Longest Thread Ever

[babe]

Universal Life

No, kiddies, not the insurance policy.

Some "primitive religions", like animists, look for spirits in people, animals, fish, birds, even bugs. And rocks. Modern scientists are entirely too narrow in expecting to compile a list of biological signifiers that can define "Life", because that's just too narrow a definition.

Philosophically, we humans do not own the universe, and it is not ours to define, regulate, or manage. Except, perhaps in some small permissive manner. . . like if we were told by God to eat fruits and berries, or plant some corn, or do anything else in the line of sustaining our "lives" by eating other stuff some considered "living" in the first place. We cannot reach out very far, and most of us will live on the surface of planet earth for whatever time until we die.

So, here's a compliant Marxist trundling out a general theory of natural dialectical progress in nature, finding "life" in ores, finding intelligence in roots, and measuring it.

Vernadsky.

https://www-ssg.sr.unh.edu/preceptorial/Summaries_2004/Vernadsky_Pap_ITru.html

 

[babe]

No, kiddies, not the insurance policy.

Some "primitive religions", like animists, look for spirits in people, animals, fish, birds, even bugs. And rocks. Modern scientists are entirely too narrow in expecting to compile a list of biological signifiers that can define "Life", because that's just too narrow a definition.

Philosophically, we humans do not own the universe, and it is not ours to define, regulate, or manage. Except, perhaps in some small permissive manner. . . like if we were told by God to eat fruits and berries, or plant some corn, or do anything else in the line of sustaining our "lives" by eating other stuff some considered "living" in the first place. We cannot reach out very far, and most of us will live on the surface of planet earth for whatever time until we die.

So, here's a compliant Marxist trundling out a general theory of natural dialectical progress in nature, finding "life" in ores, finding intelligence in roots, and measuring it.

Vernadsky.

What Charles Darwin did for all life through time, Vernadsky did for all life through space (Ibid.)... The Vernadskian renaissance... The international revival of Vernadsky... Vernadsky's scientific revolution (Grinevald, 1998, p. 21, 27)... Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863-1945) was the scientist who elaborated the concept of the biosphere and who is now generally acknowledged as the originator of a new paradigm of life studies (Smil, 2002, p. 2), a principal architect of our contemporary ecological vision of the biosphere (Engel, 1990, p. 6)...

https://www-ssg.sr.unh.edu/preceptorial/Summaries_2004/Vernadsky_Pap_ITru.html

While in real life, he was not a Marxist and did not believe in Hegel or dialectics or a historical determinism, he was a real scientist and he found some real natural phenomena that required some unusual concepts to explain. And he did have to keep his day job, and talk like he might be useful to "management".

Today, his work is being pressed into a different shape, and made useful to management all over the world.

 

[babe]

Life on this planet, like "Life" anywhere in any conceivable universe or place, is flat out unlikely. The necessaries of "Life" are a practically infinite list. Specific trace minerals whose origins are "blowing in the solar winds", thought not to originate in our sun but in another kind of sun.

And yet, the surface of our earth has accumulated the needed supply within the past two billion years. . .

Vernadsky broke down the necessaries stepwise, and called it all "life". Our individual lives are contained inside a sort of natural cycle, a necessary part. We have one thing others lack or have not made necessary use of. . . imagination, creativity, and a basic drive to act upon the world we are in, to change it and to promote "Life".

Mineral processes are necessary to our living system, our biosphere. chemical processes going on within the dirt are necessary as well. We would not be alive without nitrogen-fixing bacteria. We could never have come about without photosynthesis transforming our atmosphere and generating oxygen, after originally it was all consumed in oxidation chemistry under the extreme heat of our origins.

So, we have people under a frame of mind, fixated on issues of scarcity, willing to limit "Life" on the human side of the balance while purposefully reverting our environment back to "nature", whose values are arrayed with "authority" in todays world. But our role in the scheme of things nature has had going for some time, is creativity, the development of methods, tools, structures, that can enhance the prospects for life of all kinds.

The real issue, which "religionists" or "ideologues" should be addressing is not what stage of a gametocyte or embryo has a sufficient capacity to be called "Life", but the moral imperative to create, propagate, and enhance "Life" of all kinds. A human is a rare thing, with a mind or a drive directed by imperatives of belief towards actions that will either promote or destroy life.

And there's a lot of room to discuss all that, without getting hung up on how to legally force our opinions on others.

