I had a conversation with a youngster the other day about living and non-living things.
By way of examples I said that a puppy is living but a lamp-post is non-living.
The youngster then asked me if the lamp-post was dead!
I said no, it's just non-living.
The youngster said so its dead!
I gave up.
Living things are said to exhibit all 7 of these characteristics,
ReplyDeleteMovement, Respiration, Sensitivity
Growth,Reproduction, Excretion and Nutrition. Got to do all 7 to count, apparently, (viruses don't, so they're not really alive!).
For something non-living those viruses seem to love upsetting the actual living Kev!
DeleteLike tax inspectors.
ReplyDeleteyes. Or perhaps BBC Licence inspectors, who insist that if anything you watch is in any way live TV then you need a licence even if you never watch terrestrial TV!
DeleteExistential philosophy not your thing Woodsy ?
ReplyDeleteThis was biology. It gets trickier with dog food. It was a living thing but is now dead and is eaten by a living thing. I imagine though that dog food cannot be described as non-living as it was once alive.
DeleteI'm not so sure about that.
ReplyDeleteMish.
Viruses can be said to be non-living as Kev says. Maybe they are simply information. I had wondered if viruses would pass as information through space and time but it seems that Black Holes would be there end too. According to Wiki "the black hole information paradox is a puzzle resulting from the combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity. Calculations suggest that physical information could permanently disappear in a black hole, allowing many physical states to devolve into the same state." So there we have it. We will all be ultimately de-informed.
ReplyDeleteDelete! Delete!
ReplyDeleteMish.