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From: mikes@tekecs.UUCP
Newsgroups: talk.origins,net.bio
Subject: Re: What's this LIFE stuff?
Message-ID: <7746@tekecs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 10-Oct-86 18:02:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekecs.7746
Posted: Fri Oct 10 18:02:45 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Oct-86 05:43:17 EDT
References: <45500088@uiucdcs> <7670@tekecs.UUCP> 812@hdsvx1.UUCP <7706MIQ@PSUVMA>
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 45
Xref: watmath talk.origins:124 net.bio:667

> In article <812@hdsvx1.UUCP>, hoffman@hdsvx1.UUCP (Richard Hoffman) says:
> 
> >[This is reminds me of a biology course I took once where someone asked
> >the professor how you could tell whether something was a mammal.  The
> >professor replied (essentially) "hair and milk."  I said "you mean like
> >a coconut?"  The professor was not amused.]

There's something profound (in a kind of perverse way) lurking somewhere 
deep in the above example...

>      In any event, could we bring DNA into the definition?  Is it possible
> (theoretically, anyway) for life to exist without it?
> 
> James D. Maloy  

We've all agreed (or have we?) that LIFE --not merely that which is alive--
must reproduce.  Does this equate to replication, though?  I don't know.
My parochial view of things tells me that reproduction of a kind is important,
not just general reproduction.  If this is correct, then some sort of rep-
licator/controller entity (e.g. molecule) is necessary.  If my feeling is not
correct, then it is merely happenstance that life on earth reproduces by
way of extension of the material that decides the characteristics of the 
surrounding organism.  
  If it is true, and there are good reasons for it being so, that life is 
such a complex set of phenonmena that it requires a controlling entity 
containing "backup" information about the organism as a whole, rather than
having the organism just grow and live willy-nilly; then if the LIFE is
chemical in nature, the controller would almost certainly also be chemical.
It would not necessarily be DNA, but would probably be some sort of analogue
(though note that the purines and pyrimadines are cosmically "common"
molecule formations, and might be expected to occur elsewhere as well).  
If reproduction as replication (or near-replication) is not necessary, then
you could theoretically posit nearly anything as being alive -- one 
"generation" would have no relation to the next, and no organism would have
any more relation to any one than to another, since there would be no
controlling, moderating entity.  While this is possible, I find it difficult
to really envision.
-- 

		Mike Sellers
	UUCP: {...your spinal column here...}!tektronix!tekecs!mikes


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