30 Dec 2008, 3:33 am
30 Dec 2008, 11:30 am
30 Dec 2008, 8:46 pm
31 Dec 2008, 4:25 am
Fiz wrote:
I would consider a virus to be a living thing on these criteria:
They seem to 'know' which cells they have to target in order to sustain themselves and make copies of themselves.
They die in the incorrect environment e.g. the AIDS virus cannot survive if out of a human (or otherwise) host for more than 20 minutes (or so it is believed, you may have to check up on that time wise, besides I'm just using it as an example to illustrate my point). How can a virus be deemed 'dead' if in the incorrect conditions if it was never a living thing in the first place?
How something that isn't living to a certain degree cause the damage that it can potentially do to it's hosts e.g. the Ebola virus: if this was not alive, then how come it has the power to kill? Another way that this can be explained is to say that a virus is a special kind of poison - a toxin. But then if this be the case, viruses should not be described as being 'dead' in the incorrect environments etc.
They seem to 'know' which cells they have to target in order to sustain themselves and make copies of themselves. They die in the incorrect environment e.g. the AIDS virus cannot survive if out of a human (or otherwise) host for more than 20 minutes (or so it is believed, you may have to check up on that time wise, besides I'm just using it as an example to illustrate my point). How can a virus be deemed 'dead' if in the incorrect conditions if it was never a living thing in the first place? How something that isn't living to a certain degree cause the damage that it can potentially do to it's hosts e.g. the Ebola virus: if this was not alive, then how come it has the power to kill? Another way that this can be explained is to say that a virus is a special kind of poison - a toxin. But then if this be the case, viruses should not be described as being 'dead' in the incorrect environments etc.I would say that a virus is only alive when it is inside a host cell, at all other times it is in a state of suspended life.
The first point yoou raised is not right, many things can recognise other things, it does not mean that the things are alive. For instance 18-crown-6 will bind to potassium ions. It does not mean that the potassium cations or the cyclic polyether are alive. It just means that a stable complex is formed between the two things.
Many things will change or be damaged if they are placed in the wrong environment, for instance the catalysts for many reactions (polyethylene synthesis and hydroformylation) will be deactivated by air. This does not mean that they are living things which are killed by oxygen.
Many things which are dead can mess you up, I would also suggest that ebola is a badly designed life form. A good parasite will cause little or no damage to the host. The parasite which kills its host will then need a new host, the common cold and Epstein-Barr viruses are better parasites as they tend to be able use the same host for much longer which increases their chances of long term survival.
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Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity
I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man ! Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.
03 Jan 2009, 9:24 pm
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