A New Approach to Defining Life
摘要
Astronomers point their instruments at distant galaxies in the hope of detecting signs of life somewhere in the universe. So far, they have found many stars that are accompanied by planets, but no signs of life. However, it is plausible that billions of planets with suitable chemical conditions exist at a distance from a star that is favourable for life. Until there is evidence of life on a distant planet, life on Earth will remain a unique phenomenon. Living things exactly makes life such a unique phenomenon? Biologists and philosophers have been trying to answer this question since time immemorial. What they are looking for is some feature or combination of features that is common to ‘living things’.