I know I am a living system because….

I know I am a living system because….

The answer depends on how we define living system. The Living Systems Theory was first proposed by James Grier Miller who suggested that, “by definition, living systems are open, self-organizing systems that have the special characteristics of life and interact with their environment. This takes place by means of information and material-energy exchanges.” It is this exchange that perpetuates the continual regeneration of self as well as the propagation of future generations. Living systems transform material and information from without and produce energy from that process, which continues the cycle of regeneration and exchange. He also points out that living systems share the “essential component of DNA, RNA, protein and some other complex organic molecules that give biological systems their unique properties. These molecules are not synthesized in nature outside cells.”  DNA and RNA are in essence a manual for how to transform material and decode information. It is a blueprint for how to interact with the environment so as to maintain self. 

I like this idea of transformation as an underlying facet of what defines life, but it is hardly complete. Inorganic substances can undergo transformation through chemical reactions including neutralization, redox reactions, oxidization and combustion. The laws of thermodynamics state that all chemical reactions change the energy state of the reactants through changes in chemical bonds. A chemical reaction produces energy in the form of heat just as our body’s produce ATP, the energy that fuels our life processes. Something in both processes is taken from without, transformed, and made part of self. Does this not reflect an ability to produce energy through an interaction between one chemical that could be termed “self” and a second chemical that could be termed non-self or environment, directed by some type of rule book inherent in these materials that may not look like DNA or RNA, but nevertheless direct the interaction based on a set of conditions necessary for that interaction to occur? Just as the perpetuation of life requires a certain temperature, availability of water, a sun, etc… so too does a copper penny have its requirements to maintain its “penny-ness” and avoid oxidation. I share both similar and different requirements with a copper penny for maintaining self. A penny will melt at certain temperatures and so will I and we will both be transformed into something other through our prescribed interaction with our environment. I also share both similar and different requirements with a microbe as well as with my human male counterparts, but it is only a matter of degrees that makes me more similar to a male human than I am am to a microbe and an even greater matter of degrees than with a penny? If it is only a matter of degrees then where do we draw the line.

Perhaps the difference is that organic reactions in living systems produce changes that perpetuate a self that maintains some semblance of similar qualities through time. In organic chemical reactions we generally see a rearrangement such that the original “self” is no longer apparent, although fully contained in the product of that reaction. But isn’t this still just a question of degrees and scale? Our bodies are made up of more bacteria than our own cells and the microbiome of our bodies is constantly shifting, even becoming almost unrecognizable from what it was only last week. In broad strokes I still look like me with a certain human arrangement of features unique to me that I recognize in the mirror. At a microscopic level I look entirely different. An oxidized penny is still generally recognizable as a penny, just as my hair might change colors in the sun, but I still look like me. We both transform our environment and are transformed by our environment, produce a byproduct of energy/heat, and maintain a semblance of original self that will continue for a period of time until the conditions are such that we are transformed into something fully unrecognizable. If anything, inorganic substances will likely maintain “self” for far longer than I will and will continue to interact with their environment long after I have become my environment. 

This brings to mind another question. Where does “self” end and “nonself” begin? I am porous and while my skin may give the appearance of a barrier that separates me from what is not me, it is in constant exchange with the environment. Does the microbiome of my skin, without which I would die, constitute part of “me” or is it separate from me? The banks of a river separate the river from what is not the river, similar to the role of skin. The barrier is porous like skin and the water that leaks into the soil feeds the plants and the trees. The soil protects the water by containing it and managing its dispersal as the water feeds the trees, and the trees protect the soil from eroding. So where does the river end? Where do I end? If I am not certain about whether I am separate from the elements then how can I prove I am any more alive than anything else? 

One might also argue that life occurs when yin and yang unite and when they separate life is ended. Yang is in simple terms a force that animates matter. Is not the breaking of chemical bonds a yang process whether the substances involved be organic or inorganic? It is said that carbon must be present to be considered a life form. Carbon is more dynamic than most elements, which permits what we deem life processes. So do degrees of chemical dynamism determine life? I am likely more chemically dynamic than a microbe, but it does not make me more or less alive. Is an inorganic substance simply less dynamic by virtue of degrees? 

I am not certain that I have seen as of yet a definition of life that cannot be debunked by some inorganic analogy that is similar enough as to make me question the definition. Based on some definitions I am a living system because I take in air and food from my environment and transform them into energy and make them the substance of my body. I excrete waste in the form of carbon dioxide, minerals, and nutrient rich material that can perpetuate my environment such that it continues to sustain me. I share with other living beings an ability to create, although anyone who has been to arches national park, for example, might believe that the wind also has creative prowess. Some might argue that life contains within it an ability to organize into a community of sorts. Are proclivities towards chemical bonds in inorganic compounds not in a sense a kind of community of those drawn to one another based on need. Others have posited movement as a characteristic of life, but the dance of water as it swirls within itself or the dazzling motion of light particles or waves puts many “living” beings to shame for their sluggish and stunted ability to move. 

        I believe I am a living system therefore I am? Well Battlestar Galactica answered that question better than any theory I have come across.