 

[The Midnight]

Life on this planet, like "Life" anywhere in any conceivable universe or place, is flat out unlikely. The necessaries of "Life" are a practically infinite list. Specific trace minerals whose origins are "blowing in the solar winds", thought not to originate in our sun but in another kind of sun.

And yet, the surface of our earth has accumulated the needed supply within the past two billion years. . .

Vernadsky broke down the necessaries stepwise, and called it all "life". Our individual lives are contained inside a sort of natural cycle, a necessary part. We have one thing others lack or have not made necessary use of. . . imagination, creativity, and a basic drive to act upon the world we are in, to change it and to promote "Life".

Mineral processes are necessary to our living system, our biosphere. chemical processes going on within the dirt are necessary as well. We would not be alive without nitrogen-fixing bacteria. We could never have come about without photosynthesis transforming our atmosphere and generating oxygen, after originally it was all consumed in oxidation chemistry under the extreme heat of our origins.

So, we have people under a frame of mind, fixated on issues of scarcity, willing to limit "Life" on the human side of the balance while purposefully reverting our environment back to "nature", whose values are arrayed with "authority" in todays world. But our role in the scheme of things nature has had going for some time, is creativity, the development of methods, tools, structures, that can enhance the prospects for life of all kinds.

The real issue, which "religionists" or "ideologues" should be addressing is not what stage of a gametocyte or embryo has a sufficient capacity to be called "Life", but the moral imperative to create, propagate, and enhance "Life" of all kinds. A human is a rare thing, with a mind or a drive directed by imperatives of belief towards actions that will either promote or destroy life.

And there's a lot of room to discuss all that, without getting hung up on how to legally force our opinions on others.

Nice post Babe. But I guess that is just stating the obvious.

 

[NAOS]

Nice post Babe. But I guess that is just stating the obvious.

you even like the part about the Earth being billions of years old?

 

[The Midnight]

you even like the part about the Earth being billions of years old?

How old do you think it is then?

 

[babe]

Nice post Babe. But I guess that is just stating the obvious.

So when I hear a new-agey dame talking about how we are all "part of God". . . . a necessary part of a whole. . . .and deriding say the fascists/corporatists who want to monetize humanity and work the herd. . . . I don't really think she gets it. What I said was trying to reach out not to her, but to the fully-indoctrinated crop of university kids who've bought into a schema for globalism/professionalism/corporatism/feudalism wherein they think they have a special niche or something, or maybe are just flattered to be in line with a prevailing wind of fashionable society. Maybe I can't reach them with an alternative "reality" that is not made by man, but just "is", however obviously I state it.

Nobody knows "God". Most of us have imagined a definition that is simply a conceptual place-holder of some sort. To know God, in a manner such as what Jesus spoke of, requires a judgment and a decision and an action from "God". A "revelation", which as I imagine it, is necessarily partial because how are we going to actually be able to comprehend.

But this essay is about "Life", which I contemplate as the inherent essence of God. Jesus said He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. This is a spectacular claim, beyond any simplistic comprehension. It is also a statement of the nature of the world we live in, and a definition of "science" that transcends the limited materialism of the obvious world around us. Well, at least of the observable world we live in.

Jesus said nobody could come to the Father, but through Him. He stated that living by the principles He taught was necessary to being capable of understanding either the principles, or the author or source of those principles. He said those who live by His teachings will become like Him, and like His Father.

I don't think we can save alive every seed, or every fertilized embryo. About 3/4 of all such human fertized embryos are not competent to develop to a natural birth. So I don't think the issue of contraception/abortion/population control needs to presume that the purpose of nature is to provide an optimum life for everything, but I do think if we are in line with God and the work of sustaining Life in the universe, we will not choose to limit it for our own convenience. Do you love kids? Do you think it's important to parent and teach children and project some advantages to a rising generation? Those are what I think are the fundamental moral issues. I suppose God can work out the plan for us somehow, and I trust Him. I don't imagine there are babes roasting in Hell because they were not baptized, and I don't imagine that some human soul is cut off from all opportunity if an embryo dies at day eight after fertilization. Lots of things I don't know, but I believe people who reject their natural "life" in favor of a purely material or convenient agenda are cutting themselves off from "Life".

 

[babe]

"Life" is the most fundamental moral imperative in this existence. The question should be what can we do to promote "Life".

 

[babe]

How old do you think it is then?

I think, from geological observations and understanding of chemical and physical processes, our Earth has an age, and that it is on the order of six billion years, only two(+) billion of which have been cool enough for water to condense. Maybe three at the most. From archaeology I've studied or seen with my own hands and eyes, I'm sure people have been here for tens of thousands of years.

