Are Viruses Actually a Life Form?
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 8 сен 2024
- Get 70% off a 2-year NordPass premium plan at nordpass.com/br... or use a code brainfood. Plus you get an additional month for FREE!
Love content? Check out Simon's other RUclips Channels:
Biographics: / @biographics
Geographics: / @geographicstravel
MegaProjects: / @megaprojects9649
SideProjects: / @sideprojects
Casual Criminalist: / @thecasualcriminalist
TopTenz: / toptenznet
Highlight History: / @highlighthistory
XPLRD: / @xplrd
Business Blaze: / @brainblaze6526
→Some of our favorites: • Featured
→Subscribe for new videos every day!
www.youtube.co...
This video is #sponsored by Nordpass.
Sources:
Zimmer, Carl, Are Viruses Alive? The Royal Institution, November 25, 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?...
Racaniello, Vincent, Virology Lectures 2021 #1: What is a Virus? January 12, 2021, • Virology Lectures 2021...
Campbell, Neil, Biology, The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Inc, Menlo Park, California, 1987
Nurse, Paul, What is Life? The Royal Institution, December 19, 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?...
Life’s Working Definition: Does it Work? NASA, www.nasa.gov/v...
Get 70% off a 2-year NordPass premium plan at nordpass.com/brainfood or use a code brainfood. Plus you get an additional month for FREE!
Id rather think we are fighting a living thing, rather than something that is unalive. Simply as the idea that something that has no life is actively hunting you is a scary idea
I have come across information that has made me genuinely doubt whether viruses actually exist.
The idea that the field of virology is a sham.
Similar to how the field of psychology is a sham.
Anyone wondering can check out a woman named Dr. Sam Bailey.
The rest of you can feel free to belittle me, and have my comment deleted.
@castela 38 scammer
You're refusing to touch the Ukrainian siege! Get some balls for your 5 channels of content ya' cowards!
@castela 38 WQQA as
"It's life, Jim, but not as we know it."
Alien? How true or ridiculous would be to think viruses are nanobots?
"What are you on about now, Bones?"
@@josephschultz3301 ha
🖖
I'm a doctor Jim, not a bricklayer.
When I was a first year student, studying environmental science, the introductory biology course used this very question as the first major assignment: is a virus alive? Because you have to understand what it means to be considered ‘life’, and how viruses and all other organisms reproduce and survive. And the course lecturers and tutors sat back and watched a few hundred new students argue it out. It was an interesting couple of weeks. And there were many people in both camps, totally certain of their conclusion. But just about any argument you can put forward has an exception, as universally accepted ‘living’ things do the same thing, as viruses do, such as evolve, migrate, etc.
in the end I came to believe that viruses were just junk code that happened to be able to trick a living organisms cells to reproduce it, thus being selected-for this grate when evolving and sustaining their existence. But this was the late 80s and computers, computers viruses, hackers, etc were cool. So I think I was also influenced by the culture of the time. But I am Okay with that.. ..
So am I...
@@ChristophersMum so are you, what? A first year student? A virus? Living in the 80’, where hackers are cool and viruses are crashing windows 3.1?
@@paulroberts3639 i like to believe theyre all of these options at once
@@paulroberts3639 I think they are just " okay with that"
I tend to think they are alive in some meaningful way, though I can't claim any expertise. The thing I have often noticed in these discussions of, "is a virus alive?" is that people worry a great deal about the definition of life and if a virus can meet it, but seldom ask if their definition of a virus is any good. A virus is some particle that floats around? Sure. For part of its life cycle. Human beings are gametes for part of their life cycle. Is that a complete definition of a human being?
The functioning virus within a living cell is also still the virus, and at that point it actually does have all the necessary machinery to perform the functions people say it lacks. Stolen, yes, but it has them. In some sense the infected cell could be considered the virus itself, much like The Thing from the movies with the same name lives by taking over the body of another organism. The idea that a virus can't reproduce except by hijacking other living cells is true, but in some sense it's also true of us... Our cells can not produce many of the compounds necessary for us to live, so we get them by exploiting the life functions of other living things, we just do so in a different way than a virus.
Small criticism: Reverse transcriptase does not, by itself, integrate the virus' genetic code into the host cells DNA. What it does is construct a piece of DNA out of the virus' RNA. This is a process that in living cells only occurs in the other direction, hence the name. The enzyme that integrates the resulting DNA into the host cell's DNA is, aptly, called integrase.
That picture you showed of a virus with a smaller virus in a backpack, by the way, may very well be referring to Hepatitis D. This is a virus that lacks some of the machinery needed to infect humans. This machinery is present in Hepatitis B, so you can only get Hep D if you already have Hep B.
