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Is a prion alive?

Is a virus alive?

Comparing the two ends of the continuum is not as important as determining the 'aliveness' of those organisms that are on the cusp or 'decision point' of the gray area when considering abiogenesis.

Unless you are imbuing everything alive with a consciousness or 'will' the 'will to live' is simply a result of the organism's reproduction. One of the standard requirements of living organisms is self replication whether it be by accident or intension. We tend to mistake this for a desire to live, yet in many organisms the obvious pressing need is the reproduction, not the struggle to continue existence. Even when an organism consumes their offspring in times of threat, this enables them to produce offspring at a later and more favourable time.

Some organisms do not have a 'need' to replicate but simply 'do' replicate. It would be very difficult to assign any meaning, let alone the will to live to that organism. This would be the case for both viruses and prions.

The assignation of will to all things alive is simply our bias as thinking conscious beings, not an inherent function within the organism. It certainly can not be used to define an organism's or object's state.

BTW why does something have to be 'in nature' to be considered alive?

Thank you for your reply!

Is a prion alive? Is a virus alive?

Both fit within the Shannon-Weaver model, albeit probably as "noise" rather than molecular machinery. The theoriest (Schneider, Adami, Yockey, etc.) are all evolutionist and point to noise as the agency of "random mutation".

Comparing the two ends of the continuum is not as important as determining the 'aliveness' of those organisms that are on the cusp or 'decision point' of the gray area when considering abiogenesis.

There is no "cusp" or "decision point" in the continuum of the gray area between non-life to life in abiogenesis theory. That was the whole point of the investigation - to investigate what must accrue in order to transform non-life to life. We had identified the bio/chemical agents and state changes, autonomy, semiosis and some mechanism for self-organizing complexity - when the "fallacy of quantizing the continuum" cratered the whole effort.

Unless you are imbuing everything alive with a consciousness or 'will' the 'will to live' is simply a result of the organism's reproduction. One of the standard requirements of living organisms is self replication whether it be by accident or intension. We tend to mistake this for a desire to live, yet in many organisms the obvious pressing need is the reproduction, not the struggle to continue existence. Even when an organism consumes their offspring in times of threat, this enables them to produce offspring at a later and more favourable time. Some organisms do not have a 'need' to replicate but simply 'do' replicate. It would be very difficult to assign any meaning, let alone the will to live to that organism. This would be the case for both viruses and prions.

To the contrary, if self-replication were the entire point then an embryo would look like a tumor.

The "will to live" permeates and transcends - it behaves like a field (all points in space/time). Gravity and electromagnetism are examples of fields.

Each cell in your body is urged to life (whether push or pull we don't yet know). The cells work together in functional machinery which integrates with different cells and machinery - all struggling to survive. And the whole organism itself struggles to survive.

And not the organism alone, but collectives of organisms - like bees and ants. This hierarchy continues all the way to the biosphere involving plantlife in this march towards life.

I'm fascinated that you and some others here are not interested in why this is so? Physical entropy and the arrow of time it suggests - both point to least action, equilibrium, laziness. Yet life organizes, integrates, cooperates in a struggle to survive.

BTW why does something have to be 'in nature' to be considered alive?

That is the domain of our inquiry, it is what some of us find worthy and interesting: What is life? Why should it exist at all? What is it comprised of and of what is it a part? How did it emerge and where does it lead?

That a strong artificial intelligent designer can mimic properties of life is not interesting to me because the designer did not originate the concept of life but himself is alive in nature and thus has a concept to mimic.

I find myself addressing the same kind of issues on two different threads. Would you care to join us over on the Can the Monist View Account for "What is Life"? thread?