[Razengan]

> "any self-sustaining system that reduces internal entropy."

Planet Earth would/should definitely count as alive, especially if it "reproduces" via us terraforming other planets to become like Earth.

[whimsicalism]

Ultimately, this is a semantic debate trying to apply human linguistic constructions to physical processes.

[dilawar]

Good plot for Rick and Morty. Wait, they already did it.

[tw25508394]

Amen! This is about as useful as debating whether Pluto is a planet.

[snowwrestler]

By this argument houses would also count as alive because they “reproduce” via humans building more houses.

(When you feel compelled to “air quote” a key term in your argument, that’s a clue you probably don’t have a good argument.)

[Razengan]

You know that kind of reduction isn't the same thing.

Earth+Life is a different entity than Earth on its own, or any other planet.

Earth allows and protects life, and life in turn influences Earth. That kind of symbiosis on such a scale is in a class of its own, with no other equivalent or analogy that we know of. It deserves a special classification.

[angst_ridden]

There are plenty of conceptualizations of planet-as-organism, e.g., Gaia Hypothesis.

[SuoDuanDao]

It seems nonsensical in any case to claim something that contains life among its constituent parts is not itself alive. Plenty of organisms have 'dead' tissue as part of their gestalt and no one thinks of them as 'mostly' alive.

[Supermancho]

> It seems nonsensical in any case to claim something that contains life among its constituent parts is not itself alive.

Parts of yogurt are alive. Yogurt is not alive. I have no problem with this.

[cossatot]

Life isn't a constituent part of the Earth. It's a coating.

[Razengan]

That statement is such a gross oversimplification of a tiny fraction of the whole picture.

Life permeates deep into Earth and even influences its geology:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole#Resear...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum