Hi,
I recently read a book "What is life?" by Paul Nurse and he didn't answer the question in the fundamental way. I thought that this might be the place to find the answer.
We have a certain pre-programmed intuition to recognize life, we can tell when a holon (to use Leo's term) is alive or not (or so we believe). And this seems to be the only efficient method to say if something is alive or not.
For the more spiritually advanced: are there holons that are alive and that usually we see as not alive?
Where is the turning point where a mineral becomes alive? Where is the point where if you add something to some molecules, it becomes alive?
Why is life starting at a virus scale and ending with the biggest whale, shouldn't it be encountered on all scales? From particles dimensions to galaxies dimensions?
Are there some interesting ideas that you can share about this?
Thank you