Is there a fundamental energy in life?

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2006-06-20 03:44pm

About the only way to rationalise the idea, maybe, is that it's easier for said creature to soak up the heat from us walking meat-sacks than it is from any machine. Beyond that, the concept of a unique "life-energy" is ludicrous.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2006-06-20 04:33pm

Oh come on- "monsters" absorb the life energy of humans all the time- we just call them carnivors; said absorbtion is done through a process called digestion.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-06-20 04:43pm

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:Sorry, I should have been a bit more clear with what I meant. I meant that the chemical reactions found in life are organized in a self-sustaining (through the aquisition of additonal energy/material), self-perpetuating way (breeding); something that is not found in non-living objects. In fact, these two properties are key characteristics as to how living is distuigished from non-living in biology.

You are confusing the structure of the reactor with the structure of the energy. The energy itself has no special structure or organization whatsoever, and the characteristics you're describing are functions of the mechanism which happens to convert that energy.

This is a bit like saying that the energy in a car is cyclic, because the engine rotates.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2006-06-20 05:33pm

Darth Wong wrote:
BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:Sorry, I should have been a bit more clear with what I meant. I meant that the chemical reactions found in life are organized in a self-sustaining (through the aquisition of additonal energy/material), self-perpetuating way (breeding); something that is not found in non-living objects. In fact, these two properties are key characteristics as to how living is distuigished from non-living in biology.
You are confusing the structure of the reactor with the structure of the energy. The energy itself has no special structure or organization whatsoever, and the characteristics you're describing are functions of the mechanism which happens to convert that energy.

This is a bit like saying that the energy in a car is cyclic, because the engine rotates.

True.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2006-06-20 05:40pm

I am sorry my question shocked/appalled everyone here, but my area of study in school touched only slightly on the biological. It seemed to me that there was no such energy, but I kept seeing the same brainbug everywhere and wanted to see if there was something to it. Thank you all for answering in such an... emphatic way.

Isn't it amazing what even educated people can miss out on knowing?

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2006-06-20 06:17pm

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:Oh come on- "monsters" absorb the life energy of humans all the time- we just call them carnivors; said absorbtion is done through a process called digestion.

More frequently in humans we call things that absorb our life energy parasites and bacteria. There are quite few carnivores that get to digest us regularly these days, we are more likely to be parasitised in life or chemically broken down after death (a process that isn't quite the same as what we refer to as "Digestion").