I don't know what to say about the strict Biblical believers. I guess if you believe in an almighty Being who can do infinite wonders with a word, anything is possible. But why do it some "supernatural" way when a little time and an order of natural laws will do it just as well. I have trouble swallowing the miracle of changing water into wine. I talk about how some Mormons will need to move along when some assertions prove untenable or unsustainable, and I could point to just as many in the Christian tradition, and a practical infinity of falsehoods in the current belief sets of statists and globalists and cartelists around the world.

But what can I say? I'm not one of their "professional" experts paid to preach the modern materialist religion. Nobody has told me what to say, either. . .. no that's not true. . . people everywhere are trying to tell me what to say, and to fall in line with current fashion. Professional social scientists are all lined up to tell us what is acceptable and what is not. Our media has a tune they want us to dance to, and those who don't are freely disparaged.

Anyhow, some wouldn't accept a painting of Jesus doing card tricks as "faithful", but they don't blanche at party tricks like turning water into wine. I just say Jesus would probably know a few tricks that would wow the kids, or us adults for that matter.

I hesitate to tighten down my ideas/expectations if I'm thinking of imposing them on God or His world, and give more respect for whatever God cares to be. He is sovereign.

 

[NAOS]

How old do you think it is then?

you didn't answer my question.

I think there's pretty good evidence that the Earth is somewhere around 6 billion years old.

 

[NAOS]

So when I hear a new-agey dame talking about how we are all "part of God". . . . a necessary part of a whole. . . .and deriding say the fascists/corporatists who want to monetize humanity and work the herd. . . . I don't really think she gets it. What I said was trying to reach out not to her, but to the fully-indoctrinated crop of university kids who've bought into a schema for globalism/professionalism/corporatism/feudalism wherein they think they have a special niche or something, or maybe are just flattered to be in line with a prevailing wind of fashionable society. Maybe I can't reach them with an alternative "reality" that is not made by man, but just "is", however obviously I state it.

Nobody knows "God". Most of us have imagined a definition that is simply a conceptual place-holder of some sort. To know God, in a manner such as what Jesus spoke of, requires a judgment and a decision and an action from "God". A "revelation", which as I imagine it, is necessarily partial because how are we going to actually be able to comprehend.

But this essay is about "Life", which I contemplate as the inherent essence of God. Jesus said He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. This is a spectacular claim, beyond any simplistic comprehension. It is also a statement of the nature of the world we live in, and a definition of "science" that transcends the limited materialism of the obvious world around us. Well, at least of the observable world we live in.

Jesus said nobody could come to the Father, but through Him. He stated that living by the principles He taught was necessary to being capable of understanding either the principles, or the author or source of those principles. He said those who live by His teachings will become like Him, and like His Father.

I don't think we can save alive every seed, or every fertilized embryo. About 3/4 of all such human fertized embryos are not competent to develop to a natural birth. So I don't think the issue of contraception/abortion/population control needs to presume that the purpose of nature is to provide an optimum life for everything, but I do think if we are in line with God and the work of sustaining Life in the universe, we will not choose to limit it for our own convenience. Do you love kids? Do you think it's important to parent and teach children and project some advantages to a rising generation? Those are what I think are the fundamental moral issues. I suppose God can work out the plan for us somehow, and I trust Him. I don't imagine there are babes roasting in Hell because they were not baptized, and I don't imagine that some human soul is cut off from all opportunity if an embryo dies at day eight after fertilization. Lots of things I don't know, but I believe people who reject their natural "life" in favor of a purely material or convenient agenda are cutting themselves off from "Life".

What is a soul? Do we have one, or many?

 

[NAOS]

"Life" is the most fundamental moral imperative in this existence. The question should be what can we do to promote "Life".

Some deep thinkers say that concepts have a life that is independent of a particular thought or mass of thoughts, since they are trans-individual and trans-situational. They have their ways, they say, of coding and ordering human thought/being in such a dense way that it's fair to say that, in certain moments, a concept is the major ingredient in determining an effect or series of effects. (And for other animals, too, since we are not the only forms of life that think conceptually). And, like other forms of life, concepts have vectors/tendencies/refrains which flow in the direction of their reanimation and renewal. --Think about what the concepts of Eternity and State have done to the ordering and history human life.

