Abstract
For the most part of the history of humanity, the definition of life has not been an overwhelmingly important issue. Or at least, it was not a controversial issue. It was sufficient to go by a simple rule: you know it when you see it. Questions like whether viruses are alive or why a brain-dead person is pronounced dead, although her heart works, do not have a long trajectory in the history of understanding life. However, progress in science and technology continues to complicate the issue. What does life mean when we talk about synthetic biology, artificial bacteria, prosthetic genomes, bionics and robotics? How can we know what we are looking for when we search for life in the universe, if we do not have a clear definition? How big a problem is this? Until now, all suggested definitions of life have been falsified by counter-examples. Signs like metabolism, growth, reproduction, reaction to external stimuli, adaptation to changes in the environment, some form of communication that leads to some form of coordination – none of these provide an irrefutable definition of life, since these traits can be found in various types of systems, some of which cannot be named life by any other criteria.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington, according to http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/02dec_monolake/ [Accessed 29 January 2012].
- 3.
Carol Cleland, philosopher at University of Colorado, Boulder, and NASA’s Astrobiology Institute, http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/life’s_working_definition.html [Accessed 30 January 2012].
- 4.
Åke Hultkrantz “Leben”, RGG IV: 248–249, and Carl-Martin Edsman et al. “Tod”, RGG IV: 908–921.
- 5.
www.ne.se. Art. “liv” and “död” [Accessed 28 January 2012].
- 6.
Here, I leave aside the issue of Near Death Experiences.
- 7.
Here, the quotation is applied in a different context.
- 8.
Cf. my hermeneutical approach in (Jackelén 2005: 1–9). In fact, much of what can be said about (the difficulty of) defining time can be said about defining life, too – including a paraphrase of Augustine’s often-quoted remark from the eleventh book of his Confessions: that if no one asks him what time (life) is, he knows, but if he wants to explain it to someone who asks, he does not know.
- 9.
William Blake. “To See a World…” Fragments from “Auguries of Innocence” http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/blake/to_see_world.html [Accessed 29 January 2012].
- 10.
- 11.
Jürgen Moltmann is but one example of prominent thinkers who tend to confuse these terms in their eschatology (1996).
- 12.
See also Psalms 104 and 150.
- 13.
See also Daniel 12.1–3; 2 Maccabees. 7.9, 11, 14, 29, 36.
- 14.
A note on the side: the merger of ontological philosophy and existentialism in Tillich comes with some cognitive challenges. Langdon Gilkey recalls a comment from the audience after one of Tillich’s lectures: “I did not understand a word that the professor was saying, but he was talking about me every minute” (Gilkey 2001: 87).
- 15.
Richard Foreman, “The Pancake People, or, ‘The Gods are Pounding My Head’ ” Edge 050308, http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/foreman05/foreman05_index.html [Accessed 2 April 2012].
- 16.
Trans. Robin Fulton http://companionstar.org/library/scores/RomanskaBagar_text.pdf [Accessed 22 April 2012].
- 17.
Cf. the company Qlikview that informs potential customers that it can “[p]rovide intuitive access, comprehensive analytics and sophisticated visualization to the data that is trapped in your data warehouse.” For more information, see webpage http://www.qlikview.com [Accessed 10 September 2012].
- 18.
Here, as always, knowing does not take away the sense of enchantment. Science does not necessarily bring about disenchantment. It takes away a belief in magic and superstition, but also re-enchants the enlightened mind. As Antonio Damasio has put it beautifully: “Neither anguish nor the elation that love or art can bring about are devalued by understanding some of the myriad biological processes that make them what they are. Precisely the opposite should be true: our sense of wonder should increase before the intricate mechanisms that make such magic possible” (Damasio 1994: xvi).
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Jackelén, A. (2015). Life: An Ill-Defined Relationship. In: Evers, D., Fuller, M., Jackelén, A., Sæther, KW. (eds) Issues in Science and Theology: What is Life?. Issues in Science and Religion: Publications of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17407-5_6
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