Radiation, chemical reactions, and flesh, nails, or hair (whether attached to a living person or not) still get categorized properly? Bodily fluids, including those related to reproduction? What about politicians?

Also, living organisms have or can have will or intent to avoid taking the least amount of action, but our bodies are still inevitably doing so... the aging process, etc. Or is this not relevant? I'd have said anything that is an 'organism' that's not dead or 'accumulates knowledge' or rather is capable of possessing it is sufficient enough. What of advanced AI?

Thanks for your good lines of questioning.

Radiation, chemical reactions — Outlander

Yes those necessarily can only follow the path of least action so are inanimate.

nails, or hair (whether attached to a living person or not) — Outlander

Yes those necessarily can only follow the path of least action so are inanimate, Even though they are produced as a byproduct of, and/or connected to a, living organism.

flesh — Outlander

Flesh does not follow the path of least action which would be to simply to disintegrate, And to maintain its structure and processes it requires continuous input of energy And it directs its kinetic energy to obtain more potential energy. Thus flesh is certainly a living being.

Also, living organisms have or can have will or intent to avoid taking the least amount of action, but our bodies are still inevitably doing so... the aging process, etc. — Outlander

Yes while I do understand that line of thinking I don't believe it applies here. For one thing, the aging process is a programmed cell death process. All living organisms initially have a period of net anabolic growth (no aging), except for accumulating Random metabolic induced structural damage that are continuously repaired until the DNA itself is too damaged. This is just the struggle of a living process against entropy. All the repair mechanisms in living organisms down to the DNA repair level are exactly the opposite of taking the path of least action (as my definition points out), which would path would otherwise be simply to allow the second law to let entropy destroy it.

Or is this not relevant? — Outlander

Please note that the my definition does not say that living beings defy the second law of thermal dynamics, just that they can create Personal/local regions that That at least for some period of time Have free will to shift entropy to the environment.

I'd have said anything that is an 'organism' that's not dead or 'accumulates knowledge' or rather is capable of possessing it is sufficient enough — Outlander

Your definition is circular because it uses the word "Not dead". Moreover, 'accumulate knowledge' Is likewise circular because knowledge is always defined in terms of some kind of meaning which requires a living organism to create the meaning and use it as knowledge. Another problem with your definition, I believe, is that it would predict that a virus is inanimate, not living, because it does not accumulate knowledge, where is my definition, as I pointed out, would conclude a virus is certainly a living being.

I look forward to more astute challenges and ideas!

Reading through your discussion, it appears to me that the underlying question is what is the source of the spark of consciousness?

What of advanced AI? — Outlander

I forgot to answer this part of your replies. That is a very interesting point, which I was not considering so far. I may need to refine my definition to exclude such anomalies. However, my immediate thinking is that my current definition excludes current advanced AI systems because they do not direct their (or other's) kinetic energy to net increase their potential energy. A computer system that they operate within are purely second law Entropy degenerating Systems that purely burn energy, and do not self acquire or create any physical potential energy within their physical system. So, I think my current definition wording is sufficient to exclude current advanced AI systems. I'd be curious if anyone can make a good argument otherwise.

Note, my current line of thinking is that even if you had a Physical system as intelligent As a human, it Does not necessarily need to be alive to do so. So we should not confound the two, in my mind.

it appears to me that the underlying question is what is the source of the spark of consciousness? — Jack Cummins

Thanks for your comment; however, I have to respectfully disagree. Consciousness is a logically separate aspect and capability beyond what is the minimum required for life. For example, as I mentioned before, my definition concludes that a virus is certainly a living being. So, I think you would have to argue that a virus is certainly not alive Or shoot down The part of my definition that says it is, Without the use of consciousness as your argument. Because the virus has no consciousness in any reasonable or useful meaning of the word. And, don't go down the panpsychism Rabbit hole which would conclude that all inanimate matter is alive as well, hence the whole thing would a completely useless (non-Scientific, religion-like) Line of inquiry.

Okay, I accept what you are saying and I do not consider myself as a scientist. Perhaps my question about the life spark is more relevant to some other discussion, if at all?

I am certainly not going to start a panpsychist argument, although I think on a metaphorical level this is the year of the war of viral forces against mankind. But I am probably trespassing into the area of science fiction and fantasy.

But I think that you only want scientific viewpoints so I will reserve my thoughts about consciousness to the threads which are more appropriate for such discussion.

So, a robot that can plug itself to a power socket and recharge its batteries, it would be a living thing? After all, it's increasing its potential energy by doing so.

Excellent point! I have already considered this yet did not encoded in my definition. I will soon post the revised definition that excludes that possibility. The way that I exclude that As a living being, In general terms, is that the behavior must not be programmed Or directed by an external consciousness Or entity ( such as a human who figured the whole thing out and encoded, even if indirectly, the Goal and behavior).

I will think about this more deeply later, yet I am already pretty sure that The above addition would also exclude genetic algorithms that you could say would try to Pseudo-randomly learn that potential energy increasing Opportunity and behavior. I probably should build in a few more caveats in the definition to guard against other anomalous variance on that theme.

Thanks!

Living organisms bear the unique hallmark ability of modifying themselves in a manner to redirect and/or create kinetic energy to systematically increase their potential energy greater than any kinetic energy expended in their metabolic process. — Sir Philo Sophia

Are you familiar with the biological literature that takes this general entropy production route?

Swenson, Schneider and Kay, Lineweaver, Salthe and many more have hammered out the basics of how life and mind arise as dissipative structures with the intelligence to exploit entropic gradients.

For example....
http://www.sonoran-institute-for-epistemic-studies.org/images/NYASoriginal.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0895717794901880
https://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~charley/papers/chapter%2016v3.pdf

And they built on the earlier well-known work of Prigogine, Schrodinger and Bertalanffy.

Two points that might conflict with your definition as stated is that life is negentropic only because that, in the end, achieves more entropification.

