MY Definition of Life

Since a part of how planets work is the possibility of the emergence of Life (which DEFINITELY occured on your RPG world), let me define how I define Life. Thus, I did get off me lazy butt and hunted through my many Biology and Evolution textbooks. Wrote many, many, …many notes. Categorized and analyzed those notes, then settled on the below. Others (especially Official NAS (nt) definition) may be different, but I feel all below fit into what makes Life, Life.

homeostasis – maintains autonomic functions (virtually all below are autonomic)
organization – cells, organs, a body
metabolism – intake of fuel, fuel delivery system, conversion of fuel into energy and building blocks (lipids, etc.)
growth – self-explanatory; but not all life grows in size once born
adaption – can adapt to a new clime, environment
stimuli response – if you do not know this… then how’d you make children
replication – through processes known as asexual and bisexual reproduction. But what about trisexual reproduction à la Alien Nation, movie and series.
excretion – waste expulsion system
Most Important: is self-sustaining – can maintain all above without help

Shockingly, according to my definition above, a human baby does NOT qualify as life. It is not self-sustaining without help. However, I do not assume this. Not all life is born with genetic memories and literally self-motile within seconds to minutes of birth. Thus, the young forms would need protection in the least.

WILD TANGENT: An interesting thought I JUST had pop into to me frond. It almost seems as if the more “sapient” a species, the more defenseless and helpless the newborn. Hmm…

Virtually all eukaryotic life (excepting plants) goes through growth stages: infant, juvenile, and adult. Well... I should say I define three growth stages as defined. Actually, plants can be categorized as seedling, sapling, … Wild Tangent, see below.

Then adult could be subdivided into young, mature, old. In a list:

infant
juvenile
adult
- young
- mature
- old

And for plants:

seedling
sapling
plantal
- young – just beginning to flower and starting fruit
- mature – well-established and producing much fruit
- old – ending production and either dies (annual) or goes dormant (perennials)

I do not list any age ranges for animals above since this is based upon physiology, not mental.

Plants are the exception. As long as a plant lives, it also grows in size and maturity, until killed. All other life does NOT. Some plants capable of living millennia.

WILD TANGENT: If there ever were an “explosion” of Life, it would have actually been during the Carboniferous period. Think. A true explosion of life diversifying with a vengeance to produce all that coal, oil, etc. It was on overdrive. Carboniferous was 358.9±0.4Ma to 289.9±0.15Ma BP. A period of 69Ma. All that coal and oil laid down in just 70 million years! There is the true “Cambrian” explosion. Did I not say the Cambrian Explosion was no explosion at all?

— The Unknown Atheist

P.S.—WILD TANGENT: How many of you whom have read and thunked about what is on this WWW site and thought it plausible I was a scientist? In the least, my knowledge is.

P.P.S.—You may also like my “Life From Lifelessness” Hypothesis (replaces this page). A hypothesis I have kept for over 50 years. Yes, going back to the very early 1970s.

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