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MATERIAL OR FORM? "Does the essence of life concern the material out of which something is composed or the form in which that material is arranged? If the latter, is that form static or is it a process? If the latter, is that process computational? Is the property of being alive a functional property? Is it realizable in an indefinitely long list of different material substrata? Could a computer simulation of a living process ever be a realization of life, i.e., literally be alive?" https://lnkd.in/da-Njua View in LinkedIn

MOLECULAR INTERACTIONS. "Despite the progress of the last years, several major questions remain unanswered. It is for instance largely unknown how temperatures are sensed during stratification. Even more importantly, the true molecular identity of dormancy is not understood yet. Many factors influencing dormancy have been described, but it is not known for most of them how they interact and relate with each other." https://lnkd.in/dgHUjzK View in LinkedIn

TIME AND EXTENT. "If life is viewed as supple adaptation, then the most important life/non-life distinction involves a continuum because the activity of supple adaptability itself comes in degrees. Different systems can exhibit supple adaptation to different degrees, and a given system’s level of supple adaptation can fluctuate over time." https://lnkd.in/da-Njua View in LinkedIn

OPENING THE BLACK BOX. "A number of essential and specific dormancy genes have been identified, as well as chromatin organizers that influence seed dormancy induction. The release of dormancy has long been a black box, but the recent recognition of the important contribution of non-enzymatic processes, like oxidation, in the after-ripening process is starting to reveal the mechanisms behind this process." https://lnkd.in/dgHUjzK View in LinkedIn

LIFE TRANSITIONS. The borderline cases are where life transitions become most interesting, and troubling to those who want a tidy playbook. Viruses, seeds, frozen sperm, probiotic soup, mobile genetic elements and even computer code. And, as a consequence, artificial intelligence. One of our most compelling topics today. View in LinkedIn

BORDERLINE. "But the common sense view is put under stress by various borderline cases like viruses which are unable to replicate without a host and spores or frozen sperm which remain dormant and unchanging indefinitely but then "come back to life" when conditions become suitable. Furthermore, we all agree that the original life forms somehow emerged from a pre-biotic chemical soup, and this suggests that there is very little, if any, principled distinction between life and non-life." https://lnkd.in/da-Njua View in LinkedIn

COMMON SNIFF TEST. "Can things be more or less alive? Serious reflection about life quickly raises the question whether life is a boolean (black-or-white) property, as it seems at first blush, or whether it is a continuum property, coming in many shades of gray. Common sense leans towards the boolean view: a rabbit is alive and a rock isn’t." https://lnkd.in/da-Njua View in LinkedIn

"SUPPLE ADAPTATION is not to be equated with natural selection. For one thing, natural selection is not necessary for supple adaptation." https://lnkd.in/da-Njua View in LinkedIn

BEDAU CONCEPT. "Supple adaptation refers to the fact that living systems have an unending capacity to find new unpredictable adaptive solutions to unanticipated changes in the environment." https://lnkd.in/dEj5vVD View in LinkedIn

MARK BEDAU DEFINITION. "I propose that an automatic and continually creative evolutionary process of adapting to changing environments is the primary form of life...what is distinctive of life is the way in which evolution automatically fashions and refashions appropriate strategies for coping as local contexts change." https://lnkd.in/da-Njua View in LinkedIn