The Explosion of Life Forms

So, what is the nature of life? As long as we lack the appropriate words to answer it concisely, we must continue to use a conglomerate of words to describe what we mean by “life”. Organisms have a combination of characteristics that are never found together in inanimate objects (Morange 2017, p. 107). In these regards all the definitions listed under section (2) still have their moment of truth; to some degree, we still are at the stage of a physiological approach. On the other hand, we already know metabolism is a necessary ingredient of any life as an open system. And finally, and most important, an informational or biochemical pattern (like RNA or DNA) is of the essence to allow replication and genetic development with it.

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