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The Terrifying Future Threat of Nuclear Waste According to the Government

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Scrambled Egg Machine:
The definition of life is pretty specific. Homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction are generally the things which make something "alive". While the biosphere has some of these qualities, it does not have all of them. QED.

onewheelwizzard:
@Khar:
So are you saying I should protect myself from people, or from ideas, or what?  Do you think my quality of life is in danger?  Is it a matter of my credibility among my peers?  Are my life goals (which, to be fair, currently revolve around working with psychedelics in the field of psychology, either in a clinical or a research position) becoming less realistic as I push my personal beliefs farther out towards the fringe?  (Actually, I had to rewrite that last question so many times that it just turned into something I've been worrying about for a while ... however, I'm pretty confident in my ability to step into a more strictly scientific rigorous mindset when I need to, I find it almost as fascinating as fringe-y stuff and I graduated with an Ivy League psych degree so I figure I'm at least fairly capable in that domain.)  Also, who do you think would be capable of manipulating me, and to what ends?

I'm beginning to see what you think I'm at risk for, I guess, but I've never really considered myself to be in the position you're describing.  I'm wondering if it's about the way I present myself on the forums or if there's something I've been missing entirely.

@McTaggart:
I suppose that if you don't see how changing the model we use to describe the biosphere would change the way we inform our decisions regarding how to approach it, I've hit a dead end, because I see a huge difference and I'm finding it next to impossible to explain why (I've rewritten this reply at least 4 times by now).  I think it comes down to the difference between treating symptoms and treating root causes.  If we understand that localized problems are merely symptoms, and that all problems in the biosphere are to some extent merely localized, we can get to the root of what's going on, which I personally believe is our conception of ourselves and our relationship to the planet.  If we can address that (in other words, change "human nature") we can fix things.  Call it an idealized and unrealistic goal if you want but I think it's kind of a big deal.

@Scrambled Egg Machine:
Why is the definition of "life" so specific?  Who decided that and why is it important that it be such?

Scrambled Egg Machine:
It wasn't decided as such, it was discovered. You seem to think it was made up from nowhere. It has simply been determined that living things have these qualities and non-living things do not. Things like viruses, prions, and viroids are tricky, but life has been nailed down pretty well. It is important so we know what is alive or is inanimate, and can act accordingly. Coal is not alive, but a tree is, etc. It's not really specific, it's actually really broad. There are many diverse things out there that are all alive. Fungus does not appear to live the same way as a dog, but it is.

onewheelwizzard:
Actually from what I understand there is some controversy over whether or not fungus is life at all.  I find that really interesting.

So let's go down the list.
Homeostasis, check.  Organization, check.  Metabolism, sure, makes sense, the biosphere "metabolizes" all kinds of natural resources.  Growth, check.  Adaptation, check.  Response to stimuli, I'm going to say check, just about anything that happens to this planet that affects the biosphere elicits a response.  Reproduction's the tricky one.  My argument is that it simply hasn't happened yet and when we start terraforming Mars, that will be also be our biosphere itself reproducing.

What would you say doesn't apply?

ledhendrix:
If you were to describe the earth in it's entirety as a living thing then would you describe the sun or any star in the same way? They begin "life" as a clouds of gas, go through many changes and eventually die in one way or another. However you would not consider them to have life in the same sense that we do and that other creatures on earth do. Suns will always follow the same path, there is no mutation to drive them to change. Suns created near the start of the universe followed the exact same path as ones that are being created will follow. The earth is a giant inert piece of rock with a lot of physics going on, any biologist would tell you that it is not living. Sure it has life on it that changes the way it looks and responds but it would be very hard to define it as alive.

The idea of terraforming another planet is a human idea not one that earth decided upon, the earth isn't going to go "hey shit man I'm fucked better move myself to Mars". Mars is already there and there is liquid water present, if circumstances had been slightly different there could have been or there might be still traces of life on Mars (something that still hasn't been entirely ruled out). If Mars already had an atmosphere and we went and claimed it as our own that would not be reproduction. Neither would moving to Mars. An ant colony changing home isn't reproduction, how is that any different?

I do agree that the definition of life is a tricky one, you could even argue that nothing is alive, everything that exists can be broken down into how atoms react with each other. We and everything around us are just an assortment of atoms that happened to have come together the way they did.

Bit of a messy post but you can probably get something from it.

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