8 tweets · January 2024 · 59 likes · 2 retweets · read on Twitter
having trouble finding an adequate definition for "life" that doesn't include companies and cities and I feel like this is sort of obvious when considered, but then we go back to acting like it's not true I don't know what the implications are of this
obviously, I'm a living thing. I'm also made of a bunch of living things. and in some sense, but not 100%, I can't live without them nor them without me but {me, the guy walking down the street outside} is not a living thing. it lacks the wholeness / center.
companies and cities definitely have a center but they also have components that aren't living, like money and buildings and furniture and roads and so on but if you zoom in enough, my body also has nonliving elements 🤔
my guess is there ARE key diffs between companies/cities and uhhh bio life, and this is part of why the slippage occurs eg you, like most people, have probably committed a crime (jaywalking, speeding, copyright-bs). but you're not "a criminal" in the ordinarily-connotated sense!
likewise, "life" connotes a bunch of things, including: - capacity for experience, suffering (moral patience?) - needs to breathe & eat & shit - evolved, has a genome - it is wrong to end it - ....probably more
this thread brought to you in part by Geoffrey West's book Scale, and Lewis Thomas's book Lives of a Cell (thanks @visakanv) here's an earlier thread on an intertwingled topic:
is twitter alive? are other websites?
another take: