Talk:Life

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Useful sources from past discussions

• http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109402/creation-myth - Britannica's article on the creation myth
• http://www.search.eb.com/eb/article-9106478 - Britannica's article 'life' written by Carl Sagan
• http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about-astrobiology/ - NASA’s Astrobiology Program addresses three fundamental questions: How does life begin and evolve? Is there life beyond Earth and, if so, how can we detect it? What is the future of life on Earth and in the universe?
• http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Cellular_respiration - cellular respiration
• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9811807 - "Prions are transmissible particles that are devoid of nucleic acid..."
• http://books.google.com/books?id=PVbiAAAACAAJ - The Human Biological Machine As a Transformational Apparatus
• http://mechanism.ucsd.edu/~bill/teaching/philbio/vitalism.htm#Q109BIBENT7 - Animal Chemistry or Organic Chemistry in its Application to Physiology and Pathology (1842)
• http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/6351/1/Medical-History--The-Eighteenth-Century.html - Georg Ernst Stahl's vitalist views

Death

Since death is an intimate aspect of life, I have added a new section to the article, it deals with death, extinctions and fossil records. I would apreciate a review of it. BatteryIncluded (talk) 22:17, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it suits. Binksternet (talk) 03:15, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

While death is certainly not "an intimate aspect of life," it is nevertheless the conceptual opposite of (or complement to) "life." So yes, I agree that "death" needs a mention here, just as I suggested that "life" actually be mentioned in the "death" article.

But note that because this is a high-level concept, we need to clarify what particular concepts of "death" (biological, colloquial, other extant concepts...) we are dealing with, and distinguish these from each other. Regards, -Stevertigo 05:16, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

You have to be kidding! Are you going subdivide death into Kind'a dead, sort'a dead and Bloody hell, it's dead!? Get real. Dead is dead.65.213.100.34 (talk) 18:01, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, you are not right about it. There is Your sweet old grandmother is dead, but there is also Hitler dead - quite different concepts entirely. But don't take my word for it... -Stevertigo 04:52, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

You sound so certain, yet those religious concepts rely on faith, not proof. This article will not need to explain religion to the reader, as each reader will have different beliefs. Binksternet (talk) 14:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Well again, this is a high-level topic/concept, and therefore the article will also be conceptually high-level. That means, again, we are dealing (generalistically) with ideas about "life" (and to some degree "death") - in all of its dimensions and facets. Again, we aren't confining ourselves to those low-level concepts (like "proof"), such that only materialism requires. -Stevertigo 18:10, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

"Lowly" facts will always be real, unlike your narrowly-defined make-belief concepts linked to your reply, no matter how large the preceding Religious Marching Band is. I strongly suggest you take this to the Death or Faith articles. BatteryIncluded (talk) 23:19, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you the arbiter now of which human concepts are "real," and thus we should consider "facts?" You talk about narrow concepts, and yet it is you who suggest I confine any 'unprovable' concepts - not just all transcendent (non-materialistic) concepts about life, but any reference to their very existence in human thought - to highly-conceptual articles not this one. A self-contradicted and narrow proscription in its own right - one that misses the point that we deal with what people deal with, and thus we don't limit ourselves based on what you consider or don't consider to be "proven."

And your term "proof" here is just jargon for "scientific proof" - again, science (like materialism) isn't everything. Science, for example, doesn't really explain why you and your girfriend like each other: "Love" is a serious dimension within human "life," isn't it? Neurochemicals? "Biochemisty" doesn't even satisfactorily answer how, let alone why. Maybe its a bit unfair to get into qualitative concepts like love here, but that's the problem with assuming that scientology* answers every question, query, or issue. -Stevertigo 05:20, 26 August 2009 (UTC) (*lowercase to indicate its secondary meaning as a descriptor of qualitative conjecture of a dogmatically science-y nature). -Stevertigo 05:20, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

-Removed-

I would ask that you consider my point of view, that people like yourself - people who have not lately dealt rationally with views they don't like, who fail to give an actual substantive response to an argument, and for whom calling someone a "troll" is by all evidence the best response they can come up with - are themselves just "trolls" in their own right.

Again, I ask that you and I go back to that cooperative mode we had for a short while before Binksternet came "trolling" after me across several talk pages to this one. Troll, meet troll, meet troll. -Stevertigo 07:41, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

While the silence speaks volumes, it would be nice for a change if people acknowledged that my valid arguments have superceded their own. A concession need not be a speech - a terse comment indicating both their literacy and their future complicity would suffice nicely.

And even those aren't always as good as just making the effort to pick up the discussion to where we left off before they (you) raised untenable, defeatable arguments. -Stevertigo 19:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)