Life Definition Explorer
The Most Fundamental Question: What Is Life?
๐ฏ Choose Your Exploration Depth
๐ค Why Is Defining Life So Hard?
After centuries of inquiry, there's still no universal consensus on what "life" means. Is a virus alive? What about AI? A self-replicating robot? Fire consumes, grows, and reproduces - is it alive? The N=1 problem: we only know Earth life, making it impossible to distinguish universal features from Earth-specific accidents.
Why does this matter? Astrobiology needs definitions to detect alien life. Synthetic biology creates novel life forms. AI raises questions about machine consciousness. Assembly Theory (2023) offers a new approach: detect what life DOES rather than what life IS.
๐ Major Definitions of Life Through History
Self-sustaining chemical system
Capable of Darwinian evolution. Used in Mars exploration.
What life DOES, not what life IS
Measure molecular complexity via assembly index. Nature publication.
Self-creating, self-maintaining
Maturana & Varela. Focus on organizational closure.
Localized decrease in entropy
"What is Life?" - negative entropy (negentropy).
Pattern that processes information
Substrate-independent. Includes digital life.
Koshland's PICERAS
Program, Improvisation, Compartmentalization, Energy, Regeneration, Adaptability, Seclusion.