Are viruses living things?

[h_k_s]

It's a demarcation criterion issue, or more generally, simply an issue of how individuals formulate their concepts. As such there's not a correct answer.

Typical criteria for life versus non-life include:

* Reproduction ability
* Metabolism and ability for growth/change
* Homeostasis
* Being made of cells
* Having a complex chemistry
* Containing DNA

Viruses do not meet some of these criteria--hence why they're often not considered to be living things. But of course we can simply modify the criteria, modify the concept, and they can count as life under a modified concept.

There are similar debates about the classification of brown dwarfs. They are said not to be true stars because they cannot fuse hydrogen (only its isotope, deuterium). Yet brown dwarfs are born in molecular clouds, not in protoplanetary discs like planets. As a result, they never orbit closely to (other?) stars in the system as planets. Why should it ability to fuse elements be seen as more important than its origin? Because that property is instinctively perceived as being lifelike, hence the constant use of metaphorical language used in science education everywhere, referring to the birth, life cycles and deaths of stars. But do stars die or simply change form into hyperdense objects that generate x-rays instead of visible light? Since x-rays are less useful to life that light, again, we place emphasis on that which we value.

A similar situation exists when comparing viruses with other microbes. Reproduction and metabolism would seem to be the most key features of life, the other criteria being either natural corollaries of those features, eg. complexity and homeostasis or rather arbitrary, eg. composed of cells. Since the key feature of humans is complexity, we tend to use complexity and systematisation as demarcation criteria, but that is reflective of our biases. Viruses reproduce and they steal metabolisms of other organisms, which is one way of having a metabolism.

Ultimately, anything deemed to be binary will have an intermediate state that is glossed over, eg. brown dwarfs, viruses and sea sponges. Broadly, oceans operate as a binary of opposite of land. So, what is a beach - part of the ocean or part of the land? Both and neither, of course. It's assumed there are only two genders, yet there are millions of intersexed and gender variant people in the world. Are dawn and dusk part of the day or of the night? Again, the answer is more functional than ontic. When is noise music, music, and not just noise? Why is a colony of sea sponge considered to be an animal while a colony of ants as a super-organism when their levels of genetic similarity and interdependencies are similarly?

Perhaps, especially with our greater knowledge of the details of things and with the advent of quantum computing, it is time to think more in threes than twos?

Galactic objects are not living in the human or animal sense of the word. They are simply collections of matter which follow the rules of astrophysics.

[h_k_s]

Somewhere, there is a virus forum, and some witty coronavirus just posted "One thing is certain: hosts are annoying things!" 😉

So far the new corona virus seems to love humans and bats.

Not as much as the AIDS virus loves humans and monkeys though, but it's getting there.

[h_k_s]

It should be noted that computer "viruses" are really just transmissable infectious diseases. Every property that computer code shares with a virus, it also shares with infectious bacteria or prions and many with toxins.

Despite the label, there are as many differences as similarities between computer viruses and the real thing.

"Computer viruses" are simply an analogy.

[h_k_s]

I think your prose version is as good as it gets at this stage, Steve.

Prof Racionello has another answer to the question, that the virus is not alive until it infects a cell, where it goes through a living stage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD7YLLyh_HE

At the microbial level of existence, where these infinitesimally tiny organisms exist, without brains or nervous systems, it is useless to call them "alive". We call them "live" when they are still infectious. But we don't really call them "living things."

They are more like diseases than like living things that can make choices.

[Sy Borg]

There are similar debates about the classification of brown dwarfs. They are said not to be true stars because they cannot fuse hydrogen (only its isotope, deuterium). Yet brown dwarfs are born in molecular clouds, not in protoplanetary discs like planets. As a result, they never orbit closely to (other?) stars in the system as planets. Why should it ability to fuse elements be seen as more important than its origin? Because that property is instinctively perceived as being lifelike, hence the constant use of metaphorical language used in science education everywhere, referring to the birth, life cycles and deaths of stars. But do stars die or simply change form into hyperdense objects that generate x-rays instead of visible light? Since x-rays are less useful to life that light, again, we place emphasis on that which we value.

A similar situation exists when comparing viruses with other microbes. Reproduction and metabolism would seem to be the most key features of life, the other criteria being either natural corollaries of those features, eg. complexity and homeostasis or rather arbitrary, eg. composed of cells. Since the key feature of humans is complexity, we tend to use complexity and systematisation as demarcation criteria, but that is reflective of our biases. Viruses reproduce and they steal metabolisms of other organisms, which is one way of having a metabolism.

