Is fire alive?

Just a passing thought on the “Is fire alive?” question. I have not scoured the message boards to see if this has already been mentioned, but has anyone considered evolution? I may be getting into a touchy area for some of the more secular of the teeming millions, but in the search for fact, we must consider all options…

The basic question came down to the actual definition of life. If we know how to define life, then we can determine if fire is alive. It seems to me that biological life, as we know it, as the ability to evolve. Not that any lifeform in particular has evolved, but just that it has the capacity to change in a significant and permanent way, to better carry on it’s life. For instance, I (as do MOST of the people I have encountered) have an opposable thumb - which allows me to pick up a stick with ease. I also have an opposable pinky finger, which allows me to use my stick to pummel a potential meal with greater efficiency. Fire, on the other hand, and remained in the same crude and elemental form since the beginning of oxygen.

Then again, who knows? Maybe before we were around, fire looked like Don Knotts. It would at least explain the evolution…

  • Old Peculiar

Welcome to the SDMB, and thank you for posting your comment.

Please include a link to Cecil’s column if it’s on the straight dope web site. To include a link, it can be as simple as including the web page location in your post (make sure there is a space before and after the text of the URL).

Cecil’s column can be found on-line at this link:
Why don’t we consider fire alive? What is life? (12-Dec-1997)


moderator, «Comments on Cecil’s Columns»

Old Peculiar, are you suggesting this as an additional criterion for the original definition (metabolizes, reproduces, etc.), or as a whole new stand-alone definition? If the latter, then there’s a number of computer programs which can be said to “evolve”… Should they be considered alive?

I would never presume to have all the answers - regardless of what my ex-girlfriend may tell you - so my suggestion that evolution=life is but a single criterion of, undoubtedly, many others.

My favorite one to group it with, however, is that the evolving entity must be organic. I referred to the term “biological” in my first post - it was meant to include only the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms.

I await the inevitable semantic arguements…

Well, if you’re trying to deliberately exclude three kingdoms with your definition of life, you’re not going to get very far. That being said, an organic basis is a common feature of everything currently considered alive by biologists, so you won’t get into any trouble there.

However, there are computer programs that display all the behaviors currently attributed to living organisms (cf. Conway’s Game of Life), and it seems rather chemocentric to deny them life simply because they don’t have carbon atoms.

There is one problem with using “ability to evolve” as a criterion, and that is the fact that no single organism can evolve. Evolution refers to a change in allele frequencies over time, something that does not happen within the genome of a given organism. So that’s out.

I’m not aware what the feelings of the scientific community are as to a definition of life. I do have something to propose, but as it’s based on rather technical considerations, I don’t want to post it and confuse the issue.

And upon reading Cecil’s column, I see problems with it. The master speaks, and I listen.

My definition, not the column.