Electricity coupled with magnetism however (electromagnetism) is a field (and wave) which is propagated by electricity and magnetism creating each other. So an EM field would have adequate magnitude for the will to live. Some investigators evidently believe it holds a key to answering the "will to live" question.
However, as Right Wing Professor suggests in post 870, if the EM field were the host field for a will to live per se then we ought to observe repeatable changes in biological systems in the presence of different frequencies, etc. And Frankenstein's experiment would have some basis.
The first step of course is observation, analysis and definition - all of which is already in process. IMHO, it will be a natural extension of the work already proceeding wrt information theory and physics in biology: communications, complexity, autonomy, semiosis, etc.
I think Right Wing Professor's suggestion is right on the money. And so think that something more than "just" an EM field would be required -- although I do imagine that the presence of a "local" EM field may well be the factor that allows an organism to self-organize and govern itself as a unified, dynamic whole. In short, my speculation is the EM field is a facilitator, not source, of the information required for the organism to constantly monitor and modify its internal boundary conditions, to organize itself at the cellular and organic levels, to form "collective degrees of freedom" which, on the basis of research I've seen, is primarily responsible for the organism's ability to enhance its Gibbs free energy at the most economical "cost" to the organism. But the EM field does not itself supply the information required for the organism to be able to do any of these things. The EM field is a field of force, not a field of information.
Which is why I'm with you, Alamo-Girl, in suspecting that a vacuum field is, if not the source, then the carrier of biological information. And to the extent that a hypothetical primary universal vacuum field is the "field of all fields," perhaps it also provides the information necessary for all the other fields as well, thus "informing" matter -- e.g., non-living systems -- as well as living systems.
I read the fascinating "Hypercube Tic-Tac-Toe" last night, A-G. Thanks so much for that link! It was an ingenious study of multidimensionality, starting with observations that are easily made in our 3+1D world within the framework of a seemingly "pointless" game: tic-tac-toe, a game played by two players on a board with n = 3 cells per side in k = 2 dimensions. In short, tic-tac-toe deals with a "planar" reality. Varying k (and also n) leads to some surprising results. The article deals with extra dimensions as a stacking up of planes (each additional dimension regarded as a "plane" engrafted upon the lower-dimensional plane(s) below it. I thought that was a useful way to envision the possibility of extra dimensions beyond our 4D block. And it was interesting to see the behavior elicited by playing the game of tic-tac-toe in higher dimensions. I was fascinated by certain symmetries that seemed to emerge, and also the possibilities for "paired behavior" of the game players.
Anyhoot, the hypercube that emerges from this discussion expresses as geometrical form. To me, the implicit point of the exercise seemed to be that whatever the value of k is, the "highest k" "enfolds" all the other ks, be they of space or time. And this is directly analogous to the idea of a "field of all fields." One would think there is no field more ultimate than the primary vacuum of the universe. But in what "k" that "lives," I imagine will be very difficult to ascertain....
The point is, in my thought experiment, the ultimate k enfolds all within itself; it may be geometrical in form; and it may carry a sort of "cosmic information set" that can be accessed by living beings (e.g., variously called the life principle, the fecundity principle, the will to live). Living beings are living because they are in successful communication with this information source.
I suspect we need to look at the molecules that comprise life to begin to measure a "life force".
All fields are measured by their effects on something else which we can then measure. We don't really measure any fields directly.
Effects of gravity are measured by its effects on all matter (which in turn is measure by scales, etc)
magnetism by effects on iron. (measured also by scales for force)
elctrostatics by effects on gold leafs for instance (they seperate based on the amount of charge, one of the simplest oldest staic measuring devices. Or the effects of the electron.
strong force by its effects on hadrons (which is measured by effects on other materials in particle experiments, and of course in nuclear reactions).
weak force by beta decay (which in turn is measured by some other effects on material in particle detectors)
Thus for life force we must look for unique properties of the life elements/molecules that distinguish them from other molecules, with similar chemistries, perhaps silicon based molecules (the popular silicon life form ideas in sci fi which i suppose evolutionary theories suggest should already have been established, but don't exist)