Does it only construct a piece of DNA or can it also construct a piece of RNA depending on the virus since a virus carries only DNA or RNA but not both.
@@juliemanarin4127 only DNA. The host cell is then tricked into transcribing the DNA back into RNA. I wouldn't be surprised if there were transcriptases that do RNA to RNA directly but those wouldn't be called reverse transcriptase. For single stranded RNA this would still be a two-step process, though, because AFAIK all transcriptases construct a complementary strand of genetic material, not an identical one. Also, I don't know of any viruses that have both RNA and DNA as genetic material, but there is no real reason such a virus could not exist. In fact, enzymes like transcriptases and polymerases tend not to be purely protein-based and often incorporate some RNA in their structure. That doesn't really count as genetic material, but by this logic you could argue that many DNA viruses have both DNA and RNA.
Life is a subset of the continuum that is chemical processes. Much like the visible light spectrum is a subset of the greater light spectrum. As such, there will be cases at the boundary of this subset that will make placing the boundary, itself, difficult.
In practice, this just means the boundary will probably not be a solid line, but more of a fuzzy zone. And different disciplines, studies, or scientists can place that boundary wherever is convenient for their purpose within that zone, and even move that boundary if the purpose changes, or the boundary was found to be misplaced.
Exactly.
With the EM spectrum i can show you a given wavelength that is clearly Red or clearly Yellow, and we have set ranges for what wavelengths belong to what color group.
And yet if we showed everyone each integer wavelength in order and asked them what color is this you would barely be able to tell the difference between 450nm and 451nm but show you 450nm and 600nm and suddenly its like day and night that these are different colors.
The same is true for the spectrum of chemistry on which life sits. A human or dog is plainly alive, a steel beam is plainly nonliving, but a virus is like that border between 450 and 451, we may draw a line between the 2 but its much harder to tell apart a virus from is it just a really complex nonliving chemical structure/particle or is it the most simplistic form of life? Personally i consider them non-living particles but this is probably partially due to my schooling and how i wouldn't consider a computer alive, just a machine. (But if an AI spontaneously asked for rights and its sourcecode wasn't just preprogrammed to say that as a joke then you better believe its getting full rights as a sentient, and the burdern of responsibility that comes with it)
nice
A great follow up to this could be just times on star treks various shows they encountered sentient life in forms they didn't recognize as even potentially life at first. One of my favorites was a crystal type sand that was destroying mining equipment because it was hurting them but these tiny creatures had to figure out how to prove to the bags of water first what they were.
That episode had the hilarious insult of "ugly bags of water" which data had to explain/clarify to picard.
One interesting way to see it is that viruses themselves aren't alive, but virions are. Virions are the infected cells, they can reproduce and spread in the correct environment. In that sense the viruses are more like spores or seeds, a mobile mechanism of delivering copies of the virion's genetic material into new places, and that activates only in the correct environment, and it just so happens that this form of life spends most of its time in the spore phase.
yes i think that's the most practical way of classifying them. but that raises a question. do we consider seeds and spores "alive"?
i planted a lentil and watched it grow into a plant, but the lentil itself does not utilize environmental energy or replicate itself while siting in a packet on the shelf.
One interesting way that viruses are in fact alive . Eight percent of our DNA consists of remnants of ancient viruses, and another 40 percent is made up of repetitive strings of genetic letters that is also thought to have a viral origin.
Virions are the infectious viral particle, which was covered in the video and can be found by searching virion in any web browser.
@@razz1166 Shall we throw Prions into this. Question is when do protein chains become alive, and more importantly sentinent - how do things react to changes in their environment - is it by making a thought and specific change, or an environmental co-incidence of random changes giving a better fit ? - (as non fit organisms die out)
Intracellular Obligate Parasite.
My favorite analogy is that viruses are like pieces of code floating about like bugs in program.
That's very accurate. I'll add that the bugs are nested within seemingly normal looking code.
All of biology are just pieces of code floating along. There is no life at all. Its all biomechanical machines.
@@craigh5236 Surely you would be the first to claim non-living human status and all the degradation in rights that entails.
Thats so odd haha
Yeah, tech stuff in general too in that it is like an in between of natural life and not-living blurring that line that separates the two by existing on or near it
Hiya Simon, the house would not be the same without your voice. Thank you for promoting so many awesome services. This is amazing. I am going to share with my parents.
