Why is fire not alive?

[Lukeje]

Also, how do I make subscripts?

You don't (despite being able to make superscripts with [sup][/sup] tags). The closest you can get is using 'small' tags, [small][/small] so that you get CO[small]2[/small].

 

[Xanadu84]

1. it doesn't evolve
2. it isn't reactive to conditions
and
3. it isn't an entity, it's a process, so you might just as well say that your computer was alive, or that the ocean is alive because it has waves.

Exactly

1)You don't evolve. I don't evolve. Evolution is not something you do, it's the state of the entire species over time. You can't judge an organism based on its generations. For example, if every other human on earth dies, I would still be alive, yet the human race would be completely unable to evolve. Other examples of beings that don't evolve but are alive are drone bees, and sterile people.
2) A fire goes out when its wet, grows when more food is added, dies when it has no oxygen...that's pretty reactive.
3) What parts of life cannot be considered a process? Without a process you have inert, lifeless matter.

The issue is that we all have the same associations of life tied together in one giant complex set of schema, but it's so fundamental to, err, life, that we can't untie out associations and hammer it out into a definition. Basically any definition of life you could come up with, I could come up with some obscure thought experiment where you would think of the entity as alive, but the definition would say its not (or vice versa). I think this is the wrong way to look at things. A definition for life is either impossible or impractical, and it is more helpful to have a set of attributes that makes objects life-like, and say an object is alive when it has enough of these attributes to satisfy you. Fire happens to be on a intriguing threshold, and mimics enough life like states to throw us all for a lop. Step one, I believe, is to separate, "Conscious" and "Alive" as separate things.

 

[Airhead]

Fire elementals are alive enough for me. They got, like, heads, hands, mouths and whatnot. I don`t know if they sexually reproduce, but it would sure make for the kinkiest porn on the planet if they did.

 

[Anarchemitis]

It doesn't have mass. Think about it. It's simply pure thermal energy, manifested in a chemical reaction.

Edit: Actually, I guess a being of energy could be alive...

How about this: It has to be created by some external influence.

Thereby it has mass in the amount of mass electrons has. Which is negligible. It has mass, just almost too little to be measured, so many people misgeneralize that it doesn't.
____________________________________________________________________________________
I've never thought of fire being alive, but by that train of thinking, it could be. Although it doesn't think, so it isn't alive.

 

[Dessembrae]

Only matter has mass. Fire is energy, not matter. It could possibly be converted to matter due to the Conservation of Energy Law and Einstein's Theory of Relativity, but in it's current state fire is only energy. Therefore it does not have mass..

This is incorrect in many ways.
1:Fire is not energy. It is the oxidation of combustible materials witch produces light, heat (energy), and various other reaction products ,like CO2 or H2O(on a side not the reason water doesn't burn is because it already has.) depending on the materials involved in the oxidation. These substances consists of atoms and molecules and can thus be described as matter (and therefor it also has mass.)
the "fire" itself is usually just hot gas and not plasma since most substances created during a normal fire would require far higher temperatures to reach the forth state.

2:Had fire(and by fire i mean the flames and the radiant heat) been made ENTIRELY from energy. It could only have been created from the total annihilation of the materials involved in the combustion, something not even done by an H-bomb(it only fusions some material to increase the output of the fission reaction, witch does not annihilate particles only splits atoms into lighter atoms.)

 

[Trivun]

Only matter has mass. Fire is energy, not matter. It could possibly be converted to matter due to the Conservation of Energy Law and Einstein's Theory of Relativity, but in it's current state fire is only energy. Therefore it does not have mass..

This is incorrect in many ways.
1:Fire is not energy. It is the oxidation of combustible materials witch produces light, heat (energy), and various other reaction products ,like CO2 or H2O(on a side not the reason water doesn't burn is because it already has.) depending on the materials involved in the oxidation. These substances consists of atoms and molecules and can thus be described as matter (and therefor it also has mass.)
the "fire" itself is usually just hot gas and not plasma since most substances created during a normal fire would require far higher temperatures to reach the forth state.

2:Had fire(and by fire i mean the flames and the radiant heat) been made ENTIRELY from energy. It could only have been created from the total annihilation of the materials involved in the combustion, something not even done by an H-bomb(it only fusions some material to increase the output of the fission reaction, witch does not annihilate particles only splits atoms into lighter atoms.)

OK then, fair enough. Can't argue there. However, I have a big ego so I want to get the last word in...

Basically I'm just going to elaborate for the benefit of people who don't understand this argument what happens when particles annihilate. Matter and anti-matter come into contact and because they are completely opposite, they counter each other and are converted into pure energy. Enough that about a gram of antimatter coming into contact with matter will be enough to destroy an area (completely obliterate it) about half a mile to a full mile in width (surprisingly, Dan Brown did his research right...). I studied Physics A-Level and we did some study on energy and antimatter.

 

[papercoin]

You guys are stupid. Fire IS alive. God, don't you know ANYTHING???

 

[SnowCold]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life#Definitions

Because Wikipedia says so.

Hail! Hail!

 

[papercoin]

It doesn't have sentience, i.e it can't pursue resources, it just spreads along all available routes.

Mold is alive and it does that.

It reacts to light in a way that could be deemed sentience - notice you never see mold on the other side of the trees.

You have no idea how paranoid I am right now, also water could be deemed sentient, oh holy crap now its not just animals and humans that are out to get me, now life itself seeks my demise, I'm going to hide in a cave

There's mold in caves.

