What Makes You ALIVE? Is Life Even REAL?!

[@ScienceAsylum]

Y'all asking me about a refrigerator as if it's a counter-example to my entropy definition. Maybe a fridge _is_ alive!! 🤷‍♂️ I'm not discounting it.

[@jwrosenbury]

My fridge is alive. I need to clean it, but fear stays my hand.

[@MrJdcirbo]

Perhaps we're asking the wrong questions. Most life on Earth isn't even aware it is alive. And any definition of life contrary to accepted models wouldn't need to be aware of its life status either. Maybe we should ask "what does it take to be aware you are alive?"

[@robharwood3538]

Next time you do this poll, add prions to the list. I'd categorize them as not-alive, whereas I'd say viruses are alive. The contagiousness aspect of prion diseases like Mad Cow Disease et al. might give some people the sense that they are alive. Would be interesting to see what people think. (Might need to give a primer on what prions are, first, though.)

[@robharwood3538]

There's a slightly tricky distinction between the questions:
Alive: "What does it mean to be alive?"
Life: "What does it mean to be (a form of) life?"
I think the question of Life is the key question, and then once you've got that figured out, the question of what is 'alive' follows fairly easily (though not without its own little nuances). Something is 'alive' if it is a form of life that is still capable of sustaining itself within an ecological niche.
Thus, mules are alive, since they are forms of life, even though they themselves cannot reproduce (on their own). Also, viruses would be alive, since my definition of life doesn't require having all the working parts necessary to reproduce (neither do male humans by themselves, nor female humans by themselves!), only that -- in the end -- they *do* reproduce (with at least some mutation and inheritance).
Indeed, for my definition, the key aspect of 'life' is its ability to evolve. Fridges, by themselves, don't really evolve. *_Designs_** of fridges,* though... that's another story! 😮

[@jeffrelf]

A refrigerator has programming.
An acorn has programming.
A car has programming.
Everything from a photon to
a black hole has programming.
"God" (nature) programmed us to
consume residual "eXergy" ( energy that
can do "work", force * distance )
as the cosmos goes from infinitely
hot/dense to infinitely cold/sparse.
"Randomness" is ignorance, not entropy;
i.e. the future is just as fixed as the past;
i.e. "God" (nature) is static, forever
and always ( as Einstein preached ).
Life is, at once, everything yet nothing.

[@kgangadhar5389]

I love that last definition of life "A package of self-maintained order, Fighting against the endless march towards chaos"

[@Ebani]

That's a philosophycal definition though, you still need to define what it actually is in reality

[@rafaelalvarez3512]

in both the body and the mind

[@sadatnafis2032]

Exactly what I was gonna comment 😅

[@timofejSE]

What's about a virus? Isn't it a package of self-maintained order?

[@nemonomen3340]

​@@Ebani What do you mean by a philosophical definition? Is defining a chair as "a piece of furniture made to be sat on." a philosophical definition? I don't see a difference.

[@dan7291able]

"Maybe Life is just matter that has taken control over its own destiny" Love it Nick, great job

[@karanpreetkalra4550]

Not in such a big world, not anymore.

[@shameiti]

More like matter is life that is imagining matter.

[@geoffgeoff143]

The ability to think and reason? What about cyanobacteria?

[@FadiAkil]

Because he sought "universality", he ended up with metaphysics rather than physics.

[@drmadjdsadjadi]

Except that implies free will exists because the only way to take control over your own destiny is to resist deterministic processes. An entity that does not have free will does not have control over its own destiny because it’s destiny has already been predetermined. Therefore, life does not exist. Fermi paradox solved!

[@jonascarrillo8699]

In my experience as a biologist. We only have that "definition for life" just to be able to have an answer and get rid of that problematic question anytime someone asks. That´s because no one really knows what life is, and it is better to just use the old tactic of dodging the question while trying to look smart and convincing, so noone realices you don´t know the answer. ...that and the fact most biologists don´t know nothing about philosophy and history of biology.
So in the end it is a concensus. A concensus of ignorance of the same kind that makes families not want to talk about "that uncle".
Great video Nick. =)

[@carlospenalver8721]

Yeah “that uncle” the one with the shifty eyes . Yeaaah.

[@radioactivelight2189]

I don't like having feelings

[@FireyDeath4]

People are so desperate for answers but never stop to realise "I don't know" is a valid answer even if it's not the actual answer
People should really trust science. It's practically an endeavour that approximates truth as closely as it can get. Theories are very credible.