So it is not that life veers off from least action paths. Instead, it exists because it constructs new ones. It burrows through barriers that were preventing the inorganic from doing a better job on releasing its potential energy.

Bare dirts bounces the sun's radiant energy back into space. Rain forests insert themselves in that path and radiation that would have still been 70 degrees C is degraded into lower potential, 20 degree radiance. Life can exist because it pays for itself by offering better least action paths. The ability for intelligent and personal choices is something subservient to that larger entropic goal.

Then second, replication does kind of matter in a definition of life. The entropy degrading story is the metabolism. But the ability to repair - and hence replicate - the stable body of an organism is a further exceptional feature when it comes to life as a dissipative structure.

A tornado is a dissipative structure doing the Second Law's will. But it is fragile - conjured up by chance circumstance.

Life, on the other hand, has coding mechanisms to ensure its structural stability. It has DNA and other semiotic machinery to regulate its own being and ensure it sticks around doing the Second Law's bidding.

So this is a definitional property. The ability to maintain a constant structure in the face of the environment's usual destabilising uncertainty. Life must be constantly under repair.

Then replication is this capability shifted up a level from the individual structures composing a cell to a remaking of whole cells. And that then allows life to evolve as a genetic lottery. Life is now able to stabilise its entropic design against the environment in general.

So if first life was some kind of proton gradient, autocatalytic, dissipative cycle that emerged in the very particular environment of a warm, acidic, ocean floor thermal vent - a likely hypothesis - then to be able to colonise the wider world, it had to be able to develop both the self-repair that would allow it to persist in that environment. And in so doing - constructing that degree of local independence - it would then have paved the way for a cellular replication that would see it able to adapt and colonise any kind of environment.

So two amendments.

Life remains still tied to the least action principle. Overall, its intelligence is employed to break down the barriers to entropification where inorganic nature had hit some kind of stop, leaving an unspent store of potential energy.

And then a coding machinery to stabilise this path - this dissipative structure - is also definitional. Life is organismic because it has a blueprint of its structure and so a means to repair and replicate that structure.

Thanks for your very thoughtful feedback and input. I will read those scientific Papers later. However I did scan over their abstracts and conclusions and My initial quick take is that I do not believe it conflicts or improves the my approach. For one thing the principle of least action is not related to entropy as far as I know. Moreover, This statement by SWENSON Would seem to contradict with the principlle of least action:
" In particular, which path(s) out of all available paths will a system take to minimize potentials or maximize the entropy? The answer (the law of
maximum entropy production) is the path or assembly of paths that minimizes the
potential (maximizes the entropy) at the fastest rate given the constraints. "

Because the rate of kinetic energy, which is what creates entropy, In a natural system at any given point in its path will Not exceed The lowest action cost to convert the potential energy into kinetic over the whole path from start to finish. The path of least action does not create the maximum entropy. Moreover, it is the opposite, path of most action, that creates the most entropy, Because kinetic energy is released to fast for inertia to absorb thus Requiring more power thereby creating Much greater excess dissipated heat to the environment, which contradicts what they are saying and what nature actually does. Can you reconcile Or correct me that?

Life remains still tied to the least action principle. — apokrisis

I don't think you understand the path of least action because it occurs at every point in the path of action, it is not some net entropy concept. For example, if you are standing in place at any given moment On planet Earth your path of least action is to fall dead to the ground. This has nothing to do with creating maximum entropy or whatever they are talking about.

Again, please reconcile or correct me Where you Believe I am Thinking Wrong.

I Have been actually actively trying to reconcile Second law entropy with the path of least action, so I am very happy that you brought it up, might help me tighten up And expand my Hypothesis/Theories.

Thanks again!

So it is not that life veers off from least action paths. Instead, it exists because it constructs new ones. It burrows through barriers that were preventing the inorganic from doing a better job on releasing its potential energy. — apokrisis

I don't believe that is true because he path of least action in any environment is set by the physics And forces. Living beings cannot change the physics or forces they can only spend Greater kinetic energy At any given point then least action would dictate so as to establish a future gaining potential energy which could be by way of finding new paths or creating less costly ones to get to any given destination. Again I don't think you understand the path of least action in physics, or please explain to me were you believe I'm thinking wrong about it.

A tornado is a dissipative structure doing the Second Law's will. But it is fragile - conjured up by chance circumstance. — apokrisis

I don't think anyone is saying a tornado is alive?

And then a coding machinery to stabilise this path - this dissipative structure - is also definitional. — apokrisis

I'm not convinced that is a fundamental requirement for life. For example, a virus exist just fine without any coding machinery to stabilize its path or repair Changes from its original code. Just the opposite, it uses those "errors" to explore new ways to more effectively search for, And create new types of, hosts and replicate in any given environment.

Swenson, Schneider and Kay, Lineweaver, Salthe and many more have hammered out the basics of how life and mind arise as dissipative structures with the intelligence to exploit entropic gradients. — apokrisis

I don't think Exploiting and entropic gradients Is the key principle In defining life, because nature itself is all about neutralizing all in tropic gradients so there is no need for life in that sense that is just the second law, like osmosis, at work. No entropic gradient means no work can be done at all. The fact that living creatures like everything in the universe Must find and exploit entropic variance to exist does not help define them Apart from inanimate matter, IMHO. For example, You might say a crystal Is alive because it is exploiting entropic Gradients in its environment to create its negentropic, Highly organized lower entropy, structure and replicates itself. So, apparently, you, Swenson, Schneider and Kay Would say a crystal Growing And replicating itself is alive? in their context how would you say if crystal is not alive?

In my definition, a crystal Growing is certainly not alive.

Okay, so I amended my definition to add the following two constraints:
"and perpetuating its unique, non-least-action existence, by self-directed reproduction of a similarly living kind as itself, and wherein the means or goal to Self-replicate or gain potential energy is not programmed or directed by an external consciousness or entity.."

You can see the insertions I made to the original post.

