Once upon a time there were dinosaurs. They died and decomposed and turned into oil. Millions of years later, humans turned that oil into plastic. Recently, plastic became the major building material for the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. There’s your proof that dinosaurs can fly.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19421415/
This got me wondering if the 787 is a new form of life. After all, it’s carbon-based, i.e. mostly plastic, and more intelligent than most people I know. And it reproduces, in the sense that more 787s are being built. But is that enough? I turned to Wikipedia to find out the definition of “life.”
According to some stranger with no credibility, life is characterized by “growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.” Luckily, intelligence is not part of the definition. So we can skirt that argument.
Metabolism is essentially the chemical reactions in a living thing. The 787 has plenty of chemical reactions. If it didn’t, the engines and the air conditioning wouldn’t work. You might argue that the majority of the plane has no chemical reactions. Luckily, the definition of life doesn’t require a minimum percentage of chemical reactions. It just has to have some. Check.
The 787 also eats and poops. Its food is people. And its poop is people who are a few hours older and slightly more decomposed. People enter the 787s stomach, stay there for a few hours decomposing, and exit through the rear (I’m hoping, because it makes the analogy more spiffy). The passengers pay money for this trip, which goes into the financial bloodstream and results in fuel and replacement parts being added to the plane. It’s not a perfect analogy, I grant you that, but some bugs have their skeletons on the outside and no one complains about that.
The 787 obviously reproduces, with help from humans. There will be more 787s next year than this year. You could argue that the plane can’t reproduce on its own, but neither can some flowers. They need bees to pollinate them. Technically, no animal could reproduce without the help of other plants and/or animals, because you can’t procreate if you have nothing to eat. Most life depends on other life, directly or indirectly, in order to reproduce.
To qualify as life, the 787 must also adapt to its environment through changes originating internally. It’s designed to do just that. If the plane senses a drop in cabin pressure, it releases the oxygen masks. If it’s on autopilot, it continuously adjusts its path to compensate for wind. Clearly it adapts to its environment.
So there you have it. The 787 Dreamliner is alive. And you are jet poop. Deal with it.
A book called Metaman by Gregory Stock makes a similar argument, except he suggests that organization (governments, corporation, etc) are alive instead of inanimate objects. Basically,
cell:human::human:organization
That I was able to summarize the 300+ page book in a single analogy may indicate that the book wasn't that worthwhile, but I found it at the dollar store, so I don't feel too ripped off.
The author says organizations or inanimate objects may not appear alive to us, but we wouldn't appear alive to our cells, since, for example, we don't reproduce asexually. The consequence of this is that organizations treat their individual members about as well as we treat individual cells, like the ones you throw away after clipping your toenails. The author seemed somehow OK with this.
Posted by: Isaac Hill | July 04, 2007 at 04:59 AM
I guess that makes my near-neighbour, Heathrow, the biggest toilet in the world.
Posted by: Nona | July 04, 2007 at 04:40 AM
We are lucky Scott was born in USA. If it were IRAN he would be a mullah (in Spanish that word sounds similar to Mula, or mule, a good definition for them)and will be using his logic to send fanatics to kill everything. And he would be the only mullah that doesn't believe in his own logic, making him the most dangerous of all.
Posted by: Ivan | July 04, 2007 at 04:22 AM
That's just plane crap ....... oops!!!
Posted by: Rohit | July 04, 2007 at 04:09 AM
The computer viruses are not alive, they are just programs man-made. But real viruses are of course alive, they have DNC and other things that define life!
Posted by: Kolin | July 04, 2007 at 03:59 AM
Matt said: "I've come to the conclusion that your an idiot."
You shouldn't talk; YOU'RE an idiot AND you can't spell.
kvertiber said: "I wonder why noone has yet said that a 787 is not alive because it was not crated by God the almighty..."
Since when does God work in the shipping department? Please get a spellchecker, and share it with Matt.
Posted by: Nobuddy | July 04, 2007 at 03:47 AM
Man, I'm in a geeky mood today.
Actually, parthenogenisis (virgin birth) has been demonstrated in every class of animals except mammalia (unless you are a biblical literalist of course)
Plus many plants, all bacteria and most (all?) funghi reproduce asexually.
Sadly Scott missed one of the criteria (despite quoting it from Wikipedia) - the 787 doesn't grow, therefore is not alive. It is scarily close though...
"Can anyone think of a bona fide living thing that can reproduce without any involvment of one of the same species?
Posted by: Enough Wealth"
Posted by: GeordieHalfBreed | July 04, 2007 at 03:29 AM
"I've come to the conclusion that your (sic) an idiot.
Posted by: Matt"
And I've come to the conclusion that you're illiterate...
Right, grammar lesson over.
Good article Scott. You could throw in something about the A380 and natural selection whilst you're at it (although I maintain the Airbus is the better aircraft- the Dreamliner clearly doesn't have enough features...)
Posted by: GeordieHalfBreed | July 04, 2007 at 03:22 AM
Scott,
Why not cover the Glasgow terrorist bombing which has made life difficult for all muslimists in Scotland.
www.johnsmeaton.com
Apparently another tourist snapped a ligament in his foot after booting the terrorist in the balls, poor man, hope his foot heals soon.