[@carlospenalver8721]

@@FireyDeath4 you think people should trust science? There’s this little known thing labeled Havana syndrome . It’s really sciency. It uses data stored in your DNA. Yep more sciency stuff. HUmans are getting programmed like a computer. Don’t believe me look at DNA data storage . Tie 5G a d 6G into it and you’ll see how it works. Trust science , why?

[@FireyDeath4]

​@@carlospenalver8721 Oh, now humans being programmed like computers is the believable part.
Where do you think pharmacies, surgeries and rocket factories get their information?

[@workhardism]

"Results or results. You can't just go throwing them away because they don't match your expectations." Words of a true scientific mind who's great at what he does. 👍

[@IloveRumania]

Politicians: Sorry, what?

[@xd0895]

@@IloveRumania true

[@jujusofine317]

I teach biology, chemistry, and physics. It takes me 4 years to get students to have that epiphany moment on the definition of life. You did it in 12 min.

[@rayyan21d]

Actually 14 sir

[@yugchauhan4890]

@@rayyan21d Bruh

[@Evangq]

@Robert Scott This video is a "teacher."

[@CP-bn1yp]

Just read a good Biochemistry textbook like Lehninger's. Takes about a week or two.

[@michaelstanley5575]

@Robert Scott some people would even if you wouldn't.

[@ProfRonconi]

I think your definition of life is the best I could ever think of: something is alive if its activity tends to forestall its dilution into indistiguishability. A hopeless struggle, to be sure, but an inevitable one.

[@poisonpotato1]

What about sea sponges that just sit there and by chance food flows into them. Or jellyfish just floating in the current?

[@juanausensi499]

@@poisonpotato1 They still fall well into that definition. 'Activity' doesn't mean full-body movement.

[@alexneigh7089]

@@juanausensi499 My calculator is actively doing sums when prompted, without full-body movements. It is alive anyway.

[@cwelldood]

"When it comes down to it, maybe life is just matter that's taken control of its own destiny." is a similar to an epiphany I reached back in college. It helped me get through a long, broody pessimistic-nihilistic period in my life. Now I'm more of a optimistic-nihilist. :)

[@Hulululul488]

Kurzgesagt has a really cool video on Optimistic Nihilism

[@AverageAlien]

Cringe

[@cheezmuffintv1755]

This video: *exists*
Refrigerators: *happy alive noises*

[@WarrenGarabrandt]

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[@laz7354]

That's cold, man.

[@alexneigh7089]

This video exists when played. Just like a virus.

[@Gaaach]

"A package of self-maintained order fighting against the endless march toward chaos" Beautifully put!

[@shameiti]

I really doubt that anybody consider themselves to be a package.

[@colleenforrest7936]

Cool!
Now, explain gravity

[@GMPranav]

Based on how ordered and well-made this is, imma believe this video is alive

[@davidabdollahi7906]

Now that's what I call a smart comment :)

[@hatenasjunjou4651]

I like your Pic lol

[@fallendown8828]

The commenters of this chanel is very smart with their jokes and compliments 😄

[@tortysoft]

Only if it is watched :-)

[@dcterr1]

Turing machines are arguably alive since they're capable of self-replication, which amounts to reproduction, and they fit the other criteria as well. Since Conway's Game of Life is Turing complete, one can make a good case that some sufficiently complex patterns in the game are alive. The magic ingredient to biological life on Earth is DNA, which can be regarded as a sort of Turing tape, which acts as a blueprint.

[@Rudxain]

A Turing Machine cannot reproduce, but data within its tape CAN reproduce, especially if that data describes a program. Since TMs can compute anything computable, they can execute a TM within themselves (a Virtual TM) only if you give them a program that describes the VTM. Some TMs are allowed to modify the source code of the program at runtime, in that case, the program doesn't need to be a VTM to reproduce. Normally, TMs use the Harvard Architecture (executable data and normal data are isolated, and allocated to separate tapes/memory devices), so self-modifying code isn't possible unless you run a VTM.
Edit: I did some research and it seems you're right! A real/physical TM (not theoretical. Because a standard TM is just a "mathematical concept") can only reproduce if you give it mechanical peripheral devices. Those devices must be able to read the tape of the machine. Once those requirements are met, the TM can literally dominate the entire universe (given enough time, with enough energy and matter)

[@dcterr1]

@@Rudxain You seem to know a lot about Turing machines and computer architecture, and I'm glad you're not one of those people who think life contains some magical quality endowed by God.