Note that I originally did not see the utility to include the ability to replicate themselves Because under my framework that is just another way to increase one's potential energy; However, I added explicit self replication and no external control limitations to exclude AI robots and Man-made machines in general. Further note, that I currently am not so interested In debating whether man-made machines can never be considered alive. So, for the sake of argument And simplicity here, let's assume that Man-made Machines can never be considered alive. That is not to say, At least according to my current thinking, that they cannot be sentient beings in my framework, however. I know that has Many contradictions, yet it would confound things too much to go down that rabbit hole at this early point, and I'm sure you or others are not going to argue that a robot plugging in power to recharge itself is A living being according to any reasonable definition. So, for now let's just exclude that as I've done in my amended definition.

I'm Look forward to more great scrutiny and discourse on this!

In particular, which path(s) out of all available paths will a system take to minimize potentials or maximize the entropy? The answer (the law of
maximum entropy production) is the path or assembly of paths that minimizes the
potential (maximizes the entropy) at the fastest rate given the constraints. — Swenson

So this says that the least action path does win. Biology puts a whole bunch of paths in active Darwinian competition. And an ecosytem then arises that finds the best average of all those working together.

A messy feeder leaves large crumbs but gobbles fast. A nimble feeder breaks everything very fine, but moves slow. An ecosystem thus combines both extremes of entropification. In a clear space, you first have the gobbling weeds and later the stately trees and their detritus recycling.

So the least action principle is an optimisation principle. Quantum theory employs it to explain how even particle events sample every possible route so as to establish the least action route - the Feynman path integral.

And Darwinian evolution is a way of exploring the space of possible paths. Stanley Salthe's canonical ecosystem life cycle - talking of the three stages of immaturity, maturity and senescence - is a good account of the balancing act involved.

Again I don't think you understand the path of least action in physics — Sir Philo Sophia

That's a bit rich. It is one of my particular subjects. :smile:

I don't think anyone is saying a tornado is alive? — Sir Philo Sophia

Stan Salthe does. Or at least he is willing to argue a dust devil is right on the cusp.

For example, a virus exist just fine without any coding machinery to stabilize its path or repair — Sir Philo Sophia

Huh? A virus just is a stray bit of code. It needs an organism to play host and run its routine, force a cell's metabolism to churn our little replicants.

The RNA code might be wrapped in sturdy sheathing. But that is also why biologists are dubious about calling a virus an actual organism. And from your point of view, when dormant, it is not entropifying. It is not actively organising the world so that there is some metabolic process accumulating potential energy and producing waste by-products.

So, apparently, you, Swenson, Schneider and Kay Would say a crystal Growing And replicating itself is alive? — Sir Philo Sophia

Read and find out.

But crystal growth is an inorganic dissipative structure. It lacks something that biology adds.

Biology is also dissipative structure in a fundamental sense. And that narrows the search for what is its definitional extra.

So my point is that biology as a whole had to rethink its foundations in the 1980s as the surprises of far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics were established in the physical sciences.

And that is what the references I gave did.

This may make your own contribution rather redundant. It has all been worked out with clarity already.

But if you are interested enough to ask the question, it should be welcomed that there is this communal answer to explore.

So this says that the least action path does win. — apokrisis

No it is not saying that. All that it is saying is that the second law requires all potential differences to be minimized and neutralized wherever Naturally possible. The path of least action is saying much more than that. It is specifying an exact way in which those entropic gradients are minimized. That is, Natural processes can only minimize entropic Gradients in the most efficient manner at every single point of time in the path ( i.e. locally And immediately as the wave functions of the particle(s) evolve). That is, at Each and every point In their path they have to do the most Kinetic energy efficient work possible by physics. Whereas living organisms have the option to do inefficient work At any point in a path when it gives It some future potential energy advantage, which is a Simple, plain English Rephrasing of my definition.

Get it now?

This may make your own contribution rather redundant. It has all been worked out with clarity already. — apokrisis

I don't think you understanding my point Which I made before and repeat above. Please specifically answer to my point above and where you think I am wrong about it.

And Darwinian evolution is a way of exploring the space of possible paths. — apokrisis

You cannot compare QED with Darwinian evolution. QED actually makes my point where everything in nature must take the path of least action including All quantum paths When they collapse into classical physics. Darwinian evolution is certainly not finding paths of least action, and does not help the discussion here because Darwinian evolution presumes you started with a living being, so it is circular to mention it here. The path of least action, As defined in physics, for any living system is simply to die. So all your commentary seems to be off point because you are Confounding that meaning of Least action paths With paths that living beings figure out that ultimately end up costing them less later on, whereas inanimates have to always take a more costly path. As I point out in my definition I'm calling the latter a "sentient path of least action", She is a global phenomenon where the natural physics path of least action is a local phenomenon. Another way to put it, is that I'm saying natural inanimate processes must always do locally optimized work, Whereas living beings can hop over Potential gradient barriers to Achieve globally optimized work. This has nothing to do with negentropy concepts. Get it now?

Please reread my definition and my above comments and reframe your arguments accordingly. So far, most all of your comments seem to be off point and wrongly interpreting things, thus not Being constructive Towards moving forward in this regard.

Whereas living organisms have the option to do inefficient work — Sir Philo Sophia

If coal is buried in the ground, that is a huge store of potential energy that inorganic nature is unable to unlock. But even a primitive first human steam engine - about 80% inefficient in terms of extracting work - can create the missing entropic path.

The problem with this inefficiency was that you would only want to use such a steam engine for pumping the water out of your coal mine. So even if it is in fact creating a lot of entropy - waste heat and clouds of smoke - only a very few such devices would ever be built.

But technology is in Darwinian competition. Soon along come steam turbines that are 50% efficient at generating work. That is less entropy it might seem. But now industry wants to use steam turbines everywhere. Coal consumption rockets exponentially. Steam battleships start raining explosives on each other. Total entropy greatly exceeds work extracted. The Second Law sits back and smiles happily at this world.

