[Corpora-List] What is corpora and what is not?

[Alexander Yeh]

Alexander Yeh wrote:
> Laurence Anthony wrote:
>> On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 12:27 AM, Patrick Juola <juola at mathcs.duq.edu>
>> wrote:
>>>> Hmm, many people have contributed. Are we all just being silly?
>>>
>>> Yes, bluntly.
>>
>> OK. Sorry to be silly!
>>
>>
>>>> Can you give me an example of one of the "broad terms" that a
>>>> scientist (e.g. physicist) uses which is not defined?
>>>
>>> "Life."  (biology)  "Matter." (physics)  "Mind." (psychology)
>>> "Thought." (psychology, again)  "Illness."  (medicine)
>>
>> Really. A very quick review of relevant sites gave me the following.
>> I'm sure I could get more authoritative definitions if I tried:
>>
>> life (biology)
>> http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Life
>
>  From my memory of biology, the definition here:
> "(1) A distinctive characteristic of a living organism from dead
> organism or non-living thing, as specifically distinguished by the
> capacity to grow, metabolize, respond (to stimuli), adapt, and reproduce"
>
> is not totally accepted as it would exclude viruses (which are studied
> in biology):
>
> viruses stay the same size (do not grow and get bigger), do not
> metabolize for energy, etc., and do not reproduce on their own or with
> each other.
> Viruses just take over a cell and commands the cell's "machinery" to
> make copies of the virus.
>

Better than what my rusty memory remembers on viruses being on the 
border between alive and not alive:

http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/yellowstone/viruslive.html

Partial quote of a quote: "Viruses straddle the definition of life. They 
lie somewhere between supra molecular complexes and very simple 
biological entities. Viruses contain some of the structures and exhibit 
some of the activities that are common to organic life, but they are 
missing many of the others. ..."

"There is no precise definition of what separates the living from the 
non-living."

"Although there is no definitive resolution to the question of whether 
viruses can be considered living entities, their ability to pass on 
genetic information to future generations makes them major players in an 
evolutionary sense."




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