Re: What Is the Definition of Life?
Posted: August 18th, 2014, 4:03 pm
The sense and awareness that all things have, in balance and harmony with the creator god.
Good question, Dave. I had a similar discussion here when examining living things as a distinct ontological category, distinct from non-living entities. Someone pointed out that most of my criteria for what constitutes life are shared by certain non-living physical processes. Consider crystals growing in a hot, humid underground cavern. They grow and reproduce according to the atomic structure of their constituent elements. What is unique to living organisms is their ability to evolve. No silicon crystals ever evolve into carbon crystals, no rubys into saphires, etc.
On Earth, all living things contain DNA, or at least RNA, which provides them with the innate ability to adapt to changing conditions and evolve into ever-higher forms of life. This inner structure of living cells is so complex and different from any non-living substance that it begs the question of who or what designed the first instance of life. I maintain it could not have begun spontaneously, its too radically different from other forms of matter. It appears to be an intelligent design. - CW