Year: 2022

HARD TO DEFINE. "A bewildering variety of forms of life surrounds us, but we usually have no difficulty distinguishing the living from the non-living. That flower, that mushroom, that worm, that bird are alive; that rock, that mountain, that river, that cloud are not. Yet it is notoriously difficult to say what life is, exactly." https://lnkd.in/da-Njua View in LinkedIn

LIFE AS CONTINUITY. "There is now a growing consensus among biologists concerning this continuity." https://lnkd.in/dEj5vVD View in LinkedIn

NOT ABSOLUTE. “Life is not an absolute quality which suddenly appeared, it gradually emerged at the beginning of the evolution. [...] there is no clear boundary line.” (Cairns-Smith, 1990). https://lnkd.in/dEj5vVD View in LinkedIn

SOME MORE THAN OTHERS. “It seems more appropriate to consider life as a continuum property of organizational patterns, with some more or less alive than others.” (Farmer & Belin, 1992). https://lnkd.in/dEj5vVD View in LinkedIn

INDEFINITE. “Presumably, life emerged in a gradual, long-term process whereby primitive proto-organisms were created in the teeming, primal soup of the seas. Life is still not completed; it is a partly indefinite phenomenon of becoming, not a completely determined state of being.” (Emmeche, 1994). https://lnkd.in/dEj5vVD View in LinkedIn

LARGE AND BLURRING BORDERLINE. "The fact that all the dominant modern theories consider that life progressively emerged from some kind of proto-organisms, strongly grounds the hypothesis of the existence of a large and blurring borderline between living and non-living, were the inert progressively fades into the living." https://lnkd.in/dEj5vVD View in LinkedIn

LACK OF CLARITY. “The borders between the living and the nonliving, between the Nature-made and the human-made appear to be constantly blurring.” (Sipper). https://lnkd.in/dEj5vVD View in LinkedIn

HALF-COOKED. "This continuity makes the conceptualization of life a very difficult task, since it should exist “half-living” or “quite-living” systems." https://lnkd.in/dEj5vVD View in LinkedIn

SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. "The Ancient Greeks believed that living things could spontaneously come into being from nonliving matter, and that the goddess Gaia could make life arise spontaneously from stones – a process known as Generatio spontanea." Clearly a problematic concept. https://lnkd.in/eJXtXQy View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE contemplates plant dormancy and vernalization for this and next weekend. Spring is a favorite season for all of us, and it is primarily about the growth of plants and the mating of creatures. The plants have waited in a state of reduced metabolism for cues of spring, which trigger growth and simultaneous flowering. Without synchrony, there is no successful cross-fertilization and reproduction. It is all about timing. View in LinkedIn