Boiling Down the Meaning of Life

Shipud writes "A recent article in Journal of Biomolecular structure and Dynamics proposes to define life by semantic voting [Note: open-access article]: 'The definitions of life are more than often in conflict with one another. Undeniably, however, most of them do have a point, one or another or several, and common sense suggests that, probably, one could arrive to a consensus, if only the authors, some two centuries apart from one another, could be brought together. One thing, however, can be done – short of voting in absentia – asking which terms in the definitions are the most frequent and, thus, perhaps, reflecting the most important points shared by many.' The author arrives at a six-word definition, as explained here."

Comments

Ok ok...I'll tell you!

[deesine]

"Undeniably, however, most of them do have a point, one or another or several, and common sense suggests that, probably, one could arrive to a consensus, if only the authors, some two centuries apart from one another, could be brought together."

Forget water boarding: just use that sentence.

Re:Ok ok...I'll tell you!

[edittard]

The article crashed my browser so I can't decisively, notwithstanding that it was in quotes, determine if that awful prose you rightly cited is the submitter's own words or not, however it is undeniably (though some might disagree) neither the first, nor likely on the balance of probability the last heap of inaccurate, illegible and (to some ears, arguably illegible) tripe to be posted on Slashdot, all of which begs the question: "is our editors editing?"

(and) six-word definition, as explained here:

[hihihihi]

"Service Temporarily Unavailable"... nah, its just three words based on my definition of counting :)

But if we look deep into the message and add "try again later", i think author is spot on.

Here's mine

[Hognoxious]

The author arrives at a six-word definition.

"it's like a box of chocolates"

Re:Why do we need consensus?

[Hognoxious]

Seriously, what's wrong with having a bunch of competing definitions?

It would cost Apple more to patent them all.