Discuss

Are viruses truly alive or not

they are lost souls reincarnated from previous lives

Such wisdom

id say yes because they fulfill a purpose and dont just float around space doing nothing

So stepping on a jagged rock makes it alive because its pointyness causes pain

Life is defined as something that both self-replicates and actively makes an effort to avoid self-destruction.

Viruses self-replicate, but they self-destruct by killing their hosts. Therefore they do not meet the full criteria to be considered lifeforms.

Yeah

Depends on the definition of "alive".

Let's say our cryogenic technology advances and we are able to perfectly freeze a person, stopping all life functions, and later re-freeze them restoring them all.

Are the people alive after being frozen? The virus doesn't carry out life functions outside of a host either.

Let's say we also remove various organs from the people so that they are unable to live on their own without being hooked up to machinery or getting transplants.

Are the people alive? The virus only functions and reproduces by using the cellular machinery of a host.

On the other hand the reductionist concept of living "on one's own" is a precarious one in itself. Every organism only functions in a very specific environment and for viruses that happens to involve infecting a host (but the same is true for parasites in general).

This is a matter of definitions more so than finding the truth, but it can make for interesting conversation.

Many parasites kill their hosts.

And killing a host does not bring about destruction for viruses, it's an inherent part of their life?-cycle.

>Are viruses truly alive or not
Source?

>Drug addicts, suicidal people, and people in comas are not alive

What if viruses are similar lifeforms to plants.

By definition, it needs to be at least a functioning cell to be considered a living thing.

>Life is defined as something that self-replicates
Post yfw you're not alive

true

>Viruses self-replicate
No. Viruses need to hijack a cell's metabolism in order to replicate the DNA/RNA and the proteins that make them up.

>but they self-destruct by killing their hosts.
Not necessarily. Take Herpes Simplex as an example.

My personal criteria for a living thing is that it has a CNS. Viruses don't, so I don't consider them living beings.
Nonetheless, interesting little fuckers.

Semantics. Who cares.

You need to hijack the planet's oxygen supply in order to breathe.

>Implying oxygen I'm not a part of the organism "Earth"
>Implying the earth is a living being
>Implying the earth has a metabolism
>Implying this is a gorilla
>

Living beings with metabolisms are an integral part of the oxygen cycle.

Not sure if I get your point but I think you're confusing metabolism with external ressources here.

The vast majority of viruses don't destroy their host

External to what?

No organism is capable of existing (or replicating) in isolation from its environment.

For a virus said environment must necessarily include other organisms, but the same is the case for many non-viruses as well.

I'm just being cheeky on the semantics here tbqh.

exactly.

"alive" isn't a quality with physical significance like say "charge" or "force".

the definition of life is decided entirely by us humans.

So is molecule, btw.
where does one macromolecular complex end and another begin?
whose to say whether transition metal complexes are molecules or merely one or more "proper molecules" in complex with a metal ion?
from the universe's perspective in terms of physical laws, all it cares about is whether charge attaction is there, it doesn't care whether that charge attration is due to a nice "sigma bond" or a weak hydrogen bond or a weak transition-metal-ish bond.

It's a broadly useful classification but "molecule" doesn't have the same unarbitrary physical significance that say "atom" or "electron" do.

>Are viruses truly alive or not

They require an external host to reproduce.

So, viruses do not actually have a reproductive system....

I'm not sure if this qualifies, but I'm going to go with "No, they are not alive"

Diogenes?

If viruses are alive, surely prion diseases are alive as well?

exactly.

are viruses unitary organisms?

if not, killing their host might be the only way to achieve self-senescence in the life cycle ie: aging is not a factor

They're a different kind of life.

Or some form of non-life dependant on life to exist?

TIL that men are dead.

Yes. They are the beginning of "life." The problem is that there is not enough brain matter for the prions to evolve in before the animal providing the brain matter expires. If there's an ocean size brain then maybe prions can evolve and we'll have prion organisms.

No, it's better to think of them as zombies (half-alive)

They are not inanimate, but they also aren't the same kind of life as us. They are some kind of..... Half Life™

...

Viruses are by definition not alive. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to go back to school.

>cells aren't alive
B R A V O

>tfw you hijack the planet's oxygen supply