@Today I Found Out , Simon, in the 1970s, I saw an apocalyptic movie from the late '50s, early '60s. In it, a meteor fell into an arid area. There was a black crystal in it. When it rained, it grew, fell, shattered, and more would grow when it rained. Some people collected samples. Any humans who touched it started acting strangely, zombie-like, trying to touch others, as their motion slowed down. They eventually froze in place, turned into black crystals, fell over and shattered, growing more crystals if their remains got wet. Someone who figured this out eventually went out to where the meteor had landed. It was a field miles across, populated by tree-tall black crystals, falling over and shattering in the rain. The End.
Btw, a correction: @19:58 in or so, no, this virus didn't "infect an African ape millions of years ago." It infected a monotreme or early marsupial hundreds of millions of years ago, leading to all placental mammals.
Looked it up. The movie is called "The Monolith Monsters". Seems like it would be a great book.
@timwill20 Wow! That's cool, and thanks. Now, if only someone could find me the crossover movie where a man takes his daughter to a boarding school, where the (secretly a vampire) head mistress promises him his daughter will be safe from the zombie plague. It's from the '60s I think.
I went from watching Simon yelling on Brain Blaze to sitting professionally at a desk. Love it.
Yeah, but he's gone to wearing more "professional" clothes on _that_ than he's wearing on _this,_ and that's just messed up. I haven't watched much of it since he started siting at a desk, with a freaking tie on. It's just such a let-down now.
Brain blaze? time to look it up.
Same here
@@Kero7th must not watch Simon enough
One of the sequels to Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" dealt with this question as well. Characters wondered if they could communicate with a virus at some level. A long debate that's always fascinated me since I read those novels many years ago.
Amazing books. Check out his pathfinder series if you haven't.
Can you communicate with viruses?
Isn't that what texting is?
I mean, technically you can't really communicate with alligators or crocodiles, but they're still alive.
@@cameronjadewallace sure we can
@@wingerding okay Florida
Hey Simon could you please make some videos on the history of Russia and Ukraine? Like what was the Minsk treaty and etc. I think people everywhere would appreciate it if you covered it.
Simon is a RUclips virus. He keeps replicating in more and more channels.
Yeah, Simon and Raid are both highly aggressive STDs
This mf is everywhere lmao
@@kirbya9545 I know, right? I have literally no idea who this guy even is, but he seems to have a million different channels.
We were just having this discussion on Discord a few nights ago and I was trying to explain this. YOU sir, as always, killed it with what I was trying to explain. Sent the video to my discord friends 🤣👍
lol we covered this in science around 1 month ago
@@ayushrudra8600 we did the same 15 years ago in high school.
@@sorandkairi00 same, 50 years ago in high school. at the time they were classified as a kingdom in the tree of life, but it was noted that there was disagreement as to whether they were actually alive.
Dang, your Discord group sounds awesome.
@@MusicalRaichu and it looks like nothing has changed since.
This demonstrates the danger of categorical thinking. Categories are useful shortcuts for discussing things, but that usefulness breaks down if talking about something near the boundary between categories, or when the number of categories is insufficient. In this case, dividing stuff into life and not-life when viruses are obviously in between the two.
As a biologist, I found this video a complete description of what life is & may be. Well done!
I dont care if you are a biologist or a fuvking gambler. Put it simple, is it life form or not?
I'm just a high school biology teacher giddy that this is a video for the general public about the subject I am so passionate about! ❤️
Or as Thor said,
“All words are made up”
I did a couple of years of med school, and the names of meds, disorders, and basically anything medical, were always a mouthful
Not super related to viruses, but since Schrodinger was mentioned: he didn't put any cats in boxes. He didn't even agree with superposition (the concept Schrodinger's cat is used to demonstrate.) He was making fun of it. His original write-up of the thought experiment starts with the words "We can even set up quite ridiculous cases:"
8:02 I know I'm looking at this with the benefit of knowing the answer, but it seems strange to me that people thought that the more complex structure (proteins) would be responsible for heredity. Reproduction being basically the only empirically observable purpose of all life and the one common to all of them no matter how simple the organism, it makes sense to me that the less complex, more basic structure would be what drives it. After all, if you go back to the beginning of all life in the primordial soup, there must have been a bare minimum *thing* that made it work, so if you're trying to decide between whether the less complex or the more complex structure drives reproduction, the less complex one seems to me to be the more promising candidate.
Unless the pro-protein camp was more about amino acids than full-on proteins, then I could see it. Again, the more basic structure as minimum viable product.
I still remember most of this stuff from my high school Biology class. Good to know that sometimes public education doesn't fail us. As long as we don't fail it, and actually pay attention in class lol.
This whole video is the floating head of Oz part.
Not the old man behind the curtain part.
You can literally pinpoint when the lies & deception began, in this very video, at 2:43.
Your teacher taught you lies.
@@TheHardys01 It's no surprise to me that a wrestling fan doesn't understand the scientific method.
