Definition of Life
There have been many dozens of definitions of life over the years by philosophers and by scientists, especially by biologists.
Most definitions have included characteristic properties like
homeostasis (the ability to maintain its internal chemical and physical conditions, like temperature),
metabolism, the conversion of matter and energy to build components like proteins, fats, nucleic acids and eliminate waste, are composed of
cells, and are capable of
growth. Some add that they can respond to
stimuli,
adapt to their environment,
reproduce, and
evolve according to Darwin's natural selection.
The latter two are questionable because sterile animals like mules and animals that die childless are/were clearly living things.
Information philosophy expands the notion of responding to a stimulus to the properties of
sentience, receiving signals from the environment, including other living things, and
agency, reacting to external signals with
deliberate responses that are not simply
deterministic reflexes, but actions that have been decided upon by an intelligent analysis of options -
choices between
alternative possible actions. All living things "
communicate" immaterial
information and use that information to
actively manage the flow of matter and energy through themselves.
Inanimate objects are
passive information structures where the arrangement of their material contents is entirely controlled by physical and chemical processes that are governed by natural laws. Macroscopic objects are
adequately determined by the law of age numbers averaging over myriad quantum events. The outcomes of microscopic processes involve quantum
chance.
Living things combine microscopic chance and macroscopic determinism when they create new information.
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