Scientists and philosophers have been attempting to define life for ages. In biology class we were taught to define life through the set of features that we, and every other species on the planet share. Things like movement, respiration, growth, and reproduction. Life is made of cells and has DNA. But does biochemistry constitute the whole picture? As far back as 1970, Carl Sagan didn’t think so. Attempts at defining life, he and many others thought, were too constrained by the characteristics of life as we know it. A single example of extraterrestrial life could change everything.
Read the full article at: nautil.us
Complexity Digest 