[@Rudxain]

@@dcterr1 lol thanks

[@dcterr1]

I've been recently thinking about quantum mechanics, consciousness, and spirituality, and I confess that I've changed my mind regarding my previous statement. I now think that at least consciousness requires spirit, which cannot be simulated by a classical cellular automaton, but is rather a quantum mechanical property and an essential component of life as we know it, i.e. biological life on earth.

[@Rudxain]

@@dcterr1 character development lol. Ok jokes aside, consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, it means it cannot be explained by simple interactions between neurons, unless we take into account the system as a whole. However, every system is made of individual simpler components, if those components were to behave differently, the whole system will also behave differently.
And if you believe conscious beings have soul, then some animals also have soul (like dolphins) but the problem is if animals also have soul then microorganisms also can have soul, we can even get as far to say that all objects have soul, the entire universe is a single soul made of multiple souls, all connected to each other. This is an interesting idea, but it would mean that nothing has soul, because everything has it. It loses its uniqueness and stops being special.
We also have to take into account the possibility of the brain tricking us into "feeling that we can think". Yes we can think and we are aware and conscious, but not all the time. Subconsciousness is something that takes away A LOT of our free will every day without realizing. This happens a lot to humans, imagine how little free will primitive-brain animals have (note, not all animals have "primitive" brains)

[@wilhelmschmidt7240]

Addressing life as something that resists entropy within itself is a very interesting way to consider what life is, I like it.

[@MatthewStinar]

That ending was the most sane definition of life I've ever come across.
Others seem to be some variation of, "Like humans, but I can't exactly say how. I'll know it when I see it.".

[@Royvan7]

by that definition are vortexes alive? if memory serves vortexes maintain low entropy internally and increase the surrounding entropy and can "eat" other vortexes.

[@pocketniroman]

@@Royvan7 Then yes

[@Royvan7]

@@pocketniroman does that mean the super-storm on jupiter is alien life?
also, just occurred to me that that would imply hurricanes are alive as well. make the fact we name them funnier to me.

[@pocketniroman]

@@Royvan7 Yes, to me, I think the question of what is alive is silly, everything is just as alive as the other; or you can say just as NOT alive as the other. We are all just meat machines, no different from the metal machines we use in factories

[@Royvan7]

@@pocketniroman don't agree with you there. i'm a devout Catholic. i get where you're coming from, but two big counter points come to mind. first, by that logic "life" is a useless descriptor. it would essentially be a synonym for "exists". second, consciousness is a thing. i'm not sure 'is conscious' is a good definition for 'alive', tho.
i definitely agree our bodies are meat machines just as you describe. not much different from metallic machines but in complexity and robustness. that doesn't mean that drawing a distinction between alive and not isn't useful. as well as, the point that 'you' may include more than just the body.

[@joeyadesantis]

I love your passion, sense of humor, and ability to explain these concepts in understandable ways. Thank you for being a teacher :)

[@alexnik1181]

I think life is amazing when we are surrounded by people we love.

[@ScienceAsylum]

Very poetic.

[@chingamfong]

"Maybe life is endlessly fighting the universe's march towards chaos." Well said. Except we are bound to lose the fight.
Exhibit A: my messy bedroom.

[@jwrosenbury]

It's not about whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. [Hint: We lose.]

[@corydharma]

We won't win with that attitude. "Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

[@FriedrichHerschel]

It isn't messy. It's perfecty ordered - by gravity.

[@kreynolds1123]

As fighting the universe's march to chaos or entropy only hastens the march to entropy, might that not demand a rethink on are we actually fighting the universe's march, or are we embracing it, helping it along.

[@FriedrichHerschel]

@@kreynolds1123 I see. So, lazyness is the solution.

[@hommadi2001]

“Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don’t know why I bother to say it, oh God, I’m so depressed. Here’s another one of those self-satisfied doors. Life! Don’t talk to me about life.” -Marvin

[@Osiris4441]

@Gar Goil Starvin Marvin?

[@JivanPal]

Marvin the Paranoid Android, _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_

[@seanwhatstone8880]

Life: the fight of order against chaos. Funny that by finding the definition of life you also found the meaning off it.

[@dakodak7]

OMG! Thank you!
I remember in highschool that I argued with a teacher that the defining characteristic of life is fighting entropy. He insisted that I had to follow the written rules in the book!
I always hated to blindly follow written rules because that’s what the program is.

[@lpburdek]

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer”
― Douglas Adams

[@Mal1234567]

it's 42.

[@adisario]

"A living thing adaptively uses available energy gradients to prevent entropy from increasing within itself."

[@Lucky10279]

Where's that quote from?

