Sanopin

What is life?

I have always been fascinated with the question: what is life? I have been taught in biology that life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibits phenomena: homeostatic, organization, metabolism, growth, adaption, Response to stimuli and reproduction. All of these phenomena exist in non living objects as well. For example, reproduction is ability to produce new object identical or similar to the parent. If we look into the formation of crystal this phenomena is repeated over and over again. But we definitely say it is a non living entity.

A quick search through internet shows Wikipedia describes life as:

“Life (cf. biota) is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes (i.e., living organisms) from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate.”

This in my view does not fully explain what is life either, as non-living objects are capable of showing self-sustaining processes as well.

My solution to the problem has been to explain life as a collection of traits. These traits could be found individually in non-living entities but the collection that characterizes life is not present in non-living entities. Hence a more appropriate explanation of life would be:

An entity is alive when such entity exhibits full or partial collection of phenomena: homeostatic, organization, metabolism, growth, adaption, Response to stimuli and reproduction.