I need some advice about the "biological" necessary properties of life.
I'm writing a paper which uses contemporary debates in applied ethics
(e.g. abortion, euthanasia, environmental exploit.) as precedents for
predicting the ethical debates which will occur as a result of the
development of artificial organisms.
To cut a long story short, I distinguish between things which are
biologically alive and things which are functionally alive. What I need
to know is this - what is the basic 'stuff' of which a biological thing
is made ? I've looked at Erwin Schrodinger's book and have heard the
stuff about being able to exist independently and the need to contain all
the genetic material necessary to self-replicate. I am specifically
intereted in precisely what it is that a biologically living thing has
that no purely artificial thing can ever have.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nigel Stobbs
email: pd120395 at mailbox.uq.oz.au
