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The definition of life has long been a challenge for scientists and philosophers. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] This is partially because life is a process, not a substance. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] This is complicated by a lack of knowledge of the characteristics of living entities, if any, that may have developed outside Earth.
The first English use of the expression "meaning of life" appears in Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus (1833–1834), book II chapter IX, "The Everlasting Yea". [1]Our Life is compassed round with Necessity; yet is the meaning of Life itself no other than Freedom, than Voluntary Force: thus have we a warfare; in the beginning, especially, a hard-fought battle.
Existential nihilism is the philosophical theory that life has no objective meaning or purpose. [1] The inherent meaninglessness of life is largely explored in the philosophical school of existentialism, where one can potentially create their own subjective "meaning" or "purpose".
Scientists have debated the definition of life for decades, but they still lack a consensus on the answer.
As Harold J. Morowitz (1992) explains it, life is a property of an ecological system rather than a single organism or species. [16] He argues that an ecosystemic definition of life is preferable to a strictly biochemical or physical one.
Meaning can be defined as the connection linking two presumably independent entities together; [2] a meaningful life links the biological reality of life to a symbolic interpretation or meaning. [3] Those possessing a sense of meaning are generally found to be happier, [ 1 ] to have lower levels of negative emotions, and to have lower risk of ...
Life arose from the Earth's first ocean, which formed some 3.8 billion years ago. [33] Since then, water continues to be the most abundant molecule in every organism. Water is important to life because it is an effective solvent, capable of dissolving solutes such as sodium and chloride ions or other small molecules to form an aqueous solution.
This is difficult due to there being little consensus on how to define life. A flower, a skull, and an hourglass stand for life, death, and time in this 17th-century painting by Philippe de Champaigne. [citation needed] It is possible to define life in terms of consciousness. When consciousness ceases, an organism can be said to have died.