@@SpacemanXC
Wrestling gives one a perspective of the world others don't have.
Wrestling fans comprehend that what is on camera is part of the fiction,
and what goes on behind the curtain is what is "real".
You however watch your corrupted scientists, and politicians pop up on your LED screen, and start believing the wrestling you're watching is "real".
You then go on to resist useful knowledge, and disparage someone like me who simply questions things.
All in a sad attempt to protect your preconceived notions, and enflate your ego.
While unknowingly stifling your own growth.
@@TheHardys01 the only person with an inflated (not “enflate” btw) ego here is you, calm down lmfao
@@apollo1573 What a pitiful response..
You are right about one thing however..
I misspelt a word😱
At least I'm humble enough to admit when i've made an error....
Haven't watched yet, but before watching I'm of the opinion that they are very much a life form. They multiply, evolve, seek to survive, die, etc. They are not comparable to rocks, ground, doors, water, etc that all have no will at all. They move on their own and are capable of adapting. It's impossible to argue that they aren't alive.
It's almost like they were intelligently designed
@@shadymcnasty5920 Nah, just a result of billions of years of evolution.
To quote (I think) 90's pop star Scooter, "Life is Life".
But seriously, the virus is as much alive as we are, and we are as much a collection of mechanical parts that coincidentally cause chain reactions that allow us to make slightly Altered Carbon copies of ourselves.
Or one day we might discover extraterrestrial life just realise that DNA truly is the universal structure and underlying mechanism that forms all life in the universe no matter where it starts. This is why discovering even a small bacteria on Mars would be such a breakthrough.
Nonsense.
If Mars life has the same DNA as earth life, the only conclusion is that they share an origin.
@@JoshSweetvale how would they share an origin?? That makes zero sense
@@apollo1573 planets are not closed, isolated systems. material does get ejected from one and lands on another. dozens of meteorites on earth have been of martian origin, and they're just the ones we know about. probably the reverse has happened as well.
a living organism is unlikely to survive the impact of being ejected, the airless interplanetary flight and the gruelling heat of entry. however, it's theoretically possible that a chemical that spawned life could survive and travel from one world to another.
an alternative idea is that chemicals that spawned life could have originated in places like comets. as both planets could realistically pass through the same or similar comet's tail, the same life-spawning chemical could have contaminated both planets. carbon-based compounds like methane occur naturally in such bodies.
@@MusicalRaichu yeah I understand that but I’m willing to bet meteors (if any) that come from earth and hit mars are in no way capable of hosting life on it. Like you said the chemicals could make it, but that’s not enough because it’s just the chemicals not the life itself.
I just think it’s more likely for life (if any, I doubt there is personally) to have evolved on mars on its own in its past rather than coming from earth.
@@apollo1573 it would be a common origin if some particular chemical has a likelihood of steering life in a certain direction. it would evolve in different directions, but could have some commonality due to the same underlying cause.
like you find radically different life in isolated environments on earth utilizing different energy sources, but it's possible they shared a common ancestry in some kind of chemical reaction that seeded it.
personally i think that life on two planets having a common origin is highly speculative. we have no idea what reactions caused life to start on earth, what could cause life on other worlds, and whether the same reactions that worked on one planet would work on another even if they did have the same origin.
One way I’ve always explained life is intelligence. You look at any animal or bug on earth and you’ll see a trend of a self of well being, preservation, and acts to do what is best for themselves or other members of their species. With bacteria and viruses, you’ll see them move around and seek out food and host cells, furthering their species and showing a level of intelligence, and thus, life.
Side note, Simon, do you have a video about intelligence in animals?
5.58 million deaths to what nearly 8 billion people? We got off lucky in terms of mortality rates
Simple answer:
If you can kill it, it’s alive.
If you can’t kill it, either it’s not alive or it’s already dead. Or you suck at killing.
I can kill salt crystals by adding impurities and water - the crystals will never come back, since the impurities will mis-form the crystals. Is salt alive?
@@KonradTheWizzard There are some who say a mote of consciousness exists in every subatomic particle…
@@majorskepticism7836 Some? Who? How exactly does consciousness relate to life? Plants are alive, but not conscious. In short: we have no idea where the boundary between living and non-living chemistry is and we have even less of a clue about consciousness.
If your answer is simple, then it is very likely wrong. If your answer is complex than you are just beating around the bush and probably still wrong. For the moment the only correct answer is "we don't know".
@@KonradTheWizzard ya kinda missed the point.