[@czar6203]

@@Lucky10279 nick lucid

[@timothyhallbeck9853]

The life form and bumpers that continuously reproduce at 6:20 are fantastic. Wrote a version of Life back in 1980, but never came up with a seed that spawned a stream of new creatures. Cool dude, very cool.

[@dougsteel7414]

I love that this is showing how consciousness which is normally subject to philosophy is amenable to science. Brilliant

[@sorin.n]

"A package of self maintened order, fighing against the endless march towards chaos." Superb! 👍

[@cleitonoliveira932]

I've been using the "resistance from entropy" as a definition for life for a while. As an amateur philosopher I use it to describe what beauty is too, and the capability to recognize beautiful things as anything that is a successful result of the entropy resistance. So for me, alive and beautiful is the exactly same thing.

[@JivanPal]

Interesting worldview 🙂

[@ulti-mantis]

So, according to your definition, can a landscape shaped only through abiotic processes be considered beautiful? It doesn't try to actively resist entropy, it's in fact shaped by it.

[@cleitonoliveira932]

@@ulti-mantis yeah, the successful result of entropy resistance. In a nutshell, order from chaos.

[@cleitonoliveira932]

​@barutaji you can't resist entropy, but you can manipulate it to achieve nice things. The natural ability to recognize beauty seems to me the same thing as the ability to recognize complexity, which has the potential to be made from complex and orderly structures or living creatures.
However complex not always mean ordered, see the videos from this channel. 'Nick' makes complex topics simpler so a larger amount of people could understand. He makes them more beautiful because they seem chaos for those who can't understand. Even when we study some of these things at school we hate it, and 'Nick' makes them more beautiful, more ordered, less chaotic. But that's just my world view, it's nothing special or scientific.

[@suspiciousdoge9yand104]

Alive and Beautiful being exactly the same thing: Hnnnnn no. One is a status, the other is an opinion.

[@rubyweapn8312]

Can you do quark and strange stars and the correlation between fast radio bursts??? Your vids are top class. Yours more than just a channel. A necessity.

[@DimljenaRiba]

Man, those were exactly my shower thoughts on life for years! But I didn’t do my research on it. This video is so satisfying you have no idea!!!!!!

[@kingplunger6033]

finally I can see the results of that poll

[@ScienceAsylum]

I promised you'd see them eventually 🤓

[@rvmishra9881]

@@ScienceAsylum and yes we did ..!

[@rvmishra9881]

@@ScienceAsylum i never knew it was intended for this

[@ScienceAsylum]

@@rvmishra9881 Surprise!

[@Kevin_Street]

This is a _really_ good video! Your definition of life is pretty much what I already believed, except you develop the definition with 100x more clarity and logical rigor. With content like this, I'm, definitely subscribing to your channel.

[@impulsetones6727]

After watching black mirror ( this show makes you wonder if digital clones and simulations are actually alive) , this video hits right at home ! keep up the good work nick :)

[@channingmorrison8115]

You stuck the landing on this one. Perfect 10 on the video. What a profound and insightful way to ask and answer this question.

[@ScienceAsylum]

Thanks! I worked hard on this one.

[@abhishekpatawari6871]

from physics to philosophy
*_NICE_*

[@gaberowe2]

Life: a negative entropy pump.. yep feels like a physics explanation.. I like it..

[@dru4670]

Life is the only thing that defies entropy, which is kinda cool.

[@jorgepeterbarton]

@@dru4670 I wonder if it really does.
Does it not emerge from a bunch of random permutations but happen to be the permutation that's self sustaining?
And it self sustains by increasing entropy (often of other living things, or just to use an energy gradient).
and for adaptation relies on some random events in the DNA, most of which are useless entropy until one that improves the sustainability of the lifeform comes along.
Then again, we are basically machines that give complex order to atoms and molecules, replicating them so perhaps not. Perhaps entropy is just our slave and we are not one of it. It even helps us build trains and cool stuff, to make ordered technology out of it. So we 'capture' it not 'fight' it.

[@jorgeastiazaran]

I think that's a great definition for life: "a system which uses energy from its surroundings to maintain (or even decrease?) Entropy whitin it".
The next question for me would be: why did nature create such a system? What's the likelihood of it?

[@ankokuraven]

What I would, personally, alter the list to be more open to potential future findings:
•Distinct units of construction in some medium.
•Units of information that define the nature of the subject in question.
•A system that intakes, outputs, and catalyzes changes in mass-energy.
•The system maintains a state, directed by its defining information, of organization and lower relative entropy.
•The ability to respond to stimuli.
•The ability to actively ensure the majority of its defining information continues in some fashion.