Let's skip right to a paradox: the concept of Death is alive. Should we foster that life? My grandfather's death -- specifically when it happened, and where I was at the time -- has had an ongoing impact on my psyche. It's affect is multiplicitous.... parts of it fill me with a sort of remorse which borders on catatonia (he was essentially my father for the first several years of my life, and I was absent for his accident and death, which were sudden); other parts give me a rich sense for character and passage/time... like when I think of the water falling at Iguazu, which is where I was on the day of his funeral.

So, for me, the problem of 'promoting Life' is poorly formed in that phraseology. --Promoting the catatonic forms of Death, which are alive, seems like a bad idea.

I think the problem gets a little clearer if we say that the imperative is to promote forms of life which increase vitality affect or play. The life which is imperative to promote is that which expands the realm of the possible, and which brings forth a greater and proliferating number of sensations. This is why I rally against monolithic models of Truth, which shut down play.


This all reminds me of an experience I had while gardening this year. My girlfriend and I planted a patch of poppies in our yard (of the mild opium-producing variety, which grow to about 5 or 6 feet in height). They're magnificent looking plants, with long arms branching out from the base, leafy greens that look like arugula, and these delicate papery pedals which unfold from a swollen pod about the size of the tip of your finger. We planted these next to some snapdragons and other little soft pedally delicacies. Now, my point: with the latter, common practice is to enjoy those first qualities/signs of spring but then quickly 'deadhead' the bloom, so that plant becomes more of a bushel which will produce more qualities/signs of spring. More blooms. More color. Then quickly deadhead those, too.... and so on. With these plants, there's been this dance with humanity... spring!; cut!; more spring!; cut!... and so on. The drama is a celebration of spring. But you can't behave this way with poppies. If you were to deadhead the bloom, then that leafy arm would not produce another. Instead -- and this is especially true if you are after the opium in the pod -- you enjoy the bloom and its passage. Once the bloom has fallen, the pod remains, like a lantern on a stick. In it, is the milky residue that contains opium. In short, it's the autumnal signs/qualities that you're after: the opium builds up with duration only. The drama is a celebration of the autumnal.

Now, all this made me realize how readily we abort autumnal qualities. We'll dig up a snapdragon the second it stops its springtime affairs, paying little or no attention to its autumnal phase.

I'm not in the business of saying whether we'd be better off enjoying the autumn phase of snapdragons, so I won't. I can't speak for "we" using these gardening materials, but I do feel empowered to speak for "we" in other scenarios. I can tell you that I've enjoyed the snapdragons' autumnal expressions.

 

[babe]

What is a soul? Do we have one, or many?

In biblical terms, it was an act of God "breathing" into a mere mud model, which caused "man" to become a "living soul". No shortage of variant takes on the idea in scripture, though. People like the idea of having an "eternal" soul that lives on after death and decay of the mortal husk, and they like the idea of the resurrection, too.

Well, we think what we please. We are what we are. God is what He is. I change my ideas when they don't seem to fit the facts. . . .

 

[babe]

Some deep thinkers say that concepts have a life that is independent of a particular thought or mass of thoughts, since they are trans-individual and trans-situational. They have their ways, they say, of coding and ordering human thought/being in such a dense way that it's fair to say that, in certain moments, a concept is the major ingredient in determining an effect or series of effects. (And for other animals, too, since we are not the only forms of life that think conceptually). And, like other forms of life, concepts have vectors/tendencies/refrains which flow in the direction of their reanimation and renewal. --Think about what the concepts of Eternity and State have done to the ordering and history human life.

Let's skip right to a paradox: the concept of Death is alive. Should we foster that life? My grandfather's death -- specifically when it happened, and where I was at the time -- has had an ongoing impact on my psyche. It's affect is multiplicitous.... parts of it fill me with a sort of remorse which borders on catatonia (he was essentially my father for the first several years of my life, and I was absent for his accident and death, which were sudden); other parts give me a rich sense for character and passage/time... like when I think of the water falling at Iguazu, which is where I was on the day of his funeral.

So, for me, the problem of 'promoting Life' is poorly formed in that phraseology. --Promoting the catatonic forms of Death, which are alive, seems like a bad idea.

I think the problem gets a little clearer if we say that the imperative is to promote forms of life which increase vitality affect or play. The life which is imperative to promote is that which expands the realm of the possible, and which brings forth a greater and proliferating number of sensations. This is why I rally against monolithic models of Truth, which shut down play.