So if you read the literature, this is the kind of paradox that needed to be thrashed out. Biology is characterised by this seemingly opposed imperative of being both entropically efficient and entropically wasteful. In fact, they are both aspects of the one larger game life has learnt to play.

So there is no choice - because of Darwinian competition - but for organisms to drive towards the energy efficiency that maximises work. Your "free" potential energy stores that apparently remove the constraints of a least action principle.

Yet this happens within the larger story of efficiency promoting exponential growth of the most efficient organisms. Their populations swell to serve the overall purpose of maximising the possibilities for entropy production.

Another way to put it, is that I'm saying natural inanimate processes must always do locally optimized work, Whereas living beings can hop over Potential gradient barriers Achieve globally optimized work. This has nothing to do with negentropy concepts. Get it now? — Sir Philo Sophia

Sure. Biology takes dissipative structure to another level. A local system, armed with a memory, can lay its entropic plans over a considerable span of space and time.

And so memory (acquirable habit and intent) becomes a large part of what is definitional of an organism.

Thus not Being constructive Towards moving forward in this regard. — Sir Philo Sophia

Terribly sorry not to be furthering your own entropy-creating enterprise here. :lol:

Is it really such a shock that science has already worked all this out for itself?

Terribly sorry not to be furthering your own entropy-creating enterprise here. :lol:

Is it really such a shock that science has already worked all this out for itself? — apokrisis

I'll review and consider your rebuttals tomorrow. However, given you believe science has this all worked out then you should state here your or their concise Scientific Definition of Living vs inanimate matter, as I have proposed mine. pointing to white papers making arm waving arguments is not a concise Scientific Definition. If you are not able or willing to do that here then you are not Being constructive Towards moving forward in this regard, and most likely do not have/know of one.

If you are not able or willing to do that here then you are not Being constructive Towards moving forward in this regard, and most likely do not have/know of one. — Sir Philo Sophia

You are still being unconstructively hostile. I've given both ample references and corrected you on two crucial points.

I can point you on your path, but I can't walk if for you.

Swenson, Schneider and Kay, Lineweaver, Salthe and many more have hammered out the basics of how life and mind arise as dissipative structures with the intelligence to exploit entropic gradients. — apokrisis

The Swenson paper is good. Life is a convection cell, order in the service of disorder.

I can point you on your path, but I can't walk if for you. — apokrisis

understood. In other words, thanks for confirming that you do not have or know of a concise Scientific Definition of Living vs inanimate matter. So, maybe science has not clearly defined it? BTW, nothing 'hostile' about asking for that given you claim it has already been done.

So, maybe science has not clearly defined it? — Sir Philo Sophia

If the competition here is for the most concise definition, I would go with Howard Pattee's epistemic cut.

"Rate-independent symbols regulating rate-dependent dynamics"

I'll leave you to scratch your head on that with this as an aid - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12009802_The_physics_of_symbols_Bridging_the_epistemic_cut

If the competition here is for the most concise definition, — apokrisis

no. the 'competition' (if you must) is for the most complete, accurate, and concise definition. So, if your proposed one does not hold up against all counter-examples it would not be complete or accurate, and, thus, being concise would be irrelevant.

"Rate-independent symbols regulating rate-dependent dynamics" — apokrisis

So, for example, what exactly does that say about whether a virus is alive or inanimate?

So, for example, what exactly does that say about whether a virus is alive or inanimate? — Sir Philo Sophia

It is alive when it is in the middle of hijacking some host cell's metabolic machinery. That fits the definition.

But is it then "inanimate" when it is dormant as a viral particle? That's not so clear.

If a viral particle were found as some molecular arrangement in the inanimate world, it would count as an extraordinarily negentropic event - a chance event beating the entropic odds by any number of lifetimes of a universe.

It would be too much of a statistical outlier on that score to fit easily into the category of the inanimate. It wouldn't be merely Pattee's "rate-dependent dynamics", as the time for such a molecular structure to assemble by chance would be far outside such a process.

We would be compelled to invoke rate-independent symbols as the only way that virus particle got constructed. And on earth, we are talking of perhaps as many such particles as there are stars in the sky.

So by implication, the dormant virus is still part of the animate world rather than the inanimate one. Chance couldn't produce it. But Darwinian mechanism could produce it easily.

I'll leave you to scratch your head on that with this as an aid - — apokrisis

Interesting paper, slowly getting through it.

I wonder if there is an analogy between rate-independent symbols and the universal constraints that enable the formation of matter? In other words, that this relationship between symbolic and material operates on a cosmic scale?

dynamical language abstracts away the subject side of the epistemic cut. The necessary separation of laws and initial conditions is an explicit principle in physics and has become the basis (and bias) of objectivity in all the sciences. The ideal of physics is to eliminate the subjective observer completely. It turned out that at the quantum level this is a fundamental impossibility, but that has not changed the ideal. — Howard Pattee

:clap:

I read that Pattee white paper. First off, I tend not to agree with the framework or conclusions of Pattee. while it has some interesting concepts, I find it generally obvious on many levels and I don't find it to be a useful, most general framework. I will make counterpoints in response to your original post on that.

It is alive when it is in the middle of hijacking some host cell's metabolic machinery. That fits the definition. — apokrisis

I don't believe you are interpreting Pattee correctly. If you are a follower of his theories then you have to conclude that a virus is always Inanimate and dead. I cite some passages below to support that conclusion. The main passage is where he says the epistemic cut Happens only at protein folding. Sense of virus itself absolutely never engages in protein folding then according to Pattie it is never life. Moreover, Patty says that you have to consider the organism as a whole and that no part stand alone a considering if it is alive or not. Moreover, he says that the DNA is certainly not alive, Antivirus is nothing more than glorified DNA wrapped in her lipo-protein sheath. If you Believe otherwise based on Pattie then we await your detailed counter arguments along with Supporting citations.

If it is your personal belief that a virus is dead until it is hijacking the replication function of the cell I would say that your hypothesis has many problems and flaws as I'll point out some In a subsequent post.