[@andie_pants]

Can we take a moment to appreciate that the ultimate randomness is perfect uniformity?

[@olmostgudinaf8100]

Yes!
I've always had an issue with explaining "entropy" as "disorder". To me, a bunch of different stuff mashed together into a perfect, homogeneous sphere is more "ordered" than the same bunch of stuff arranged in a complicated structure. "Uniformity" is much better.

[@harriehausenman8623]

You mean like CCC?

[@LuisAldamiz]

@@olmostgudinaf8100 - But how is a broken cup more "uniform" than an unbroken one? I'd say the word is amorphous, i.e. without form (or in other words: meaningless, trivial, pointless).

[@spnkrr]

LOL, that's like Darkseid level supervillain stuff.

[@jeffrelf]

"Randomness" is ignorance, not entropy;
i.e. the future is just as fixed as the past;
i.e. "God" (nature) is static, forever
and always ( as Einstein preached ).
Everything ( life, gravity, photons )
is residual "eXergy" ( energy that can do
"work", force * distance ) as the cosmos
goes from infinitely hot/dense
to infinitely cold/sparse.
"God" (nature) programmed us to
consume residual eXergy.

[@ulti-mantis]

Maybe we could define life as "a self preserving system that minimizes internal entropy by externalizing it"?
Related: I really the hypothesis that, since the universe tends to maximize entropy, and life as we know it tends to increase net entropy more than a random arrangement of its own components would, then life would probably arise WHEREVER conditions for it exist, kinda like an "optimization" of the entropic process. Life might be very common in the universe, if this is true.

[@newhoggy]

This is pretty much my current working definition of life.
I think typical examples of Conway's Game of Life fails this criteria because they don't model an entropy gradient in the universe that shapes in the game are forced survive by externalising entropy.
Something else that's necessary is a Universe with some concept of "activation energy" that blocks the Universe from spontaneously collapsing into the maximum entropy state.
For example mixing gas and air is insufficient to spontaneously result in CO2 and H2O. Hence the need for fire provide the environment necessary to exceed or or lower the activation energy.

[@this_surya]

Im so in love with the intriguing questions the videos of this channel address.

[@sppindrpurple1981]

Your definition of life near the end of this episode is the best one I've heard yet

[@cherubin7th]

The end was the best definition I ever saw. Would have been fun to address the poll again with this definition.

[@moiravoss7019]

Love your open-minded explanations! This is good stuff!
"A package of self-maintained order, Fighting against the endless march towards chaos" - possible examples: a star, a planet, a human, an animal, an AI...

[@artdonovandesign]

You're last definition is FASCINATING! What a great episode. Memorable!

[@lihtness]

Intuitively, I had always imagined life as something capable of temporarily slowing entropy's march forward in time.

[@philjamieson5572]

I love the unique, witty, and even-handed way you tackle these tough questions.

[@maxpayne930]

Nope it,s just energy and data : )

[@philjamieson5572]

@@maxpayne930 Max Payne: Nope? What are you gibbing on about?

[@atklm1]

The true problem is the words "life" and "alive" themselves. Those concepts are made by human intuition before they had any criteria.

[@unvergebeneid]

So?

[@SaintBrianTheGodless]

Agree with you very much as re: Star Trek. Both very optimistic, and also, at least in the original series, taught us how to think. Kirk was the Intuitive mind and Spock the Logical mind and we'd always get to see the balanced compromise between the two for every situation. I learned to think watching it as a child.

[@GabrielVitor-kq6uj]

This is so neat, it's exactly how I begun to describe life after I started studying entropy.
For me it's that simple! You could even go around philosophically and say that life is how the universe experiences itself, all its laws and constructs.
And we are simply delaying out destiny, total entropy.

[@altrocks]

I like the idea of entropy defining the line between life and not life. Fire would still be not alive, same with the sun, but our intuitive sense of what life really is would stay the same and include some very strange types of life we might encounter in the universe. I also can't think of anything that might be alive, but doesn't fight entropy within itself.

[@student99bg]

You can make a robot that resists the rise of entropy within itself, but I guess at some point, if they can reproduce you will call them alive and I am fine with it in that case.

[@IPlayWithFire135]

"You mean our instincts are better at this than the checklist?"
Ludwig Wittgenstein wants to know your location to shake your hand.

[@jwrosenbury]

Our instincts have had millions of years to evolve. Scientists are stuck with Godel.

[@bjs301]

Or maybe they're not.

[@chstra45]

Am I perhaps not the only philosophy major hiding out in the physics channels?

