Why is fire not alive?

[L.B. Jeffries]

Because it's a chemical reaction?

 

[cyber_andyy]

Allow me to use MRS GREN, fire must meet all criteria to be called 'Alive'.

Movement - Yes fire moves.
Respiration - Surprisingly, fire respires.
Sensitivity - It can't taste touch ect. but is affected by surroundings so im going to say that fire is sensitive.
Growth - A fire does indeed grow.
Reproduction - ...Uh Oh QUICK we need an example of fire repoduction!
Excretion - waste gases are excreted with a lot of fires.
Nutrition - A fire needs a fuel and something to combust with (IE oxygen).

So some one come up with a way fire reproduces and it can be called alive.

Disclamer: I am bending many a rule here and using faulty logic. It's all in the fun of things. Don't hate me.

 

[Emperor Inferno]

1. it doesn't evolve
2. it isn't reactive to conditions
and
3. it isn't an entity, it's a process, so you might just as well say that your computer was alive, or that the ocean is alive because it has waves.

Exactly

Both these are so obviously untrue, that reading them almost made me bust out laughing.

First:

Fire indeed does evolve, as more and more discoveries are made into chemistry and more substances are made that are more/less flammable, over time, fire has changed, and thus, evolved.

Second:

Fire is almost entirely dependant on conditions including amount of fuel, type of fuel, humidity in the air, density of the air, wind speed/direction, and so on and so forth.

Also, fire meets at least three of the things that science defines as being necessary to be considered life: It eats, it grows, it reproduces. It also dies. Little do some people know it, the phrase "dies out" or "dies down" is very appropriate.

 

[Avida]

Everyonee else has answered this already, so instead i'll just say if fire WAS alive, fire fighters would be AWESOME.

 

[Break]

Wrong on the mass front. We as humans are nothing but a large reservoir of chemical reactions guys, think harder. Consciousness does not count either, do you honestly think an amoeba is conscious? A life form does not need mass to be alive. JUST LIFE AS WE KNOW IT. External influence is also wrong, since we too are created by external influence. Think harder. If you think your smarter than a nobel winning bio chemist, thats very cute, but your still wrong.

Hint; it has to do with entropy

If you don't want to stress your brain, Alex nailed it pretty good on page 2, he knows how to think outside the box. Only a few posts down. Don't let that stop you from trying yourself

So... Why do we have to use your vague, undefined, unproven concept of "life", instead of the scientific definition?

 

[John Stalvern]

Don't you ever mention string theory again. A pox! A pox on both your houses!

Isn't it funny how theoretical physics can come off as a hand wave rather than a science?

 

[Alex_P]

If you don't want to stress your brain, Alex nailed it pretty good on page 2, he knows how to think outside the box.

Really? That's not what I felt like I was doing. Entropy is a pretty commonly-used scientific concept (though also one that's kinda ugly to actually use); I just plucked it out of the "science" toolbox. No great insight or innovation there. Talking about the universe in terms of entropy, information density, &c. is something I specifically learned, not something I invented.

This is far closer to "outside the box" than the response you expected:
Why do you care about defining "life" in specific and absolute terms in the first place? Can you show that some hard-and-fast definition isn't going to be about as arbitrary and restrictive as the definitions you complained about in the initial post? What value is there in being able to say "fire is alive" or "fire is not alive"?

-- Alex

 

[space_oddity]

Define alive.

From certain perspectives, nothing in the known universe is alive.
Its just an ocean of molecules, some of which organize themselves into...well, organisms, to improve their chances of remaining in the same chemical state.

 

[Blue Sonnet]

First:

Fire indeed does evolve, as more and more discoveries are made into chemistry and more substances are made that are more/less flammable, over time, fire has changed, and thus, evolved.

Second:

Fire is almost entirely dependant on conditions including amount of fuel, type of fuel, humidity in the air, density of the air, wind speed/direction, and so on and so forth.

Also, fire meets at least three of the things that science defines as being necessary to be considered life: It eats, it grows, it reproduces. It also dies. Little do some people know it, the phrase "dies out" or "dies down" is very appropriate.

I disagree.

First: The fire hasn't actually evolved, we've just discovered more about it, the nature of the fire hasn't changed because we've created different types of fuel for it. It can be made hotter or faster, by external influence. It does not change it's nature in order to survive.

Second: Dependant on does not equal sensitive to. Water staying in it's liquid form is dependent on temperature. The same with every metal element, for example.

Fire doesn't react either - if you approach it with water, it doesn't move away. It doesn't sense it's approach. It doesn't perceive or do anything about that danger.

Either a fire grows OR reproduces. You can't have both for the same situation. If a fire spreads, is that growth or reproduction? How do you know that an extinguished fire has died or is merely the end of a chemical reaction?

Homeostasis - Fire does not regulate it's temperature/internal environment in order to survive.

Organisation - Fire is not composed of organised cells, which are the basic components of life.

Metabolism - Fire can be said to consume and excrete, but not using organic components.

Growth - Debatable, but can be said to grow.

Adaptation - Fire does not adapt according to different surroundings. It can be made to change by introducing different elements, but fire cannot adapt or change itself.

Response to Stimuli - No. Fire does not react to approaching danger, all that can happen is that the chemical reaction is altered by an external force. The fire itself cannot respond, only be altered.

Reproduction - As above, either fire reproduces when it spreads, or it grows. The fact that two fires can merge into one suggests that reproduction has not taken place.

Broloth has come up with the best explanation so far.

 

[baker80]

Really? That's not what I felt like I was doing. Entropy is a pretty commonly-used scientific concept (though also one that's kinda ugly to actually use); I just plucked it out of the "science" toolbox. No great insight or innovation there. Talking about the universe in terms of entropy, information density, &c. is something I specifically learned, not something I invented.