If a viral particle were found as some molecular arrangement in the inanimate world, it would count as an extraordinarily negentropic event - a chance event beating the entropic odds by any number of lifetimes of a universe. — apokrisis

This type of argument is among the weakest and what is commonly employed by creationists to "prove" that the universe and life had to have been produced by God's intelligent design Because such "a chance event beating the entropic odds by any number of lifetimes of a universe". So, your Reasoning is in very poor company in that regard.

I generally have a disdain for any arguments that rely on statistics to come to any conclusion. You know, there are lies, damned lies, and then there are statistics... For example, using your line of reasoning you would have to conclude that the planet Earth is alive because for all The molecules that make up the earth and its atmosphere to be exactly configured the way they are and to move with the dynamics exactly the way they do would be "a chance event beating the entropic odds by any number of lifetimes of a universe". However not even your proposed definition of life would consider the earth as Alive, so nor should it consider a virus being alive based on such very weak statistical arguments.

So by implication, the dormant virus is still part of the animate world rather than the inanimate one. Chance couldn't produce it. — apokrisis

By way of additional example of how flawed your reasoning is on that, a virus that is exposed Outside of its host environment Quickly degrades and becomes unviable to infect living cells (Such is COVID19 "Dies" After being in the air for four hours), yet the molecular difference between its viable state of matter and its inviable state of matter is very small with respect to entropy differences. So, your line of statistical impossibility reasoning would still call the degraded inviable virus as living because it still "would count as an extraordinarily negentropic event - a chance event beating the entropic odds by any number of lifetimes of a universe". Hence, that line of reasoning is completely fallacious And not Constructive towards a scientific definition of living versus inanimate matter.

But Darwinian mechanism could produce it easily.

Viruses do not have any epistemic cut So according to Patty no Darwinian mechanism could involve them. Besides, I do not see any clear path of how they would've evolved from scratch. So, since you claim it is so easy to produce a virus under Darwinian mechanisms then What would you Propose is a plausible Darwinian mechanism that could have produced a virus from scratch? And, please do start from "first life was some kind of proton gradient, autocatalytic, dissipative cycle that emerged in the very particular environment of a warm, acidic, ocean floor thermal vent ". I, and the whole scientific community, eagerly await for your answer on that.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Supporting citations from your Pettee Reference:
Since we know that a heritable genetic memory is an essential condition for life, my approach to the problem of determinism began by expressing the precise requirements for a constraint that satisfies the conditions for heritability. I can do no better than to restate my early argument (Pattee, 1969b):
...
The only useful description of memory or heredity in a physical system requires introducing the possibility of alternative pathways or trajectories for the system, along with a 'genetic' mechanism for causing the system to follow one or another of these possible alternatives depending on the state of the genetic mechanism. This implies that the genetic mechanism must be capable of describing or representing all of the alternative pathways even though only one pathway is actually followed in time. In other words, there must be more degrees of freedom available for the description of the total system than for following its actual motion. . . Such constraints are called non-holonomic."
In more common terminology, this type of constraint is a structure that we say controls a dynamics. To control a dynamical systems implies that there are control variables that are separate from the dynamical system variables, yet they must be described in conjunction with the dynamical variables. These control variables must provide additional degrees of freedom or flexibility for the system dynamics. At the same time, typical control systems do not remove degrees of freedom from the dynamical system, although they alter the rates or ranges of system variables. Many artificial machines depend on such control
....
This demonstrates that laws cannot describe the pragmatic function of measurement even if they can correctly and completely describe the detailed dynamics of the measuring constraints.
This same argument holds also for control functions which includes the genetic control of protein construction. If we call the controlled system, S, and the control constraints, C, then we can also look at the combined system (S + C) in which case the control function simply disappears into the dynamics. This epistemic irreducibility does not imply any ontological dualism. It arises whenever a distinction must be made between a subject and an object, or in semiotic terms, when a distinction must be made between a symbol and its referent or between syntax and pragmatics. Without this epistemic cut any use of the concepts of measurement of initial conditions and symbolic control of construction would be gratuitous.
"That is, we must always divide the world into two parts, the one being the observed system, the other the observer. In the former, we can follow up all physical processes (in principle at least) arbitrarily precisely. In the latter, this is meaningless. The boundary between the two is arbitrary to a very large extent. . . but this does not change the fact that in each method of description the boundary must be placed somewhere, if the method is not to proceed vacuously, i.e., if a comparison with experiment is to be possible." (von Neumann, 1955, p.419)
....
The concept of an epistemic cut must first arise at the genotype-phenotype control interface. Imagining such a subject-object distinction before life existed would be entirely gratuitous, and to limit control only to higher organisms would be arbitrary. The origin problem is still a mystery. What is the simplest epistemic event? One necessary condition is that a distinction is made by a subject that is not a distinction derivable from the object. In physical language this means a subject must create some form of distinction or classification between physical states that is not made by the laws themselves (i.e., measuring a particular initial condition, removing a degeneracy or breaking a symmetry). In the case of the cell, the sequences of the gene are not distinguished by physical laws since they are energetically degenerate.
....
In the case of the cell, the sequences of the gene are not distinguished by physical laws since they are energetically degenerate. Where does a new distinction first occur? It is where this memory degeneracy is partially removed, and that does not occur until the protein folding process. Transcription, translation, and copying processes treat all sequences the same and therefore make no new distinctions, but of course they are essential for constructing the linear constraints of the protein that partially account for the way it folds. The folded protein removes symbol vehicle degeneracy, but it still has many degenerate states (many conformations) that are necessary for it to function as a non-integrable constraint.

It is important to recognize that the details of construction and folding at this primeval epistemic cut make no sense except in the context of an entire self-replicating cell. A single folded protein has no function unless it is a component of a larger unit that maintains its individuality by means of a genetic memory. We speak of the genes controlling protein synthesis, but to accomplish this they must rely on previously synthesized and organized enzymes and RNAs. This additional self-referent condition for being the subject-part of an epistemic cut I have called semantic (or semiotic) closure (Pattee, 1982, 1995). This is the molecular chicken-egg closure that makes the origin of life problem so difficult.....

