If bacteria are not life because they need humans to reproduce then couldn't we say humans are not life because we need...

If bacteria are not life because they need humans to reproduce then couldn't we say humans are not life because we need a planet/environment with particular physicals conditions to reproduce?

you mean viruses?

*viruses

Not bacteria

No because the virus literally cannot reproduce without a host cell. If 2 humans were dropped into an oxygenated abyss they could make another human as they fell into the void, assuming they didnt starve. The virus cannot do this.

Humans literally cannot reproduce without a host environment with particular physical conditions.

How is that different from viruses being unable to reproduce without a host cell?

If they could produce in that particular environment then by definition they are in a host environment with physical conditions that allow them to reproduce.

An impoverished environment is not the same as an environment where reproduction is unable to occur.

If the world was nothing but viruses and no host cells all the viruses would die off and never reproduce. If the world was nothing but (insert lifeform here) they could reproduce. Its not about the virus needing a cell as conditions of its environment. The foreign cell is literally the only mechanism through which the virus can reproduce. In fact, the cell is more important to making viruses than the virus itself is.

the point of viruses not being life is that, correct me if I'm wrong, they have to actively co-opt the host cell's reproductive system so that it uses the virus' DNA instead the cell's DNA.

like if the only way you could reproduce is by injecting your sperm into pigs, so the pigs pooped out carbon copies of you, would that be considered a self-replicating organism?

One virus in an environment containing hundreds of cells could replicate itself potentially billions of times. Millions of viruses in an environment with one host cell, and only one of those viruses could replicate, killing the cell and not allowing any further replication to take place.

As
Pointed out, virus replication is more reliant on the host cell than the virus itself.

That sounds reasonable. It's not like we as humans/animals/plants/lifeforms are any different from viruses or rocks or anything else in the universe. It's all made out of the same stuff and the classifications are arbitrary when you really think about it.

isn't it far more reasonable for viruses to be considered an early form of parasitic life? viruses obviously had a form of self-replication at some point, there's literally no way that they could exist otherwise. As early viruses became parasitic and started to use hosts for replication, the mechanisms for self-replication would become lost as they became a waste of resources and non-beneficial. over the billions of years since viruses came about, there would be more than enough time for any evidence of a self-replicating capability to get completely wiped from their genetic material.

this is a pretty common thing in parasitic animals. as an example, cuckoo birds that lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, and in fact specialize in specific host species just like many parasites. if a host bird species ceased to exist, the cuckoos would likely also go extinct, because they do not build nests and cannot rear their own children. The ability to rear their own young has been lost.


a much more interesting question for me would be if one could consider the pre-cellular self-replicating systems, that viruses would have come from and essentially are, to be living organisms?

>One virus in an environment containing hundreds of cells could replicate itself potentially billions of times. Millions of viruses in an environment with one host cell, and only one of those viruses could replicate, killing the cell and not allowing any further replication to take place.

what about a scenario with millions of viruses in an environment with a limited number of cells, enough cells that there would always be enough to replicate, but few enough that it was a very poorly viable reproductive option, with most viruses not being able to pass on their genetic code.

let's suppose that, because this environment is not ideal for their naturally parasitic form of reproduction, one of these viruses evolves the ability for self-replication, and thrives. this virus can now be considered alive despite otherwise being exactly the same as all other viruses, save for having the ability to self-replicate?

it's better to say that men are not life because they need to parasitize a female host to reproduce

The problem is viruses cannot simply mutate and have the ability to self replicate. It would take billions of years of evolution and billions of mutations before they even got close to reproducing conventionally. They are missing pretty much all of the necessary biological mechanisms for self reliant or binary reproduction. Viruses are literally just a few strands of DNA inside of a shell. They have no organelles, they dont really eat, they are closer to inanimate objects than anything that could be called life.

>bacteria
>needs host to reproduce
wtf? this is less than potato tier intellect!

but they still replicate. they're pre-cellular parasites.

I should have been clearer. By self replicate i meant reproduce without a 3rd party organism

how is the fact that viruses are reliant on humans to reproduce any different from humans being reliant on the requisite environmental conditions to reproduce?

In both cases reproduction is impossible without certain environmental conditions being met.

The argument that viruses are more reliant on humans to reproduce than themselves can be also applied to humans if you accept that humans are an environment relative to viruses and out planet is an environment relative to us, this means that in both cases the beings are completely reliant on the environment to even have the capability of reproducing.

I don't think saying that viruses are completely reliant on humans and other organisms to reproduce and are therefore not life is a good a argument.

>I don't think saying that viruses are completely reliant on humans and other organisms to reproduce and are therefore not life is a good a argument.

Well its a good thing science doesnt care about opinions or feelings because the biologists whos job it is to determine these thing say they arent life based on a slew of conditions. By your retarded ass definitions prions are alive too. Protip: neither prions nor viruses show any teltale signs of being alive.

there are definitions to life that viruses do not meet

To add on to this: viruses don't actually produce their own copies. They trick their host cells into producing more copies of them.

Void porn

>what is mitosis