this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2026
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[–] Steve 0 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

fire, isn’t alive. it isn’t biologically.

As I said, life is unrelated to biology.

we aren’t a thing, we replace our matter constantly

Yes, as parts wear out they are replaced, but they aren't single use. That is the nature of a system. As I said, a system can be considered a thing. Fire is not a thing, because it is not a system of reusable parts that interact with each other multiple times. It's better described as a chemical chain reaction. Every molecule is used exactly once. However the illusion of continuity of the flame, can be useful at times to be considered alive. But it's certainly not the most accurate label for fire.

it ends up being more about philosophy than biology, [...] there’s no biological definition for life.

Agreed. Again, my definition has nothing to do with biology. Mechanical systems might be able to perform the actions of life. Even some software may be considered alive within it's environment.

The issue at hand anyway, isn't the line (zone really) between life and death, but the definition of a corpse. To me that seems pretty clearly the point when a system stops working to maintain itself, stops fighting entropy. The remaining structure of the system then starts to break down, falls apart into it's constituent pieces. Corpse-ing is the process that starts, when the process of dying ends.

there, you're getting too philosophical and abstract.

fire isn't alive, isn't cannot evolve, no evolution... and you're definitely failing biology.

point is that the highschool definition is bs, no biologist uses it, yet you're stubbornly stick to it like a contrarian.