I would go with Howard Pattee's epistemic cut.
"Rate-independent symbols regulating rate-dependent dynamics" — apokrisis

I read that Pattee white paper. Thanks for citing it. I do like his thinking and analysis with regard to the genetic coding versus phenotype and functional execution. That is an area I have long been wanting to make some headway on but have had to focus My very limited time in other areas over the years.

However, with regard to living versus inanimate, First off, I do not to agree with the framework or conclusions of Pattee. while it has some interesting concepts, I find it generally obvious on many levels and I don't find it to be a useful, most general framework. It is simply a flavor of Semiotics, which I have always found to be myopic and to anthropomorphic to build a proper Deep fundamental theory around.

In my prior post I Mentioned two counterexamples of how Pattee & semiotics fail To classify a virus As living Matter. and, how a prion Eludes and confounds classification in their framework.

I will make More detailed counterpoints below.


If you are not aware of prions, learn the basics at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion#:~:text=Prion%20variants%20of%20the%20prion,as%20%22mad%20cow%20disease%22)
The word prion, coined in 1982 by Stanley B. Prusiner, is a portmanteau derived from protein and infection, hence prion,[19][20] and is short for "proteinaceous infectious particle",[9] in reference to its ability to self-propagate and transmit its conformation to other proteins

So prions Do the protein folding that Pattee says is the first epistemic cut and they can self replicate themselves so according to you and Patty they must be alive. Right? However, a prion lacks a Separate genotype (no symbols encoding in its Hyper complex functional shape) and phenotype in one. I think Pattee's definition of life which you are quoting would have to conclude that prions are dead. However, are the various degenerate folding's of the prion its symbolic structure as well?

Yet, in my proposed definition they might be alive if they ever avoid taking the path of least action and gain more net potential energy by doing so, which I suspect they do at least in some cases, and they self-replicate. My first instinct is to call prions alive within the Environmental context of Animal metabolism, much like some bacteria can only exist within a living host metabolism. Prions Seem to be more at the border of alive/Inanimate than even viruses in my estimation. So I figure they are a much better test of definitions.

There are many fundamental And serious problems with your proposed definition based on Pettee, Which I believe make it unsuitable as a broad definition of life and offers no Improvement or counterpoint to my definition, thus not a useful contribution to a better definition of life in my proposal. Here are some basic reasons:

[1] Your definition Suffers from being to anthropomorphic and limited to the most common and maybe only example of life that we have, which is based on genotype versus phenotype evolution. This is not necessarily a generic principle of life and is most likely just a particular happenstance of one variation of it. A prion, As I point out above, is a hint at other alternatives that could exist in the universe. Moreover, it classifies a virus as Completely dead Matter, even though you personally believe the virus is alive during the hijacking stage of its existence. So even by your own Beliefs, your definition (Based on Patee) is wrong.
[2] Your definition Requires knowing internal details of the matter (Such as whether it has a genotype Evolutionary Internal regulatory/replication mechanism), which are generally not knowable especially from afar or without very sophisticated technology.
[3] even if we have very sophisticated technology and science Available, your definition Requires doing The near impossible feat of finding an epistemic cut in the matter to Define it as living.
[4] Your definition completely Requires identifying symbols being present in the matter, which seems like a ridiculous and impractical requirement to me. See pettee "Life originated with symbolic memory, and symbols originated with life."

Where as my definition Does not suffer from any of the above problems, and indeed provides a clear solution to each. That is, For example:

[1] My definition Suffers Is completely generic as to any type of life Forms, not limited To those based on genotype versus phenotype evolution. So, if true, is more likely to be a generic principle of life . For example, in my definition a virus Is clearly living Matter At all its stages of life including its dormant stage, and a prion May well be living matter as well.
[2] My definition does not Requires knowing any internal details of the matter (No symbols, epistemic cut, etc.). It draws its conclusions based only the external dynamic behavior Of the matter as it behaves in its Various environments, which are generally knowable, without very sophisticated technology.
[3] My definition Requires Only

external observations of the matter As it behaves along It's various paths of action. So, For example, no need to Find the near impossible to find "epistemic cut".


So, For at least the above reasons, your Definition is not a practical definition for Properly classifying all matter in the universe and establishing a metric for the earliest stage where inanimate matter transitions to living matter.

By the way, I believe Pettee is wrong about this statement in his conclusion section: "Physics largely ignores the exceptional effects of individual (subjective) constraints and boundary conditions and focuses on the general dynamics of laws."

The Principle of least action (Which all of physics including quantum QED and My proposed definition are based on) Focus on the global action that matter/energy takes throughout its path through a field Largely irrespective of any local general dynamics of laws. All that needs to be known are the boundary conditions and the field which acts on the particle throughout its path between the start and finish points.

I should also point out, that it is very curious that you were initially touting an entropic definition of life as being the key defining principle ( e.g., negentropic), But when I asked you to make a concise definition you completely drop that and just focus on pettee's semiotics Genotype versus phenotype symbolic evolution mechanism. So, I take that to mean that you agree with me that entropic definitions are fundamentally flawed and unsuitable as a means to define life versus inanimate.

While I appreciate your attempts here at Offering other definitions, I do not find your Definition Related points and contributions in this regard to be helpful or better performing than my definition. I look forward to your feedback and may be an improved definition that does not suffer from all the problems I have pointed out. I will soon be giving you feedback on your entropic Based counterpoints after I read those papers. However, I'm still pretty sure they will suffer from serious problems along the lines as I pointed out in a prior post.

Thanks again!