[@kristoffer2250]

@@chstra45 hello fellow unemployed human

[@orlandomoreno6168]

@@jwrosenbury nonsense

[@maazzubayr1897]

In my opinion, we don't need a set of rules, we subconsciously understand what is life and who is alive

[@gabrielknight8988]

Man these videos really make me laugh, and feed a need to learn ty for that

[@HienNguyenHMN]

Nick: I guess I have some nihilists as fans??
Also Nick: Life is fighting against the endless march towards chaos!

[@prawdziwypolak1297]

Even if environment is stable, organism will evolve to gain advantage against different organism.

[@default632]

Organism with advantage will be evolved*

[@beri4138]

@@default632 Don't correct people when they're right.

[@default632]

@@beri4138 I'm nitpicking on the wording, not the message.

[@Aqostol]

I started watching you some time ago and I watch video after video from even 10 years ago... You are a great guy.

[@ScienceAsylum]

Thanks! 🙂

[@suspiciousdoge9yand104]

My list:
1. It exists (is affected by time and space. "To be or not to be" philosophy comes to mind)
2. It can be affected by change of environment as well as adapts
3. It can undergo death (mortality), but may reproduce thru an imprint of itself (DNA)
4. It is dependent on a counterpart for said reproduction (male/female)
5. Metabolism
It's kind of incredible how life is still considered "coincidental" given the unfathomable amount of random there is in the universe.

[@thenasadude6878]

Nick's videos are clearly fighting to bring more order into our brains.
According to this video, Nick must be very much alive to resist not only the randomness in his life, but also the one in our minds

[@JamesSarantidis]

Oh, no. He is replicating!!! xD

[@manaeiou]

Actually a "chemical" is defined rather loosely as "a substance that is produced or used in a process (reaction) involving changes to atoms or molecules" so plasma might count.
Of course as mentioned, there are still non-matter entities that are seemingly "alive" such as cellular automata and memes.
Perhaps the definition of life necessarily follows the definition of "entity" whose "liveliness" is to be defined (e.g. in the entropy-based definition: a local, open system).

[@karthikramachandran6535]

"Matter that actively tries to resist entropy increase."
Awesome!

[@FallenAngelZero00]

1. That which is sentient is alive. This statement supersedes all others and questions of and about said statement.
2. That which is alive does not need to be sentient.
3. That which is alive has a process of continued self preservation and or continuation.

[@richarddobson5035]

I don't know what life is, but Tom Hanks once told me it is like a box of chocolates.

[@beri4138]

Is a box of chocolates alive? It doesn't reproduce, it doesn't respond to stimuli, it doesn't have metabolism. Tom Hanks will have to explain further.

[@UberMiguel603]

@@beri4138 It's like it - you never know what you're going to get.

[@fifikusz]

It was his mama.... :)

[@debuggers_process]

I have an issue with the statement that fire "reacts to environment" and viruses does not. I suppose, "reacts" should mean some sort of calculations based on input data - all objects react to environment in some way, but proteins in virus interact with surroundings in much more complex ways, essentially carrying out calculations to control viruses live cycle based on conditions of surroundings.

[@TomFranklinX]

So is a computer virus alive?

[@glynemartin]

The environment of a virus is usually that of a living organism. The proteins of a virus are redundant outside a living organism, it's the life of the organism that is processing the outer protein layer of the virus.

[@luvsYuri]

I've always wondered at what stage does chemistry evolve into biology, like what actually drives biological functions is chemistry, so how far in can you zoom into a biological being before what you're looking at is just chemistry (and even physics) at work. Are our mitochondria, cell nuclei, DNA, etc. alive? Or are they non-alive things making us alive?
And I used to think rocks are kind of an organism because the minerals/crystals inside it could grow/oscillate like a clock, etc. Sorry, kind of a loose definition and I am the opposite of an expert, lol

[@Mr.Robert1]

I like your thinking. Not saying you're right.

[@ROCKSTARNDIACHRONICLESTV]

EXCELLENT video. From eeeevery perspective. Especially regarding rocks.

[@xan1455]

what is life:
baby don't hurt me don't hurt me no more

[@willpat3040]

LOL LOL LOL

[@foromador9024]

I started singing before I hit see more, you glorious bastard

[@xan1455]

:)

[@otakuribo]

I'm still not used to using past-tense verbs for John Conway 😢

[@ScienceAsylum]

😞

[@rtg_onefourtwoeightfiveseven]

@Jessica Rousseu He was a great mathematician that died in the last year. Aside from the Game of Life, he's probably most well-known for his incredible work on group theory.

