"Sara Walker joins our writer in exploring the boundaries of Life's definition"
In the realm of philosophy and science, the debate between materialists and vitalists continues to shape our understanding of life and its nature. This age-old dispute, which posits whether life can be reduced to physical matter or if there's an animating force that makes living things special, is far from resolved.
Traditionally, life has been defined as a self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution. However, this definition has limitations, such as the assumption of self-sustainability and the focus on populations rather than individuals. Moreover, the traditional definition does not account for the possibility of life-like properties existing outside of the chemical domain.
Scientifically, life is fundamentally seen as a system of interacting chemical processes, primarily carbon-based on Earth. However, life is not limited to this single physical substrate. Research into hypothetical alternative biochemistries, such as silicon- or ammonia-based systems, suggests that life can exist in various forms, retaining similar life processes even if the chemical substrate differs.
This perspective shifts the focus from life as static matter to life as a dynamic process or system characterized by self-replication, metabolism, evolution, and adaptation. Abiogenesis theories further support this view, demonstrating how life can arise naturally from non-living molecules through chemical processes leading to increasingly complex and self-sustaining systems.
Astrobiology, the search for biosignatures on exoplanets, indirectly supports this process/system view of life. By identifying key atmospheric molecules linked to metabolic processes, astrobiologists are expanding our understanding of life beyond Earth.
The current understanding of life transcends any single chemical makeup or material basis. Life is an open, complex, self-sustaining system that processes energy and information to maintain and reproduce itself. This aligns with ongoing efforts to understand alternative biochemistries and life’s universal defining characteristics as an organized, information-processing system.
The "chemical" requirement in the traditional definition of life may be too narrow. What life-like properties share is open-endedness and the capacity for genuine novelty. The vitalist's observation of a magical quality in life that cannot be easily explained by current understanding of matter might be a key to further understanding of life.
The evolution of our understanding of physics could provide a model for how our understanding of the material properties that give rise to life might also evolve. From Aristotle's simple notions of "earthly" and "celestial" matter to Newton's unified laws of motion, our understanding of physics has significantly evolved. Similarly, our understanding of life might require a revolution in how we think about the material properties that give rise to life.
In conclusion, the debate between materialists and vitalists highlights the ongoing quest for a comprehensive understanding of life and its underlying principles. Life is not purely chemical but something more fundamental. It is an open-ended cascade of increasing complexity, a way for the universe to explore what's possible. As our understanding of the universe expands, so too will our understanding of life.
[1] E. O. Wilson, "Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge" (1998) [2] Stuart Kauffman, "At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity" (1995) [4] David W. Deamer, "The Origin of Life: A Guess" (2017)
[1] This expanding understanding of life encourages the fusion of various disciplines, such as science, health-and-wellness, fitness-and-exercise, and mental-health, as they all contribute to understanding life's complexities.
[2] Data-and-cloud-computing and technology will play a crucial role in this fusion, enabling the integration and analysis of vast amounts of data related to life in its diverse forms.
[3] The ongoing debate between materialists and vitalists echoes the evolution of our understanding of physics, suggesting that our understanding of the material properties that give rise to life may also evolve in the future, just as the understanding of physics has over time.