Ultimately, anything deemed to be binary will have an intermediate state that is glossed over, eg. brown dwarfs, viruses and sea sponges. Broadly, oceans operate as a binary of opposite of land. So, what is a beach - part of the ocean or part of the land? Both and neither, of course. It's assumed there are only two genders, yet there are millions of intersexed and gender variant people in the world. Are dawn and dusk part of the day or of the night? Again, the answer is more functional than ontic. When is noise music, music, and not just noise? Why is a colony of sea sponge considered to be an animal while a colony of ants as a super-organism when their levels of genetic similarity and interdependencies are similarly?

Perhaps, especially with our greater knowledge of the details of things and with the advent of quantum computing, it is time to think more in threes than twos?

Galactic objects are not living in the human or animal sense of the word. They are simply collections of matter which follow the rules of astrophysics.

You have missed my point completely. Please re-read and try again.

[Terrapin Station]

It's a demarcation criterion issue, or more generally, simply an issue of how individuals formulate their concepts. As such there's not a correct answer.

Typical criteria for life versus non-life include:

* Reproduction ability
* Metabolism and ability for growth/change
* Homeostasis
* Being made of cells
* Having a complex chemistry
* Containing DNA

Viruses do not meet some of these criteria--hence why they're often not considered to be living things. But of course we can simply modify the criteria, modify the concept, and they can count as life under a modified concept.

You @Terrapin Station are coming at this from a strictly definitional perspective.

However definitions are simply false criteria.

It's just a matter of how particular individuals are formulating their concepts. It's a matter of what that individual requires for a particular concept-term application. There's not a right or wrong way to do that, not a true or false way to do it. There are just conventional and unconventional ways to do it. It's not right or true to be conventional or wrong or false to be unconventional.

[Pattern-chaser]

Viruses are like a cancer, and cancer is a disease, not an organism.

This supports the notion that viruses are NOT "alive" but are rather merely diseases.

You don't think disease-causing, er, things are living organisms? What are they, then?

[sp3ely1]

Perhaps a means of injecting DNA particles into an organism? They reproduce parasitically, so by some definitions, are 'alive.'
BTW -- Hello -- my first post -- and not a hijack. Science knows just enough about Life to be dangerous. A biological 'Titanic?'

[Steve3007]

BTW -- Hello -- my first post -- and not a hijack.

Hi sp3ely1. Welcome. I didn't think it was a hijack. A perfectly decent opening move.

[Pattern-chaser]

Are Viruses Alive? Although viruses challenge our concept of what "living" means, they are vital members of the web of life. - Link to original article.

It seems that, just as truth is a bigger and deeper subject than it first appears, so is the question of whether viruses are alive.

[h_k_s]

Viruses are like a cancer, and cancer is a disease, not an organism.

This supports the notion that viruses are NOT "alive" but are rather merely diseases.

You don't think disease-causing, er, things are living organisms? What are they, then?

Your question is an allusion to argument from ignorance, which is, of course, a fallacy.

Google "argument from ignorance."

[h_k_s]

You @Terrapin Station are coming at this from a strictly definitional perspective.

However definitions are simply false criteria.

It's just a matter of how particular individuals are formulating their concepts. It's a matter of what that individual requires for a particular concept-term application. There's not a right or wrong way to do that, not a true or false way to do it. There are just conventional and unconventional ways to do it. It's not right or true to be conventional or wrong or false to be unconventional.

Here again, conventional and unconventional are merely applications of the fallacy of argumentum populum.

Google "argumentum populum."

[Pattern-chaser]

You don't think disease-causing, er, things are living organisms? What are they, then?

Your question is an allusion to argument from ignorance...

No, it isn't. It's just a question. If you don't believe viruses are alive, what description would you apply to them? I'm clear on what you don't believe, and I'm asking what you do believe. I see no fallacy there. Just a simple, courteously-asked, question. Can you answer it?

[h_k_s]

Your question is an allusion to argument from ignorance...

No, it isn't. It's just a question. If you don't believe viruses are alive, what description would you apply to them? I'm clear on what you don't believe, and I'm asking what you do believe. I see no fallacy there. 🤔 Just a simple, courteously-asked, question. Can you answer it?

Viruses are alive in the same sense as a cancer lives. Or as a beating heart that has been removed from a body.

I thought that was clear?

[Pattern-chaser]

You @Terrapin Station are coming at this from a strictly definitional perspective.

Your question is an allusion to argument from ignorance, which is, of course, a fallacy. Google "argument from ignorance."

Here again, conventional and unconventional are merely applications of the fallacy of argumentum populum. Google "argumentum populum."

...and you seem to be taking the path of Truth Via Logical Fallacies. A strange course to choose, it seems to me.