SOME people have suggested that God *IS* the Universe, that every part of the Universe, being part of the Creator, is part of his consciousness. Note that I said *some,* not including myself. I did not say anything about consciousness being a necessary component of *life.* There are plenty of unconscious sacks walking around talking, arguing, and agreeing with other unconscious sacks…
You are right, we don’t know, which was the point - far-out shit like quarks having a mote of consciousness is just an expression of our collective ignorance.
@@KonradTheWizzard Hey KTW, do u have an Instagram or YT channel? U have an interesting thought process.
"What is life!
Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more"
Viruses play an outsized role .... so does water... so do various proteins we use to function... so does nitrogen... I would say viruses are not alive. They are pre life molecules that become life when, like bacteria, they gain the ability to reproduce on their own. I don't think we can define life but we can test a compound and determine if it is life.
Did you just compare proteins and nitrogen as similar? Bro. What.
I'd argue yes as life is the longest continuous chemical reaction in history and viruses are part of that
meanwhile there are robots who built other robots as in "giving birth" to a copy of itself.
Buy only if an external entity (humans) provides them with the resources and the instructions to do it. When they do all of that themselves without us.. watch out.
Bacteriophages literally look and act like tiny robots. It's mind boggling. Maybe they had an intelligent creator
@@shadymcnasty5920 nope
Both Kurzgesat and Motherboard have excellent videos on bacteriophages, and man, it’s another world of life (or non-life) entirely.
Another very informative video that I enjoyed Simon you do a great job informing people of various things throughout this world keep up the good work
I've always wondered if viruses are the closest thing we can get to what LUCA must have been like.
"Starfleet was founded to seek out new life; well there it sits!" - Captain Jean Luc Picard, Stardate 42523.7
Stranger still is the fact that mice can pass ptsd from father mice to offspring theyve never met, or met the female mice. What information can be passed down through dna?
I think the what is life question can also have different answers depending on different cultures, philosophies, and religion. It isn't scientific, per say, but should no be discounted. Thanks for talking about the philosophical aspect as well.
THANKS MATE, YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT IN THE WAY, AND MANNER, IN WHICH YOU PRESENT THESE SEGMENTS, ABSOLUTELY ENTHRALLED. MAXXAUS.
at a buffet, i personally sneak corndogs into the buffet so others can enjoy them. I hide 6 corndogs in my jacket pockets. it then, is a joy for me to see other patrons of the establishment eat my corndogs thinking they were part of the buffet.
Very interesting life you have there.. yet i know some crazy person is going to do this with poisoned corndogs now.
@castela 38your spam comment feels like I am reading on acid...
if not the how do scientists tell you the distance you should maintain with others and how many should attend a party and enter a theatre?
22:45 > Does this mean that Simon is a virus? After all, we show him the most upmost admiration & respect. Say'n 🤣
Shared with a friend
Love your directly addressing 'life' as an entropy defying force
I also find it fascinating that we've discovered, inside each of our cells, a 6.5' long wire strand of quaternary code that controls all cell function.
We call that biology, but I think we are looking at nano technology on the smallest scale. (each cell has a friggin book in it, if we found a book on the moon we wouldn't think it a natural phenomena)
The molecular complexity of what is taking place inside a cell is akin to a machine performing a string of instructions. If you've ever watched animations of the inner workings of a cell it's not hard to imagine that 'life' as we call it is likely the result of a previous technological singularity whose output is a very simple single cell that can evolve to exploit just about every niche on earth, and has done so
what that does is; from the dawn of life roughly 3 billion years ago, there's been a standing wave of life energy on the planet. The living forms are made of the planet's constituent matter and when the form is used up and dies, it returns completely back to the planet, but first it reproduces (if successful) and the standing wave remains unbroken in spite of the loss of a single form, more were created.
In that way, the earth itself is alive. We are entirely of the earth and return back to it. Since the dawn of time, since life first reproduced, it's remained an unbroken chain evolving ever more complexity in the face of the second law of thermal dynamics.
Evolving towards what? consciousness of course. To be self-aware of what we are.
Its always a blast to see every side of Simon in a day. Great content as always
16:15 It becomes very obvious when Simon doesn't understand what he's reading off of the script. A slight, visible panic occurs.
Indeed
This was literally my entire biology lesson today
Now you will remember it even better.
Makes me think about some of the crazy speculations that were popular in mid-20th Century sci-fi
Exotic forms indeed - positing that life requires some measure of conductivity, one writer wondered if there could be crystalline entities on Pluto that couldn't survive any closer to the Sun than that body; whose chemistry and electrical "machinery" relied on superconductivity at low temperatures. That was a wild story, but I found it interesting that the illustration seemed to draw heavily on the protein structures we've seen from viruses...
Respecting viruses makes sense, but at least in the case of certain ones, I'd rather respect them right into oblivion thanks...
