Gnizmo said:
There is an actual set criterion list for whether or not an organism can be considered to possess "life." Simply being able to respond to stimuli and having all the characteristics of living cells (in a very general sense here) does not mean it is actually alive. A virus is not considered to be alive for example, but contains most if not all the features a sperm cell does. What is or is not alive (amoeba versus sperm) is a very different arguement than when an organism that is alive first can be considered to have come to life. |
So, the cells in my body aren't alive? Last time I checked the sperm in my body were just modified cells, thus making them only slightly different (they are haploid rather than diploid), from every other cell in my body. And if those aren't alive, looks like I am pretty fucked.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