This all reminds me of an experience I had while gardening this year. My girlfriend and I planted a patch of poppies in our yard (of the mild opium-producing variety, which grow to about 5 or 6 feet in height). They're magnificent looking plants, with long arms branching out from the base, leafy greens that look like arugula, and these delicate papery pedals which unfold from a swollen pod about the size of the tip of your finger. We planted these next to some snapdragons and other little soft pedally delicacies. Now, my point: with the latter, common practice is to enjoy those first qualities/signs of spring but then quickly 'deadhead' the bloom, so that plant becomes more of a bushel which will produce more qualities/signs of spring. More blooms. More color. Then quickly deadhead those, too.... and so on. With these plants, there's been this dance with humanity... spring!; cut!; more spring!; cut!... and so on. The drama is a celebration of spring. But you can't behave this way with poppies. If you were to deadhead the bloom, then that leafy arm would not produce another. Instead -- and this is especially true if you are after the opium in the pod -- you enjoy the bloom and its passage. Once the bloom has fallen, the pod remains, like a lantern on a stick. In it, is the milky residue that contains opium. In short, it's the autumnal signs/qualities that you're after: the opium builds up with duration only. The drama is a celebration of the autumnal.

Now, all this made me realize how readily we abort autumnal qualities. We'll dig up a snapdragon the second it stops its springtime affairs, paying little or no attention to its autumnal phase.

I'm not in the business of saying whether we'd be better off enjoying the autumn phase of snapdragons, so I won't. I can't speak for "we" using these gardening materials, but I do feel empowered to speak for "we" in other scenarios. I can tell you that I've enjoyed the snapdragons' autumnal expressions.

Your definition of "Life" seems to focus on the process of change in things over time. A river moving a mountain into the sea. . . .

I'm believing there are more things and more worlds than what we know, even more "dimensions" packed inside whatever "space" is. "Life" is relevant to the capacity to act. A tree growing is "acting". I guess a dead tree rotting is "acting" , too. But we usually don't consider it "living", so I won't go that far with my idea of "Life".

I think "Life" is an aberration or anomaly that requires thought and planning and work to propagate. It is always in danger in our present "world", and requires intelligent care. That is our place in it all. Hence the moral imperative to act to promote life.

 

[Jaymz]

Your definition of "Life" seems to focus on the process of change in things over time. A river moving a mountain into the sea. . . .

I'm believing there are more things and more worlds than what we know, even more "dimensions" packed inside whatever "space" is. "Life" is relevant to the capacity to act. A tree growing is "acting". I guess a dead tree rotting is "acting" , too. But we usually don't consider it "living", so I won't go that far with my idea of "Life".

I think "Life" is an aberration or anomaly that requires thought and planning and work to propagate. It is always in danger in our present "world", and requires intelligent care. That is our place in it all. Hence the moral imperative to act to promote life.

In short: Act with ambition.

I agree with a lot of your philosophy. I feel with the age of information a lot of society will eventually come to something close of this conclusion.

 

[NAOS]

Your definition of "Life" seems to focus on the process of change in things over time. A river moving a mountain into the sea. . . .

I'm believing there are more things and more worlds than what we know, even more "dimensions" packed inside whatever "space" is. "Life" is relevant to the capacity to act. A tree growing is "acting". I guess a dead tree rotting is "acting" , too. But we usually don't consider it "living", so I won't go that far with my idea of "Life".

I think "Life" is an aberration or anomaly that requires thought and planning and work to propagate. It is always in danger in our present "world", and requires intelligent care. That is our place in it all. Hence the moral imperative to act to promote life.

well, "rotting" is accomplished thanks to hordes of living things. Acting things. We have a habit of calling it "decomposition", when really it is "composition". I suppose if you conceived of the tree as a singular thing, then that thing no longer lives... but the tree was never a singular thing... it was always an aggregate.

I don't think my definition of life is as simple as "change of things over time," but I suppose it isn't too far from it. Does a river live? That definitely depends on your definition of a river... but Andy Goldsworthy seems to think a river lives. And, geomorphologists talk at lengths of a river's age (from a young, straight river; to a braided river; to a meandering river; etc.) and of its relations/dependence on everyday 'living' things in the determination of its banks.

We're really pushing deep into some interesting concepts.... I'm curious what your take on "thought" and "planning" are. I'm also a bit surprised to hear you refer to life in fragile terms... a life which inherently requires a stewardship. Improbability and fragility certainly aren't the same thing.

