1. What is Life?
Douglas Goodwin
2/13/2013
Wednesday, February 13, 13

2. Atomism
everything is made of atoms
all else is void
atoms interact mechanistically as they move
life a complex arrangement (and movement) of atoms
Wednesday, February 13, 13

3. Hylomorphism
1. The soul grants life
2. Life is a property of living beings--compare knowledge and health
3. The soul is a property or properties that belong to a living thing
4. The soul is to the body as form is to matter
Wednesday, February 13, 13

4. Vitalism
Life is not material, it is energy
Life comes from organic materials
Wednesday, February 13, 13

5. What is Life?
Erwin Schrödinger, 1944
Can the events experienced and produced by a living being be
accounted for by physics and chemistry?
Inherited traits must be stored in an aperiodic crystal that contains
genetic information in its configuration of covalent chemical bonds.
Wednesday, February 13, 13

6. Contemporary Definition
1. Homeostasis: Regulation to maintain a constant state.
2. Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells.
3. Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and
energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic
matter (catabolism).
4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A
growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply
accumulating matter.
5. Adaptation: The ability to change over time in response to the
environment.
6. Response to stimuli.
7. Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either
asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent
organisms.
Wednesday, February 13, 13