What is Life?Douglas Goodwin2/13/2013

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Atomismeverything is made of atomsall else is voidatoms interact mechanistically as they movelife a complex arrangement (and movement) of atoms

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Hylomorphism1. The soul grants life2. Life is a property of living beings--compare knowledge and health3. The soul is a property or properties that belong to a living thing4. The soul is to the body as form is to matter

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VitalismLife is not material, it is energyLife comes from organic materials

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What is Life? Erwin Schrödinger, 1944Can 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.

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Contemporary Definition1. 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.

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