Biologists have looked into this. E.g.: J. Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary—in “The Origins of Life”, p.3:
What is life? [...]
An alternative is to define as living any population of entities posessing those properties that are needed if the population is to evolve by natural selection.
Evolution requires variation. In the real world, there’s no such thing as enhancing a living system so it doesn’t vary. A living system that doesn’t vary doesn’t stay alive for very long.
Clarification: Do you think it would be impossible to bring humans to the point that we no longer have mutations, or that it would lead to our extinction, or neither?
That it isn’t going to happen. The future surely contains massive variation, as adaptive strategies are explored on ever-larger scales. Endless stasis just isn’t how evolution operates. Attempting to defend completely against mutations is pointless and futile.
Randomness was never one of the “properties that are needed if the population is to evolve by natural selection” in the first place. I never mentioned it, and nor did Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary.
That’s correct. Chain letters—and the rest of human culture—is literally alive.
Here is Dawkins (1976) on the topic:
As my colleague N.K. Humphrey neatly summed up an earlier draft of this chapter: “memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically”.
Mules are alive. Mule cells reproduce and persist via a copying process. Being sterile does not mean you are not alive, just that you are near the end of the line. Chain letters are alive too - it is unfortunate that few people realise that.
IMO, a new word is not needed: we don’t need multiple terms for practically the same basic thing.
Biologists have looked into this. E.g.: J. Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary—in “The Origins of Life”, p.3:
This might just be nitpicking, but that would exclude artificially created life that doesn’t have mutations.
It would also exclude humans if we enhanced ourselves beyond mutating. This seems to me a much stronger counter example.
Evolution requires variation. In the real world, there’s no such thing as enhancing a living system so it doesn’t vary. A living system that doesn’t vary doesn’t stay alive for very long.
Clarification: Do you think it would be impossible to bring humans to the point that we no longer have mutations, or that it would lead to our extinction, or neither?
That it isn’t going to happen. The future surely contains massive variation, as adaptive strategies are explored on ever-larger scales. Endless stasis just isn’t how evolution operates. Attempting to defend completely against mutations is pointless and futile.
I’m not sure if you’re right, but in any case I expect variation in the distant future to come from design rather than random mutation.
Randomness was never one of the “properties that are needed if the population is to evolve by natural selection” in the first place. I never mentioned it, and nor did Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmary.
FWIW, my preferred version is that life is that which persists via copying.
Like chain letters?
That’s correct. Chain letters—and the rest of human culture—is literally alive.
Here is Dawkins (1976) on the topic:
Seems a bit perverse to use a definition that says a chain letter is alive, but a mule isn’t. Why not just make up a new term?
Mules are alive. Mule cells reproduce and persist via a copying process. Being sterile does not mean you are not alive, just that you are near the end of the line. Chain letters are alive too - it is unfortunate that few people realise that.
IMO, a new word is not needed: we don’t need multiple terms for practically the same basic thing.