe.

So true! Nature's emergent properties are some of her most interesting features. It has been said that even the occurrence of liquid water is an emergent property, because it cannot be predicted from the oxidation of hydrogen.

There is no elan vital as Moontanman has pointed out, unless it resides in some abstract sphere of emergent propertieness. But that's for the Philosophy forum, not biology.

You are right about elan vital, but I can't shake the belief that we will not truly understand what life is until we fully appreciate its "emergent propertieness."

[sman]

The meaning of life is inadequetly answered by biology, isn't it. Redefining ourselves as temporary ambulatory repositories for our nucleic acids is like redefining music as periodic turbulance from vibrating strings with engineered frequencies. Biology can bring depth to our understanding of ourselves the way the science of accoustics can bring depth to our appreciation of music, but it's not the whole story.
Still, I think this is not beyond the scope of science. Our minds may be nothing more than extreamly complex interations of matter (chemistry) taylored to maximize reproduction (evolutionary biology), but the reason they are so malleable, able to be co-opted for so many different ways, like mathematics, or poetry or existential introversion, is probably the relm of evolutionary psychology.
In my view, it is the fact, unearthed by science, that life has no meaning that gives it meaning. It frees us for the conviction that whatever meaning our lives may have for us - is for us to decide.

[Larv]

Originally Posted by sman

The meaning of life is inadequetly answered by biology, isn't it. Redefining ourselves as temporary ambulatory repositories for our nucleic acids is like redefining music as periodic turbulance from vibrating strings with engineered frequencies...

No. It's like redefining music in the written context of sheet music; it takes the analogues of sound and reduces them to symbolic digits.

In my view, it is the fact, unearthed by science, that life has no meaning that gives it meaning. It frees us for the conviction that whatever meaning our lives may have for us - is for us to decide.

I think you've caught yourself up in recursive trap that requires you to define the meaning of "meaning."

[sman]

Originally Posted by Larv

I think you've caught yourself up in recursive trap that requires you to define the meaning of "meaning."

You're right. I'm always chasing my own tail.
Still, for me, the idea of life as a cosmic accident, rather than being demoralizing or reducing our existance to meaninglessness, seems to punctuate it's uniqueness. Life seems so much more precious seen a by-product of compeating replicators than it would if someone handed it to me with a bow.