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Supporting citations from your Pettee Reference:

This apparent isolation of symbolic expression from physics is born of an epistemic necessity, but ontologically it is still an illusion. In other words, making a clear distinction is not the same as isolation from all relations. We clearly separate the genotype from the phenotype, but we certainly do not think of them as isolated or independent of each other. These necessary non-integrable equations of constraint that bridge the epistemic cut and thereby allow for memory, measurement, and control are on the same formal footing as the physical equations of motion. They are called non-integrable precisely because they cannot be solved or integrated independently of the law-based dynamics. Consequently, the idea that we could usefully study life without regard to the natural physical requirements that allow effective symbolic control is to miss the essential problem of life: how symbolic structures control dynamics.
…
Physics largely ignores the exceptional effects of individual (subjective) constraints and boundary conditions and focuses on the general dynamics of laws. This is because constraints are assumed to be reducible to laws (although we know they are not reducible across epistemic cuts) and also because the mathematics of complex constraints is often unmanageable. Philosophers have presented innumerable undecidable metaphysical models about the mind-brain cut, and physicists have presented more precise but still undecidable mathematical models about quantum measurement. But at the primeval level, where it all began, the genotype-phenotype cut is now taken for granted as ordinary chemistry.
...
Wigner concluded with a speculation about life that there may be a conflict between laws of heredity and quantum theory (see also Wigner, 1961).
6. I define a symbol in terms of its structure and function. First, a symbol can only exist in the context of a living organism or its artifacts. Life originated with symbolic memory, and symbols originated with life. I find it gratuitous to use the concept of symbol, even metaphorically, in physical systems where no function exists. Symbols do not exist in isolation but are part of a semiotic or linguistic system (Pattee, 1969a). Semiotic systems consist of (1) a discrete set of symbol structures (symbol vehicles) that can exist in a quiescent, rate-independent (non-dynamic) states, as in most memory storage, (2) a set of interpreting structures (non-integrable constraints, codes), and (3) an organism or system in which the symbols have a function (Pattee, 1986). There are innumerable symbol functions at many hierarchical levels, but control of construction came first.

My own definition of life is very similar to yours, so I think you're on the right track at least.

My definition hinges on the physics concept of a "machine", which is any physical system that transforms energy from one form to another, which is to say it does "work" in the language of physics.

I propose the definition of a property of such physical work, called "productivity", which is the property of reducing the entropy of the system upon which the work is done.

With that established, I then define "life" as "self-productive machinery": a physical system that uses a flow of energy to do productive work upon itself, which is to say, to reduce its own internal entropy (necessarily at the expense of increasing the overall entropy of the environment it is a part of).

The universal increase of entropy dictated by the second law of thermodynamics is the essence of death and decay, and life in short is anything that fights against that.

It is alive when it is in the middle of hijacking some host cell's metabolic machinery. That fits the definition. — apokrisis

That fits mine too. To my mind, the environment of a host cell is the condition in which a virus is able to live. Just as a human dumped in the vacuum of space would cease to live, so too would a virus dumped out of any host cell.

Certain man-made devices may also count as "alive" under my definition (provided they are in an appropriate environment, just like the virus: plugged into electricity, etc), and I'm fine with that. That doesn't give e.g. my computer, which uses the flow of electricity through it to process information in a way that reduces its own internal entropy, any special moral status just because it's "alive", any more than viruses or amoebae are important moral patients.

It's not just life, but sentience, that makes something a moral patient, on my account. Where "sentience" is the differentiation of experiences into "is" and "ought" models of the world, the differences between which then drive subsequent behavior, rather than behavior being a simple direct response to a simple direct stimulus. In such a way the system in question can have some (reflective) experience of things "not being how they ought to be", e.g. pain, when one model differs from the other.

With that established, I then define "life" as "self-productive machinery": a physical system that uses a flow of energy to do productive work upon itself, which is to say, to reduce its own internal entropy (necessarily at the expense of increasing the overall entropy of the environment it is a part of). — Pfhorrest

I do like your general direction as well, however, your particular definition Suffers from including Crystal growth As a living being, because Crystal growth uses a flow of energy to do productive work upon itself (Build its more ordered lower entropy structure) So it does reduce its own internal entropy And transfers the entropy difference as he to the environment.

My definition gets around the crystal growth problem by requiring a net gain of potential energy And that the work done must not always be the most Energy efficient Rate of work, which inanimate matter must always do.

So if you see my above discussion with regard to prions, according to my definition when the prion makes a copy of itself it has increased its potential energy in that it has amplified its action potential by having more of the same/Similar action possible than if it was only its own single self. I have to learn more about protein folding and prion behavior to say whether they always follow the path of least action or not. I suspect they don't, however. So, I suspect my definition would call them as living.

The universal increase of entropy dictated by the second law of thermodynamics is the essence of death and decay, and life in short is anything that fights against that. — Pfhorrest

I think that is problematic as well because gravity does fight against the second law of thermodynamics as it reduces entropy when matter clumps up together ( less micro-states are available for the matter to explore). So anything that uses such lines of definition I believe would not be viable. My general intuition, is that all entropy based definitions of life would be flawed. I'm still thinking through that and when I go through the Negtropic Articles And arguments that apokrisis Made, I will post some more Reasoned entropy based analysis with regard to living matter. However, I am much more comfortable with an energy and work Framework of defining life than a nebulous/abstract and information entropy related one.

I've always enjoyed reading your posts on other topics so I look forward to your further thoughts and/or critique on the subject.

Cheers!

.. For example, using your line of reasoning you would have to conclude that the planet Earth is alive because for all The molecules that make up the earth and its atmosphere to be exactly configured the way they are and to move with the dynamics exactly the way they do would be "a chance event beating the entropic odds by any number of lifetimes of a universe". However not even your proposed definition of life would consider the earth as Alive, so nor should it consider a virus being alive based on such very weak statistical arguments. — Sir Philo Sophia

Indeed, I am comfortable with any stab at a black and white definition of life having its interesting grey areas. We may differ on that score.