 

[babe]

well, "rotting" is accomplished thanks to hordes of living things. Acting things. We have a habit of calling it "decomposition", when really it is "composition". I suppose if you conceived of the tree as a singular thing, then that thing no longer lives... but the tree was never a singular thing... it was always an aggregate.

I don't think my definition of life is as simple as "change of things over time," but I suppose it isn't too far from it. Does a river live? That definitely depends on your definition of a river... but Andy Goldsworthy seems to think a river lives. And, geomorphologists talk at lengths of a river's age (from a young, straight river; to a braided river; to a meandering river; etc.) and of its relations/dependence on everyday 'living' things in the determination of its banks.

We're really pushing deep into some interesting concepts.... I'm curious what your take on "thought" and "planning" are. I'm also a bit surprised to hear you refer to life in fragile terms... a life which inherently requires a stewardship. Improbability and fragility certainly aren't the same thing.

I hate to go all dialectical in discussing stuff, because I confuse myself and can't expect anyone else to think I'm anything more than the fool on the hill. But here goes:

I had serious problems taking standard thermodynamics as taught in physics and chemistry courses in college seriously when they define entropy as the inevitable winding down of an ordered universe towards a vast uniform state of total disorganization. . . . which made me wonder if I was the only human being who views a perfectly ordered homogenous reality as the highest of all ordered states. . . .

 

[babe]

I hate to go all dialectical in discussing stuff, because I confuse myself and can't expect anyone else to think I'm anything more than the fool on the hill. But here goes:

I had serious problems taking standard thermodynamics as taught in physics and chemistry courses in college seriously when they define entropy as the inevitable winding down of an ordered universe towards a vast uniform state of total disorganization. . . . which made me wonder if I was the only human being who views a perfectly ordered homogenous reality as the highest of all ordered states. . . .

a strict materialist would have to argue that "thought" is a specific state of neural firing that can achieve a persistent and reproducible existence inside somebody's skull, and you'd probably annoy them with questions of how two different brains in two separate skulls can achieve the same "thought". A plan is perhaps an ordered system of thoughts directed at achieving some external change in the universe.

God, as I conceive of the notion, is evidently a planner of epic proportions, having basically "created" the universe as we conceive of it, at least according to some religions. Joseph Smith would have said the material and spirit "elements" existed before God imagined them, or created them, and that the creation of God consisted of acting upon what already was with purpose, and largely succeeding in do what was intended in that plan. I suspect you of harboring other possible notions.

 

[babe]

I hate to go all dialectical in discussing stuff, because I confuse myself and can't expect anyone else to think I'm anything more than the fool on the hill. But here goes:

I had serious problems taking standard thermodynamics as taught in physics and chemistry courses in college seriously when they define entropy as the inevitable winding down of an ordered universe towards a vast uniform state of total disorganization. . . . which made me wonder if I was the only human being who views a perfectly ordered homogenous reality as the highest of all ordered states. . . .

You seem to be postulating an ordered system of things that includes ideas such as "Truth", taken as objective discrete ideas which we could actually seek and accumulate within our possessions, as intellectual property of sorts.

"Truth" would be a subset of all possible ideas or thoughts, as those not "True" would be the false ones or useless ones or evil ones. Likewise, "Plans" or "Intents", would break down into ones that are "virtuous" or "evil" depending on the outcomes sought.

 

[babe]

well, "rotting" is accomplished thanks to hordes of living things. Acting things. We have a habit of calling it "decomposition", when really it is "composition". I suppose if you conceived of the tree as a singular thing, then that thing no longer lives... but the tree was never a singular thing... it was always an aggregate.

I don't think my definition of life is as simple as "change of things over time," but I suppose it isn't too far from it. Does a river live? That definitely depends on your definition of a river... but Andy Goldsworthy seems to think a river lives. And, geomorphologists talk at lengths of a river's age (from a young, straight river; to a braided river; to a meandering river; etc.) and of its relations/dependence on everyday 'living' things in the determination of its banks.

We're really pushing deep into some interesting concepts.... I'm curious what your take on "thought" and "planning" are. I'm also a bit surprised to hear you refer to life in fragile terms... a life which inherently requires a stewardship. Improbability and fragility certainly aren't the same thing.

I might be wrong, of course. Maybe "Life" can go through the vortex of a black hole and come out on the other side still possessed of whatever is the basic essence of "Life".

I note, however, that in the vast outlands of the Universe that are on this side of the black holes, Life seems fragile and transitory. I could hope I'm just wrong in that perception, but if that's not the way things are, "death" still removes us from our friends usually one at a time.