I often wonder if fire is a life form. It grows it replicates it feeds it reacts to stimuli. It breaths, it dies out, it creates waste.
From all of the Resaerch & Discovery I have done, COVID is a "Living Organism" especially since it "evolves" to survive...
Me thinks you mean’t mutates to survive instead of “evolves”--although your inverted commas suggest your hypothesis might be flawed!🤔
I think it is debatable to say that something changing and though enabling persistence means to be alive.
Another piece of information still relevant to the nowadays situation even though not as much as in 2020 or 2021.
What does that even mean
I question if planets or other celestial bodies like stars and moons are alive in the same way as viruses. Planets that are "active" have flowing lava or similar processes, and have the natural phenomenon as weather, like storms. The sun as well as other stars have ways of manipulating the gases and other materials within them as though it is digesting. Stars go out and "die" similar to the lysis of cells and viruses they spill their guts out. It's hard to almost exclude how a flame or fire is the same query like the others as being "alive".
As with everything in the universe and beyond the definition of life should remain an open-ended question.
I propose the following definition for Life:
All Living Forms of Life Must at the Least Utilize IntraCellular, and may also Utilize ExtraCellular, Electrical and/or Chemical Communications which are Required to Sustain the Life Form Itself.
To be sure someone will devise better wording. 'Communications' would be what our nerves are for, or in the case of one cell there are chemical communicator systems in place.
The word 'Required' is used to filter out incidental chemical reactions such as those found in fire and other stray data which does not apply directly to the continuance of 'Life'.
So, this definition rules out Viruses and Fire from the list of things Alive however it does not rule out AI as being Alive. Interesting.
[I should pause here to point out that in drawing distinctions and making classifications, mankind is usually imposing artificial divisions of his own choosing upon a universe that is, in many ways “all one piece.” The justification for doing so is that it helps us in our understanding of the universe. It breaks down a set of objects and phenomena too complex to be grasped in its entirety into smaller realms that can be dealt with one by one. There is noting objectively “true” about such classifications, however, and the only proper criterion on their value is that of their usefulness.]
Isaac Asimov, The Human Body, 13, signet 1963
Easy definition for life. Information that resists entropy of its own volition.
Love your vids, haven't watched in a while and missed hearing your voice, makes everything you talk about more interesting. Gonna start watching again, I have more time now 😌
Good thing he has 13 channels for you to enjoy
Whoa…this video is giving me serious Biochemistry flashbacks!
Excellent job explaining something that can be difficult to understand, Simon!
What a fantastic commentary that failed to answer the titular question while exploring biology, philosophy and even, surreptitiously, theology. Loved it 😊
Only one thing matters the ability to make oneself over again is life
this is really asking 'can information be alive' as a software engineer I can't help but be biased towards answering yes absolutely as that's all we are, bits of information acting on other bits of information, what else is life if not that
I don't get how some think they aren't life, or at least a very basic and primitive pre form of life. They don't fit all the qualifications we normally give to life, that is a fact. But then again, neither would the earliest forms of life that would end up tracing directly to us. They seem to make a nice area t hat shows what early life could have been like in many ways. As it clearly couldn't have done all it does now right away.
Simon, you so much sound as though you know exactly what you're talking about. Including all the words! Thanks for this succinct but inclusive search for the answer to a question mooted since I was a student ( in 1962) where I was told that the definition of life was anything that took in oxygen, and gave off CO2.
[The difference between life and nonlife, under the circumstances ordinarily encountered, is sufficiently great for even the casual observer to find words sufficiently exact to make the distinction easily. As we study simpler forms of life, however, matters become less clear and, at the simplest levels, the distinction becomes difficult to express. ]
Isaac Asimov, The Human Body, 12, signet 1963
Another excellent relevant informative video. Certainly you could make a case that is for and against viruses being lifeforms.
I know, it is humbling to see how humans can easily be brought low by panic and fear.
The virus was hardly a blip in the last 50 years, let alone human history...
just wait till they fear extinction and inescapable mental issues from malnourishment by famine.
Covid did not do all those horrible things to us, we did them to ourselves. Covid did not even kill all those people, as a case could be made that our own overactive immune systems did the damage that killed some infected with covid. It was us and our stupid government that locked us down, closed schools, closed businesses, forced us into masks, etc. Covid just went on with its life cycle as it always has, it was humans and their oversize fears that caused all the destruction. So in the end it was overbearing and skittish government that was to blame for most of the bad effects of covid emerging.
"panic and fear" , COVID is bad, thank god for modern medicine.
Uh hum. The spanish flu would like a word.