So a virus falls into that vague zone. And so does an ecosystem or a planetary biosphere. The Gaia hypothesis has something to it. Life did transform the earth by creating the oxygen rich atmosphere that then supported the greatly more entropic metabolism of aerobic respiration.

Right there is an example to life being able to evolve its way to even higher levels of dissipative structure. And the earth itself was brought into that regulated bio-loop.

I generally have a disdain for any arguments that rely on statistics to come to any conclusion. — Sir Philo Sophia

I take the opposite position. It is clear reality is an emergent statistical phenomenon. Hence why thermodynamics is the foundational science.

Propose is a plausible Darwinian mechanism that could have produced a virus from scratch? — Sir Philo Sophia

If genes are in competition, then a gene sequence that can hijack the means of its own reproduction is a statistically favoured outcome. The problem for life becomes instead to add enough regulatory machinery to keep this general tendency to go rogue in check.

Bacterial introns and junk DNA show how general this kind of Darwinian warfare is. Life had to evolve its defences, like spliceosomes , to keep a lid on gene sequences going rogue.

And, please do start from "first life was some kind of proton gradient, autocatalytic, dissipative cycle that emerged in the very particular environment of a warm, acidic, ocean floor thermal vent ". — Sir Philo Sophia

I'm not pushing a personal theory here but quoting "the scientific community".

See Nick Lane's summary - https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/why-are-cells-powered-by-proton-gradients-14373960/

However, a prion lacks a Separate genotype (no symbols encoding in its Hyper complex functional shape) and phenotype in one. I think Pattee's definition of life which you are quoting would have to conclude that prions are dead. — Sir Philo Sophia

As I say, grey areas are not a problem here. Indeed - from a semiotic perspective - logical vagueness is basic to a developmental world view. The world can't start already divided. So the big question becomes how can its divisions - its epistemic cuts - arise? And for that, you need to be willing to embrace vagueness as the first ground of any distinctions.

Black and white become what you get by starting with grey and then separating that towards its opposing extremes of light an dark. The darkest grey becomes the black. The lightest becomes the white. A binary division is developed. But only in the sense that some symmetry breaking has been taken to its complementary limits.

You want to treat live vs death, animate vs inanimate, as dualistic categories. And so any greyness or vagueness has to be eliminated from "the holy definitions".

But my organic and semiotic perspective takes the opposite view. Definitions are pragmatic. Differences are only relative. Vagueness is how anything new could even originate as a process of symmetry breaking development.

So if life is defined by its organismic being - Robert Rosen's definition of life as a closed system of entailment - then that holism demands all a cell's parts are in functional co-operation. But within co-operation is buried the very antithesis of parts instead going rogue and being in competition.

Hence no surprise that life erupts in that direction too with its viruses, prions, introns and other bits of cellular machinery making their bid for freedom.

You should probably read Rosen's definition of life as well here. He and Pattee were colleagues so it is another angle on the general biosemiotic approach.

See - http://www.people.vcu.edu/~mikuleck/PPRISS3.html

Prions Seem to be more at the border of alive/Inanimate than even viruses in my estimation. So I figure they are a much better test of definitions. — Sir Philo Sophia

Or maybe they just say borders are grey on close inspection - vague and not crisp. Analog not digital.

So, For at least the above reasons, your Definition is not a practical definition for Properly classifying all matter in the universe and establishing a metric for the earliest stage where inanimate matter transitions to living matter. — Sir Philo Sophia

But it is you rather than me that is so hung up on concise definitions. Life and mind are too complex a phenomenon to be pinned down quite so easily.

Tornadoes and dust devils are also borderline dissipative structures if you are trying to force a biotic/abiotic division on nature. Belousov–Zhabotinsky (BZ) reactions are a classic example of inorganic systems being able to evolve better least action paths for themselves - convection cells that transfer heat with better efficiency.

So the dead/alive distinction is very easy to apply to nature when we talk about rocks vs wombats. And becomes a suitably grey matter when we talk about tornadoes vs prions.

The cites I have given on the issue address two issues.

My first post pointed you in the direction of those who have been demonstrating how the sciences of life and mind can be founded on the physics of far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics. All life in general is dissipative structure. And then different as a dissipative structure in having the evolutionary capacity to break down barriers against entropification - to construct least action paths that wouldn't otherwise have existed.

You've ignored that so far.

Now that the discussion has turned to Pattee and Rosen, we are getting into the semiotic mechanism - the epistemic cut - that enables a dissipative structure to gain a regulatory control over its own being in this way.

And so that now neatly roots biology in a psychological and even linguistic and logical perspective.

Biology is placed on its correct foundation in terms of the physics. And is also being shown to be founded in the very "other" of physics - that mental or Platonic realm which we think of as information and meaning.

You ask for definitions. I am concerned with fundamentals.

And being a systems thinker, a holist, that is why I would want to show how biology - as something particular - arises from this founding combo of brute materiality and teleological intent. Physics and symbols.

The Principle of least action (Which all of physics including quantum QED and My proposed definition are based on) Focus on the global action that matter/energy takes throughout its path through a field — Sir Philo Sophia

Exactly. The teleological and holistic view. The system is imbued with its basic all-constraining principle. Something - horrors - almost mindlike.

The only way to then demystify that telic principle is to follow Pattee, Rosen and other semioticians. The scientific account has to be expanded so it is anchored in the duality of physics and symbols, code and process, entropy and information.

Your definition fails to do that. And indeed, you explicitly reject the symbol side in saying replication is irrelevant. The reason for citing Pattee is that it succinctly does give equal weight to both sides of the semiotic equation.

I look forward to your feedback and may be an improved definition that does not suffer from all the problems I have pointed out. I will soon be giving you feedback on your entropic Based counterpoints after I read those papers. However, I'm still pretty sure they will suffer from serious problems along the lines as I pointed out in a prior post. — Sir Philo Sophia

I'm sure nothing will disturb the tranquility of your prejudices here.

But I look forward to discovering how many more random spellings of Pattee you will be able to generate. I think we are up to six now!