Is a virus alive?

P

PaulaJedi

Rift Surfer
 
This article says that a virus cannot be considered a living thing because it does not replicate on its own.
https://www.livescience.com/58018-are-viruses-alive.html[/URL]https://www.livescience.com/58018-are-viruses-alive.html

 


I find a major logical error in that statement. Mammals cannot replicate on their own, either. It requires another mammal. Males sort of "invade" the female with sperm.

 


This comes back to the basic question of, what is life, exactly? How do we determine what is "alive"?

 


If a subject moves and replicates until it is destroyed, at which point it will eventually cease to exist, was it not alive?

 


You can smash a rock and nothing changes.

 


Maybe a virus is more like a seed that comes alive when planted inside of a mammal.

 


Thoughts?
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Viruses are inert until they come into contact with a living cell, yes. They seem more like pieces of code waiting to be activated. Prions are even more simpler than viruses. They are called sub-viral particles...

 





 


Both viruses and prions are considered to be non-living.

 


We are at war with tiny microscopic things such as bacteria and viruses that can rapidly adapt and evolve.

 

 

 
life

►

  • n.
    The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.
     



A virus doesn't physically grow, but it reproduces, responds to stimuli, and adapts to the environment from within an organism.

How is it not alive?

 
life
►

  • n.
    The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.
     



A virus doesn't physically grow, but it reproduces, responds to stimuli, and adapts to the environment from within an organism.

How is it not alive?
Click to expand...
My take on a virus not being a living thing - there is no nuclei - and they need a host - hence your "from within an organism"....

Actually - the "response to stimuli" is the reason I asked to forget the "virus" and look for what else may cause what we are responding to.

:)

 
life
►

  • n.
    The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.
     



A virus doesn't physically grow, but it reproduces, responds to stimuli, and adapts to the environment from within an organism.

How is it not alive?
Click to expand...
It all depends on how you want to broaden or restrict the definition of being alive. I think viruses certainly qualify as a form of pre-life or proto-life.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/why-are-viruses-considered-to-be-non-living[/URL]https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/why-are-viruses-considered-to-be-non-living

 




Finally, a virus isn’t considered living because it doesn’t need to consume energy to survive, nor is it able to regulate its own temperature. Unlike living organisms that meet their energy needs by metabolic processes that supply energy-rich units of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy currency of life, viruses can survive on nothing. In theory, a virus can drift around indefinitely until it contacts the right kind of cell for it to bind to and infect, thus creating more copies itself.
Click to expand...

Viruses have structure and internal coding of nucleic acids. They are more complicated than rocks but fail to qualify as true living organisms.

 

 

 
I've always thought virus' were closer to organic nanobots than real organic life.

Virus' evolve, act, and adapt according to their programming.

I suppose one could also think of virus' as completely random bits of code.

-Oz

 
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I've always thought virus' were closer to organic nanobots than real organic life.
Virus' evolve, act, and adapt according to their programming.

I suppose one could also think of virus' as completely random bits of code.

-Oz
Click to expand...
So do basic cells, but we consider them alive, right? If not, we wouldn't be alive. A plant wouldn't be alive.

 
My take on a virus not being a living thing - there is no nuclei - and they need a host - hence your "from within an organism"....
Actually - the "response to stimuli" is the reason I asked to forget the "virus" and look for what else may cause what we are responding to.

:)
Click to expand...
I go off on tangents all the time, so I just created a new post. Forums are great for my brain. LOL. I thought this would make a good debate and it seems to be so far.

 
So do basic cells, but we consider them alive, right? If not, we wouldn't be alive. A plant wouldn't be alive.
Click to expand...
A virus is much smaller than a basic cell. They are to our red blood cells as Earth is to the sun.

I don't think I'd classify them as "alive" but they're not "unalive" either. They're somewhere in between.

-Oz

 
I go off on tangents all the time, so I just created a new post. Forums are great for my brain. LOL. I thought this would make a good debate and it seems to be so far.
Click to expand...
Agreed. So I found Virus Responding to Stimuli and was interested in the graphic about Lysogenic cycle.

  • If RNA/DNA material can become part of the HOST DNA, Can it be inherited/Passed on through generations?
     
  • since we have mRNA vaccines - can that too be Inherited/Passed and lay dormant through generations?
     
  • if RNA/DNA material can lay dormant until "stressed" What are those stressors?
     



heres a thought - do we all have cancer until it's activated?

Sure makes you think viruses act on cells by injecting themselves - what else do we inject and why are we doing it?

 
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