[@aclearlight]

Great work! It might be fun and helpful to go from the ground work you've laid here to a discussion of dissipative structures in general and their thermodynamic properties (and their arguable status as a set of identifiable entities which contains "living" structures).

[@mxcland]

Thank you for all the work. I’ve been watching you for a while. Good stuff. Keep it coming. And thank you. Again. Do well.

[@MrCunha444]

Man, I'm still digesting Sabine Hossenfelder's video telling me that I don't have free will, now you come with your video showing me that I don't even know what is alive and what is not ...

[@miguelherrera18]

Why is there something rather than nothing? Is reality an illusion?

[@zepkid5678]

You don't have free will but the illusion of free will to your ego is inescapable and necessary to your survival. There's the conscious "ego" you and the millions of synapses firing with unconscious biological processes you.. how distinct those two are and is one a subset of the other are interesting questions.

[@ShauriePvs]

Wow..just an hour ago, I was revisiting those electrodynamics videos hoping to get a new video. This must have been my earliest visit to a new video here:)

[@andreabindolini7452]

One of your best, most informative and inspiring videos.

[@ScienceAsylum]

Thanks! 🤓

[@OlexJan]

Life is a system which reacts to the changes in itself or it's environment so that maximize it's continuation.
So "adaptation" "metabolism" "fight against entropy" "multiplication" etc. are special cases of the strategies of continuation maximization.
This is the best known definitoin of life, which will include even exotic star trek life forms, exclude viruses, fire, dead cat, conveys life... but still include mules, insects...

[@a_mans_life]

Hey Nick you are hilarious this is one of the reason you make these science videos so much interesting
And whats with you saying doobly do to description box
XD

[@ScienceAsylum]

Wheezywaiter started the "doobly doo" thing a long time ago and now a bunch of creators say it.

[@AlleyKatt]

Damnit. I keep getting distracted by the best two seconds of video I've ever seen in my life and have to rewind.
Seriously, I may need to watch this a time or three more but I'm thinking that I now have a new favourite Science Asylum video.
Thank you for the effort. Your work touches minds... and hearts.

[@ScienceAsylum]

Which 2 seconds?

[@bdub8442]

It’s interesting that “non living” matter can form into” living” matter

[@davecarvell]

My best stab at an operational definition of living things:
A living thing is an entity whose constituent parts can be fairly said to serve some purpose.
That's the best I've been able to manage so far.

[@otakuribo]

13:00 is the most profound thing I've thought about in a long time: _maybe life is just matter taking control of it's own destiny_

[@hackerslayer666]

It's so good to see Nerd Clone again!

[@barbooosa]

Fantastic video! Completely changed my view on life

[@effectingcause5484]

I like the last definition... A package of self maintained order - matter decreasing entropy within itself

[@astrofox2409]

I guess the meaning of life is to fight entropy and still lose.

[@tawkinhedz]

Hell yea! *reincarnates*

[@pontiuspilatus7900]

@@tawkinhedz Whatever...

[@thomasroarty706]

Or...maybe the meaning of life is to create even more entropy? that is, even though the entropy inside the organism is reduced, external entropy (due to organism's exhaust) is increased.

[@UberMiguel603]

As life fights entropy, we are in the state of winning now. Only nihilists care about the final score.

[@MAGA_Extremist]

I think the meaning of life is to make copies of yourself and the copies make copies of themselves and so on

[@da_k8gamer978]

I love how you defined life, it makes sense.

[@mekurish]

From the entropy argument, a galaxy is composed of stars that are alive. They consume energy from within and/or through accretion, grow by swelling and/or swallowing, maintain stasis, evolve as a species depending on the gases and dusts available in their neighborhood, are complex internally, reproduce by creating possibilities for new stars to be born when going supernova (making more gas and heavier atom dust available, shockwaves to jump start the starburst process), and maybe more ways I haven't thought of.

[@prakash2k778]

Thanks for the video for helping with existential crisis

[@CodeKujo]

Soo... "The turtle is delicious" was not the obvious answer, eh?

[@JustAnotherVatsal]

Chinese huh?

[@nziom]

Really -_-||

[@adityaruplaha]

I mean you're not wrong.

[@tomkerruish2982]

Stone soup can be rather tasty.

[@ChrisChoi123]

why are carnists like this

[@anujarora0]

ngl, I have watched exurb1a's video 40 minutes ago so I think I have had enough existential crisis for today. But I'm gonna watch your video anyway (because let's be honest who doesn't love a good existential crisis)

[@jrajesh11]

A sign of life is: Anything that fights for its survival when trying to take away the life in it is a thing having a life .

