Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Cells, Microbes & Viruses => Topic started by: syhprum on 24/03/2016 15:29:59
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We are told that virus's are not living entities but when I read papers on vaccine production reference is made to attenuated or killed virus's.
To kill something it must be alive or is it like Schrödinger's cat both
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In my opinion the difficulty arises because some choose to view life as digital issue. Things are either alive, or they are not alive. I think it is more fruitful and realistic to think of life as an analog issue, where there is a spectrum from wholly lifeless through to wholly alive. In that way viruses sit on the spectrum, but closer to one side than the other.
And - it's all artificial i.e. human, classification anyway. Nature doesn't concern herself with definitions.
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Virus lack all the all tools needed to be self sufficient in terms of the definition of life. Bacteria are self sufficient in terms of the criteria of life. Virus need to beg, borrow and steal tools from self sufficient life, so they can emulate the state called life. In that respect, bacteria are always alive, while virus can shift from not alive to being alive, based on their ability to parasite a host and use its tools to satisfy the criteria of life. This use of these tools can impact the host, causing it to lose its own life. The host can lose control over the tools needed to be self sufficient for life.
In terms of culture, the old time pioneer, who lived off the land was alive, since he had all the tools needed to survive within its own person. Modern culture is much more viral based, in that specially of labor requires the citizens need to share a host with each other, to be alive. If culture was disrupted by some natural disaster, the cultural host will die and all the virus will go dormant.The self sufficient pioneer will be less impacted, since being alive is based on it own internal tools and not feeding off a host to create the semblance of life.
Relative to government, special interest are similar to virus whose life is dependent on the government host. This government is also a type of virus, whose life depends on the tax; tools of the people. When government gets too big the virus infection begins to impact the host. If there are too many virus feeding off the tax payer host, the host begins to lose life. This is reflected in the decline and stagnation of the middle class.
This coming election is about an anti-viral medicine being applied to disable a wide range of viral parasites. The government virus has taken over the host and made it easier for other virus to also take advantage of the host. The middle class has seem wages stagnate due to the infection. Living things don't need a host, but they do need to deal with the parasites, which are creating the illusion of life at their expense.