Posted by: Jaled Krispy | July 04, 2007 at 02:46 AM
hahahaha. God man this stuff is lovely, EXCEPT when you got 20 colleagues staring at the f*ck is wrong with this idiot and then i show them the link and you get 20 more hits and plenty more laughter.
I love the way you write and keep at it. And god write a post on those constant nitpicking whiners (in the comments) that HAVE to dissect your post and take it literally or else their day is not done.
Posted by: Karthick | July 04, 2007 at 02:37 AM
We actually eat jet poo.
People aboard planes / boats take a dump.
Dump is expelled over ocean.
Fish eats dump.
We eat fish.
Posted by: gordon_goosemonster | July 04, 2007 at 02:25 AM
There are a fun few chapters in Erewhon about the evolution of machines. It's also old enough to be available on the web:
http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Butler/Erewhon/erewhon23.html
Posted by: Matt | July 04, 2007 at 02:20 AM
By your definition pretty much anything is "alive", not just Boeings.
Posted by: Arturo | July 04, 2007 at 02:12 AM
Oh thanks, now I can see two planes humping on a runway and somewhere else another plane giving birth to a junior plane. They call it turbulence, but maybe those movements are actually two planes having sex in the air?
Posted by: Edwin | July 04, 2007 at 01:57 AM
"Plus if we poke Scott just right, we get a response, which is a form of acknowledging our existence, which is all anyone really needs to be happy."
Wait...all I need for happiness is to get Scott to acknowladge me? How do you do that? I mean I could offer the lead in for a joke and hope he couldn't resist making it, but the blog is full of those. I could appeal to his sense of charity, but there are hundreds of people on this blog just wanting to be acknowladged, I can't reasonably expect him to treat them differently to me, nor can I expect him to give up enough of his day to say a kind world to everybody. I guess I could pay him, there's bound to be some ammount of money he'd say hello for (Anyone want to hazard a guess at a figure?) but I'm not sure that counts as the sort of acknowladgement that's happiness inducing. I could kidnap his cats, but cats are the second most uncooperative life form on this planet (number one being planes) so that'd probably be harder than the origional task. I feel cheated. Like you've shown me the road to happiness but it is not within my grasp :(
"Thought experiment: how would you feel if everyone did anything you told them to but no one ever spoke a word to you or acknowledged in any way that you are the reason they just did whatever you told them to? Would it be a superpower worth having?"
What happens if I tell them to acknowledge me?
Either way I guess I could just pick someone to be my voice on earth and spent lots of time micromanaging them to do exactly whatever I'd do so the reactions they get feel like reactions to me...wait a minute...is that gods superpower? It'd explain a lot.
Posted by: Greg | July 04, 2007 at 01:51 AM
Flying dinosaurs are pterodactyle or birds.
http://www.altavista.com/image/results?itag=ody&q=pterodactyle&kgs=1&kls=0
Nice article on the life of planes.
Posted by: CDriK | July 04, 2007 at 01:48 AM
"your an idiot" - brilliant.
Posted by: Paulie | July 04, 2007 at 01:45 AM
humans are not food as it does not directly draw energy away from them - point lost
it has absolutely nothing to do with it's own reproduction - bees help the plants yes, but the plants still are involved in reproduction, they also have different sexual organs that a plane does not - point lost
i could go on much more, but simply, the last point completely disproves you. for a thing to be alive it must have the capacity to reproduce - you may say that the last organism of a species is not a living organism by that definition, but it is.
there is still a posibility that it may reproduce, if another mate were found.
in conclusion: planes are not living organisms. and i am not a plane feces
Posted by: Bryn | July 04, 2007 at 01:43 AM
That is by far the poorest attempt at starting an argument about life, I've ever seen.
Sadly enough it worked.
What is the world coming to?
Posted by: Chrisy | July 04, 2007 at 01:13 AM
That is by far the poorest attempt at starting an argument about life, I've ever seen.
Sadly enough it worked.
What is the world coming to?
Posted by: Chrisy | July 04, 2007 at 01:12 AM
it's metaphorically alive because your definitions were only metaphores for life.
interesting how even if it was life it would need a creator originally :)
Posted by: sey | July 04, 2007 at 01:01 AM
The post bought a smile to my face... of course till I got to the comments :) they made me laugh.
Why Why Why take it so seriously.
Posted by: shobhna | July 04, 2007 at 12:33 AM
Do you intentionally create these holes in your logic so that you can sit back and watch people bitch at each other? If yes, good job. Else, come on Scott. You can do better than that.
Airplane fabrication Vs Pollination. That was bad! I dont know of any airplanes that creates pollens and waits for humans to pollinate other airplanes. When that happens, I will agree with your theory. I don't even have to read the rest of your argument to make my point.
And what's with this HUGE text box for writing the comments?
Posted by: Sreeram | July 04, 2007 at 12:30 AM
Hahahahahaha, your 787 argument is very bad and you know it hehe, it made me feel like when i am tempted to argue with an idiot ... wait ... that is ... so that is your revenge for all those idiots with arguments that you can't argue with as they don't understand you but beat you at their level? I hope you are not like this, hehe, and this is all about "Are we machines?" on a simplified basis or something like that.
Posted by: T.G. | July 04, 2007 at 12:26 AM
One of you best Scott! I was just wandering if you were not getting a form of paranoia with all the articles about yourself.
Posted by: cosmin | July 03, 2007 at 11:49 PM