OH FUCK

 

[bad rider]

Fire also doesn't reproduce, it simply grows.

Like asexual reproduction in plant's, nothing new is created it's just the same plant.....

First. Most plants sexually reproduce. In-fact, Mendel studied most of genetics using pea plants. (as in, the differences, asexual beings don't show differences in their offspring.

Yes but not all plants sexually reproduce i can't remember the plant (I was watching some bill oddie style program) but it suggested that something like the japanese knotweed only reproduces asexually and their may only be one plant on the planet.

Second. When a creature asexually reproduces, it creates another being that can either live, or die. You wouldn't look at a star fish, cut off it's arm, have two starfishes, and go "boy, I really don't see two starfish, just one starfish that grew". Killing one starfish wouldn't damage the other starfish the way putting out part of a fire would.

so if a fire split and i put out one of them, how would it damage the other?

In short. Yes, something new IS created, it is just genetically the same. Like twins, you wouldn't have human twins and go "uhp, just one baby, since their genetics are the same nothing new was created."Oh, and since fire has no genetics, you can't even claim the same argument for it.

Why can't I claim the same arguement? Please tell me why, I don't like being told to ignore the logical arguement because you say so. Besides a regular twin is made up of two different eggs, this is more like a siamese twin where you would say they are the same until the point at which they are seperated. But no my point on the asexual reproduction (I didn't word this well) isn't that there is no new plant it's that it is the same plant.

Twins can either be made up of two twins, (or in the case I referred to) be one egg that split and grew into two beings. The reason you can't use the same argument is because fire doesn't have DNA. I was just preemptively correcting a possible mistake. Go ahead and post your argument about how two separate fires are genetically the same, and I'll thwart your argument by saying "fire has no genes". I didn't "just" tell you to ignore the logical argument, I said "SINCE fire has no genetics, THAN you can't claim the same argument. I stated a very firm reason as to why you can't use the argument.

OK lets ignore that i just hate people who use pre emptive arguements because now that i think about it, why is that relevent in the slightist to this discussion?

 

[Danny Ocean]

1. it doesn't evolve
2. it isn't reactive to conditions
and
3. it isn't an entity, it's a process, so you might just as well say that your computer was alive, or that the ocean is alive because it has waves.

Exactly

Both these are so obviously untrue, that reading them almost made me bust out laughing.

First:

Fire indeed does evolve, as more and more discoveries are made into chemistry and more substances are made that are more/less flammable, over time, fire has changed, and thus, evolved.

No. Fire has never changed. This is just so simple I can't believe you used it as a point of argument. You think fires burnt differently 3 million years ago?
No. This quote doesn't even make sense. It seems you're confusing stuff that burns with fire. Or possibly you're saying that our definition of Fire has evolved, which it hasn't. It's still the orange/red/blue/purple/green/white luminous stuff that rises off of very hot objects.

Ugh.

However, This I agree with.

Second:

Fire is almost entirely dependant on conditions including amount of fuel, type of fuel, humidity in the air, density of the air, wind speed/direction, and so on and so forth.

Also, fire meets at least three of the things that science defines as being necessary to be considered life: It eats yup, it growsyup, it reproduces.I hate this. Through one logic path you can say it does, but then through many others you can say it doesn't.

You could go for some kind of entropy-based explanation. Fire lacks organization. Life as we think of it is associated with a decrease in local entropy (we "balance the books", so to speak, by increasing entropy around us, e.g. through our waste heat). Fire just kinda increases entropy instead.

Perhaps you could also go for some kind of information-based explanation. That's pretty close to the one above, since information involves organization and vice versa.

-- Alex

WE HAVE A WINNER! CONGRADULATIONS. your smarter than all those other dudes.

You should wipe your nose, it looks a little brown.
What suddenly made you the decider of what is correct and what isn't, hm?
I'll Hazard a guess that you didn't even come up with this "correct" answer yourself, but just read another person's idea and thought, "Hey, that sounds good!"
Save you condescending remarks for a group of people less "Adept" (Hah!) than yourself, because they are the only ones who won't see right through you.

In the end though, this is a completely ambiguous, subjective, and hence pointless argument ever.

 

[Kellerb]

this is an awesome idea for a post, an new look on something we take as granted. good stuff

it does have many traits that we normally associate with life, but it has no mind, no organs
(ps. you don't see chihuahuathrowers do you... well not until i finish the blueprints )

 

[Saevus]

I think someone in here asked why water, which is hydrogen and oxygen, doesn't burn like crazy. Short answer is because it's a stable molecule and fire doesn't cause electrolysis.

This entire thread is silly, and I applaud whoever it was that just quoted from a bio textbook and slammed the coffin shut on this ridiculous question.

 

[GammaChris]

It really comes down to one's own definition and open-mindedness about things. Scientifically and realistically, fire is not in any way, shape, or form alive, but if you think outside the box and look at it from a (very) different angle, I could see how one might philosophically argue its life. Those are some nice thoughts there, yup.

On a side note, it does make me a little sad to see people just shoot this notion down with their scientific mind-bullets. We all know fire is a chemical reaction and that it isn't alive, but you could at least take a moment and consider it.

 

[Flying-Emu]

*snipsnip*

Read back. If you actually read, you would've noticed that I was attempting to SHOW him that he was incorrect about respiration being required for life.

Please read before quoting me.

 

[Galaxialconda]

If it was it would be constantly screaming in agony because it was on fire =D