@@sown-laughter4351 Trouble with that one is that any shock such an idea might have is long past. Few people truly fear extinction through the method you suggest, though some to fear it in an existential sort of way. As for those "inescapable mental issues", beyond the relatively small subset of the population who are susceptible, it won't lead to an epidemic of mental problems in most populations.
*sings* What is life? Baby don't replicate me, don't replicate me, in the same form...
I depend on closed captions so much... I was wondering who "Robert Koughly Pasteur" was until I realized the automatic captioning system had mangled "Robert Koch, Louis Pasteur." I think if our robotic overlords are to be feared, it's because they'll accidentally step on us.
"What is life" was pondered musically by George Harrison in 1970, but there were some other factors mentioned. 😉
Wait huh
@@zenon459 It's a song, readily available here on RUclips if you search for it. Not a science song, hence my "other factors" clause.
@@sschmidtevalue i'm aware, i'm a huge Beatles fan and love the All Things Must Pass album, i was just wondering how it fit into the video
@@zenon459 In at least two spots, Simon says "what is life" and the song sprang to mind.
There is a song for every situation
There's another school of thought that suggests that the infected cell is itself the life form and that the virus is simply the method of reproducing. This is further helped by the fact that there are viruses that infect other (often larger) viruses.
@Eastside Azskelad No, it would make the form that we think of as the virus the equivalent of a (parasitic) seed. Like an acorn (which is not really completely alive) turns into the life form of an oak tree, the virus turns into the life form of an infected cell. In both cases the life form exists to produce more seeds that then go on to produce more life forms that.... and so on.
8:55 "Clean E-coli" That's a bit of an oxymoron :D
Great question!
My understanding is life is like an Ai whereas viruses are like a perpetual motion machine. One is more advanced but share similar characteristics.
I follow the work of Stefan Lanka, please have a look it’s extremely interesting & shows the many flaws in virology, also please look into the Perth group
A classic example of where an over emphasis on evolution in western culture leads us in unhelpful directions that result in confusing conclusions.
I'm amazed they were able to develop those ceramic filters before they could even see the bacteria
DEFINE INDELIBLY, "A LIFE FORM". MAXXAUS.
sometimes ive seen plenty of videos on the subject but i just want simon to tell it😂 cheers factman!
For the 8 yrs I shot heroin I never once was sick with the flu or a cold. But the first week I stopped I caught a cold. And yes I got dope sick in those 8 years. But that’s different.
Thank you to you, Simon, and your awesome team. This was a great video.
My science teacher said this to me when I said that its debated if they’re alive or not “No it’s not” like as if its defacto true.
Imo they are to life what updates are to programs.
Is it a program? Kinda.... has compile functions. Can you run it? Not outside a specific environment. Would it fit other programs? Probably but not well with out debugging.
But that line of thinking brings other questions. Ie. Programmer?
I'm going to make this concept a bit different to explain why I don't think they qualify as life forms. Say an implant was developed that could more or less hijack parts of your brain and influence your behavior, such that you now mostly want to make more identical high tech implants and implant them in other people. Is this machine alive? No, the human being is though. That's what a virus does to a cell, it's not a whole lot more complicated I think. Virus' are completely inert pieces of information that happen to fit into our cells and as prions show, just fitting in can cause immense problems, the data itself is almost meaningless (just like the pile of viral genetic info we each carry). I think you could also compare a virus to a book, a book can convert someone to another viewpoint, even make them spread the same information, but the book isn't alive, and nobody sane would say it is, even if it's author was alive. Data/information (IE a virus) isn't alive, but it can have huge ramifications anyways, and I don't see what other discipline you could use to study virus' than biology. I think it's worth noting we mostly study the affects of a virus, not so much it's physical shell, it being far too small, and usually hard to damage while in a host. I think the fact that they have limited/no biological process' also leads me to question whether they qualify as alive, no metabolism of any kind is a deal breaker for me, let alone having individual cell division. It doesn't eat, or change/age, it only will literally decay away/be destroyed, and you could remove all but the genetic information and likely allow it to function fully as a virus, most of the material is there to protect it/get it into a cell.
But seriously, if you consider virus' alive, I think you have to accept that machines can be an artificial form of life and adjust your world view accordingly. I actually think a machine could be much closer to life, despite having no biological processes, at least it'd have processes.
This really makes me wonder to what extent viruses have influenced our own genome, and those of other living things, over the course of life on this planet. Would life even exist without them? Are these things the "primordial ooze" from which all other life sprung?
Cool stuff, keep it coming.
Excellent
Mustve been sonewhat scary and fascinating/ thrilling to find this out
Maybe the best way to define life is whether or not it can stop functioning (die)?