[@__-tn6hw]

People may disagree with me, but life is any organic functioning body that contains the standard genetic code to operate by. This is why I would consider a virus to be alive while fire is not (4:20). (edited for grammar)

[@dhanashreemehar]

OMG I wanted this since so long 🙏 I love how Science Asylum thinks same randomest questions like me lmao

[@dijoncarkeey3206]

"what does it mean to be alive" sounds like a vsauce video

[@niteshsapkota335]

This existential crisis has been holding me down since long ago,, I went into denial too and now there’s nothing but misery and I still can’t figure my way out of it

[@21ruevictorhugo]

For some time now, I’ve come to believe that life is simply an example of the fight against entropy. It’s temporarily successful.

[@lightspeed9762]

Life is a journey. Not a destination.

[@Ninjapirate00]

I've been toying with a similar thought for a couple years now. Even though I have been thinking about it, it surprised me that you took a similar direction.
Great video!

[@rania.f6421]

Technically worker bees can’t reproduce however their cells divide “reproduce” their cells grow, adapt, respond, metabolize, grow, and organize. Technically they are alive because their building blocks which are cells are alive themselves

[@colleenforrest7936]

I wrote a paper for my creative writing class in college on how to hunt, raise, and breed pet rocks. It got an A+.

[@ScienceAsylum]

That's AWESOME!

[@DeclanMBrennan]

As a programmer, how about: "Life is self-modifying code" Add a bit of selection and stir well. :-)

[@ScienceAsylum]

So a computer virus qualifies as life?

[@chilliewilly41]

@@ScienceAsylum Maybe when the virus evolves to defend itself from anti-virus software?

[@Kazemahou]

@@ScienceAsylum I do not consider viruses to be living things. I consider them to be code - no different than computer code, just written at the molecular level. That code runs on the computational chemical machinery of biological cells. Thus I do not consider a computer virus to be alive.
But, I do consider the cell that virus becomes computationally active within to be alive, and by the same reasoning, I personally must consider a sufficiently advanced and complex computer program - which a computer virus could become active within - to be... 'alive'. Literally alive, the same as chemical life.
So, referencing Star Trek, because I am a big fat nerd, there never should have been any question about Commander Data being alive. Starfleet should have already had a definition of life that included all sufficiently advanced computational processes in whatever form they take: chemical, mechanical, electrical, positronic, or pure energy creatures like the Metrons, Organians or the Q. Such a nerd.
What does 'sufficiently complex' mean? I would argue that it means your definition - fighting a degeneration into maximized chaos. So... self-repairing, self-improving code (in or out of a robot body) would count. Any computational entity that can maintain itself against entropy would count as sufficiently complex.
And yes... perhaps that would mean that a highly developed version of futuristic 'Windows', say, that can repair and/or iadapt its own running code in real time, preventing crashes or faults of every kind (including from stray cosmic rays impinging the hardware) would be... 'alive'. Curious notion that.
But that would also mean that crystal critters and electrical clouds and sapient shades of the color blue would all be alive too. And I can live with that.

[@Mallchad]

This reminds me of the simulation argument.
I think, if you accept a sufficiently advanced civillisation could create an identical simulation to our universe.
The chances of us living in a simulation is practically guranteed.
If you extend this notion to a complex self maintaining computer program,
that is one example of a simulation,
and possible life.
No matter how short, simple or insignificant said life is.
It seems to me that the definition moves itself depending on what you try to apply it to.
As you know, the universe is under no obligation to be understood.
So I propose instead of forcing the universe to accept the definition.
We extend each and every definition of life to an isolated instance of it.
Fighting entropy seems like a good baseline.
This was a fun topic.
It seems like "life" on its own

[@YogeshKumar-js7tx]

Acttually in movie transformers they answered this

[@ditegrazieasus1880]

I personally think literally everything is alive. I mean atoms and particles and everything adapts himself in order to do what is doing better (for example electrons pass trough material with less resistance) and also tries to avoid the best it can entropy. That's why i voted everything on the list

[@maiamaiapapaya]

Have you ever played with the idea that thoughts could be alive? What if they are actually creatures that inhabit our brains?

[@baum7des7lebens7]

The one who made every atom in this universe is alive.

[@carlosdgutierrez6570]

I saw a definition that I think is the best:
"Life is a self perpetuating highly ordered patron which uses energy to keep internal entropy of the patron at minimum which emerges from simpler parts as it reaches a threshold complexity".

[@Sharperthanu1]

Being alive is a transcendent experience and transcendent is just another word for supernatural.