Why are some things alive and others not?

define alive

>>8166938
If you have a chair and a person sitting on the chair, why is the person "animated", but the chair isn't?

>>8166951
define animated

>>8166952
Why does the person have the consciousnesses to sit in the chair while the chair has no such ability?

>>8166955
Because chair is made from wood, which doesn't have a neural net or a brain by nature. But humans are biological entities who develop brains which communicate electrons throughout his body which also controls muscles as well that eventually lets him move around and sit on things.

>>8166959
And if you took these and put them into a wooden body, why would that not make it alive?

>>8166962
wood doesn't contract or expand vie electrical stimulation, muscles do. so if you duct tape a brain to a piece of wood, you'll get a brainstick, not a living mobile organism

>>8166966
But if you somehow had an artificially expansive/contractive body and stuck a brain into it, that wouldn't create consciousness. Where does that come from?

>>8166971
Well thats a philosophical question. Consciousness isn't something measurable, testable or even provable. It's exclusively subjective by nature.
The only way to find out is to suicide and see yourself whats it all about.

>>8166971
You wouldn't "create" consciousness because the brain already has it. Sticking a brain in some kind of artificial body would simply transfer the consciousness.

Consciousness is a feature that arises from a sufficiently complex decision making machine (such as a brain). The more factors such a machine can take into consideration and the wider range of conclusions it can reach with that information the more "consciousness" it has.

How do you guys define life? What constitutes "being alive"?

>>8167414
Entropy is breaking up things while life force is building more and more complex structures.

>>8167232
Not OP but what contains consciousness? What stopped all decision making machines at their earliest onset from networking completely? They clustered and made multicellular units to better network, but why did it stop at clusters and settle for external stimuli for relations beyond?

Better put, what limiting factors led to the above question? Was it fuel? Competition? Who do I have to blame for our planet's lack of superconsciousness?

>>8167414
>How do you guys define life? What constitutes "being alive"?

The definition of life can be found very easily using any search engine.

>>8168201

This is not the definition of life. Life is not immune to the laws of thermodynamics.

>>8166926
because we have defined some to be alive and some not

if this was not the case the word alive would be useless and not exist

>>8166926
Because evolution happened and so biomatter found itself in a more stable energy state in this part of the universe.

Don't worry, it won't last forever. :)

>>8169061
This so much, why the fuck do people think self organisation is something special to life? Fucking everything does if it cools, ice has several very complex low entropy arrangements.

Otherwise the term would not exist

>>8166926
because your momma's so fat