It's funny how many things we talk or think about on a regular basis, and think we understand the definition of it, but in reality we have no idea. And that's not to put anyone down. There's nothing wrong with not knowing. I'm just pointing out that A. it's interesting and B. most people don't even notice. Life is a good example of one such thing. But some others off the top of my head would be happiness (I mean true happiness), morality, and reality. And by not knowing what they are, I mean, you would find yourself hard pressed to find words that could properly describe these things. Especially in a way that everybody can agree on, mostly because everybody's idea of these things will all be different. Which makes it all the more interesting.
I think the actual debate on these topics has more meaning than the actual answer.
Are viruses alive or non-living particles? The difference to most is whether we say bleach kills or destroys them.
But the points made and lines of inquiry followed to try and classify Viruses on one side or another if this arbitrary line will yeild actionable discoveries that can have tangible benefits.
Maybe the use reproduction debate results in someone figuring out how to perform the reverse transcription and write to someone's DNA. An ability with potential for great healing like curing basically all genetic ailments including type 1 diabetes (the one your born with), or cancers. On the other you could give someone cancer or otherwise cause irreparable harm to them by messing with their genome.
Or maybe it the debates just lead to a better philosophical understanding of what certain people value over others, which could still be useful knowledge.
Personally i consider life to be on a spectrum from inert pure hydrogen gas to sentient humans, and viruses are the vines crawling along the tree of life, permanently entangled but utterly dependent and specialized to the various branches.
@@jasonreed7522 YES I absolutely agree that life is a spectrum. I think most things that we have a hard time defining which I mentioned before are on a spectrum. That's what makes them so difficult to articulate. Language, and by extension, the human mind, generally classifies things in terms of black and white.
But nature doesn't fit into our neat little view of things being black and white. Like the issue of wave/particle duality. Is a sub atomic particle a point particle, like a ball? Or is it a wave? Because they exhibit behaviors of both. When in reality, I don't think they're either. They're something else which exhibits the behaviors of both, depending on the context. But human language lacks the ability to properly explain something like this. Or paradoxical situations like super position where something both "is" and "isn't" at the same time. Whether referring to something vibrating, or the position of something, or whether it even exists (like a poor German kitty cat in a box).
And as for morality, well that's definitely a man-made idea. As uncomfortable as it is, and it is very uncomfortable to consider, there's no such thing as morality in nature. Nature doesn't "make" an earthquake happen in a deliberate act of malice. It's just a fundamental fact of life that things like disaster, disease, suffering etc will happen. Sometimes to a newborn before they even get a chance at life. It's tragic as hell. But again, it's not done for any malevolent reason. It's just how things are.
And I absolutely agree too that there's a lot more value to be had from the conversation of how to define these things and the nuances and problems one runs into when trying to define them etc than from finding the actual answer to these questions. I actually like to learn/study things just for fun. No end game to it at all. I don't go to school, though I'd like to, but not living below the poverty line I won't. But I have no career that requires it. Nothing like that. I just learn for the sake of learning, because I enjoy it. And yeah I realize it's really unconventional for a person to learn for fun. But once you break the association of learning with school, it's suddenly a much different (and more pleasant) experience.
So I don't end up learning for any reason other than just for the fun of it. I don't even start studying a subject with the goal of learning it in mind. Like, I won't look up calculus and say "okay I want to know how to do integration so I'll start studying it." Instead I just studying integration and anything else relating to it and just have fun with it. Then whether I've learned it or not, I move on to the next topic. And that's fine, because I'll inevitably come back to the first topic after long enough. I just sorta rotate them I guess. But again, I'm not trying to learn anything specific. I'm just trying to learn for the fun of it.
And after being out of school for 20+ years and doing this on my own for so long, I often have people ask me "how do you know so much?" or "how are you so smart?" And I just explain that to them. I tell them, you spend 20 years learning one or two things a day, before you know it, you'll be understanding things you never thought possible. And it's absolutely true. Although it helps to be a nerd who's obsessed with learning too. =P
Good video 👍
Oooh!
Can't wait till you discuss the current affairs. "The Daily" has a nice ring to it.
Defining "life" seems like Defining "planet"
4:05 so does this mean that sars cov2 is also impervious to alcohol ? Impervious to hand gels?
No.
@@owenshebbeare2999 Have they isolated Sars Cov2?
I also agree that it doesn't matter
What is life? Baby, don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me, no more.
Fascinating stuff!
They are alive. In the future some one will discover this and get a nobel prize.
I'm in favor of life being broken down to single celled, crystals, atomize and multi celled, crystalized and atoms. With further break down by headings like bacteria, viruses, radioactive particles, stable particles and such.
Good one, Simon!!