Just enjoy the irony of it, because this is comedy gold right there. You gave the least imaginative answer you could, but because you used a lot of highbrow words Mr. Switchblade didn't understand, he's impressed with your creative genius. This is the kind of thing that makes people laugh at postmodernists.

 

[Blue Sonnet]

Because it's a chemical reaction?

So is life.

Thats a little trite, isn't it? Life involves a vast combination of chemical reactions, what something does doesn't equal what it is.
You can't pour an acid and an alkali into a beaker and say you have created a living thing?

 

[crepesack]

fire is a process, it consumes energy, living things consumes energy, but fire is without the being it IS what living things do it isnt a living thing however. A soul without a body in other words. The fire grows, because it heats the surrounding material, it dies because it runs out of material or energy. Living things produce heat after consuming material, however the energy fire produces doesn't go to anything, its just heat energy, and anyways fire would be invisible what we see is super heated carbon particles.

*edit
and one more I realized, fire doesnt always start from other fires, it can come from anything any spontaneous release of heat creates fire. Energy just can't be living.

*edit
re-read what i typed, and my conclusion is, fire acts as a process to which life becomes existant, so if you require structure in your definition of life then no, fire isn't life, however if just the existance of the ability to consume and grow is your basis of life then yes it would be alive.

 

[GRoXERs]

1. it doesn't evolve
2. it isn't reactive to conditions
and
3. it isn't an entity, it's a process, so you might just as well say that your computer was alive, or that the ocean is alive because it has waves.

Exactly

Both these are so obviously untrue, that reading them almost made me bust out laughing.

First:

Fire indeed does evolve, as more and more discoveries are made into chemistry and more substances are made that are more/less flammable, over time, fire has changed, and thus, evolved.

Second:

Fire is almost entirely dependant on conditions including amount of fuel, type of fuel, humidity in the air, density of the air, wind speed/direction, and so on and so forth.

Also, fire meets at least three of the things that science defines as being necessary to be considered life: It eats, it grows, it reproduces. It also dies. Little do some people know it, the phrase "dies out" or "dies down" is very appropriate.

I was going to make fun of you for this, but Blue Sonnet did it for me already, and so perfectly that I have nothing to add.

*snip*

Thank you, Blue Sonnet.

 

[Flying-Emu]

Fire doesn't respire. All living things respire, if it doesn't respire it isn't a living thing.

Lies. There are anaerobic bacteria cells that can survive even in the vacuum of space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobes

 

[Mostly Harmless]

Because if it did it would probably a huge slob that eats everything, and is incredibly greedy and not the type of person you want hang out with. Oh and whenever you put it out it be like Murder. Murder.

 

[filbertim]

Obviously to continue what is needed is a definition of 'alive,' and a definition of 'fire.'

Does your 'alive' include humans? Viruses? RNA? Self-replicating chemical structures (like amino acids, I believe)? Fire?

To organize this discussion, it would seem best to give a detailed definition of alive and then explain why fire is or is not included. I'll do this in an edit to this post, a second.

Edit:
Alright, I believe 'life' is an structure that imposes itself upon the world, replicating its own pattern. Secondly, it must respond to stimuli intelligently (be able to learn, which consists of adapting its own structure/pattern).

Fire fits the first but in my opinion cannot adapt to obstacles (or anything else) and is therefore not alive.

My definition of life is admittedly simple and would be flat-out incorrecet in certain circles. However, it captures what I feel is important about 'life'.

 

[Sib]

It doesn't have sentience, i.e it can't pursue resources, it just spreads along all available routes.

Mold is alive and it does that.

It reacts to light in a way that could be deemed sentience - notice you never see mold on the other side of the trees.

You never see fire on things it can't burn, same way mold can't grow on the other side of that tree.

 

[xXGeckoXx]

Atoms are not alive. DNA is not alive.. Most organic compounds are not alive. In theory we are not alive but seriously. I think the brain is life as we know it so far (or any other possible form of carrying consciousness (preferably nervous)).

 

[Jovlo]

Fire doesn't respire. All living things respire, if it doesn't respire it isn't a living thing.

Lies. There are anaerobic bacteria cells that can survive even in the vacuum of space.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobes

Respiration is way to narrow to define life.
Living creatures need a metabolism, and anaerobic bacteria, who evolved much earlier then aerobic bacteria (there was no oxygen in Earth's atmosphere at first) have other ways to get energy then respiration.
They survive on fermentation of organic materials or reduction/oxydation reactions with inorganics.

Micro-organisms often form spores to survive. These spores are dormant, their metabolism has almost stopped entirely and they are very resistant to all kinds of abiotic stress, even radiation in space.
Once these spores germinate, when the conditions are good again, everything comes back to normal.

Read Blue Sonnet's post again, this made the most sense of the entire thread.

And people, the biggest reason why fire isn't alive is because it isn't cellular.
This is the reason why viruses aren't alive either, they don't have a cell membrane, which means no metabolism of their own.

Hint; it has to do with entropy

Oh and about the entropy hint: Did you mean that life is against the rules of thermodynamics?
Life is very structured and complex, and the second rule of thermodynamics is that only chaos and disorder can develop on itself. Life appeared as order in chaos and shouldn't be. (until Prigogine got the Nobelprize for his discovery of irreversible thermodynamics.)
Fire is just more chaos, no order. Fire isn't structured as life is and is just the second law of thermodynamics in action.

I should have read Alex's post... silly me

 

[Ronwue]

It doesn't have mass. Think about it. It's simply pure thermal energy, manifested in a chemical reaction.

Edit: Actually, I guess a being of energy could be alive...

How about this: It has to be created by some external influence.

This is the definition of all creationism. hence humans are not alive