Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to Hmm....

"but since water contains energy, it could be considered to contain life."

That is a non sequitur. Just because something contains energy does not mean it is alive.

"Our bodies are mostly water, does that mean that we are not alive?"

Another non sequitur.

Life is not a magical property that adheres to things, making them wonderful and holy. That is the concept of vitalism*, which was discredited as a scientific definition centuries ago. We define life as matter with certain properties, properties we subjectively define, such as the ability to move, metabolize, reproduce, evolve
etc. As far as we can tell, any matter of sufficient chemical complexity that meets that definition can be considered alive.

I suspect you feel "life" is a special force field that clings to living things, like puppies and kittens, but not dead things, like tire irons and rock salt. It is not a magical aura, that can be detected by the Enterprise's sensors on a distant planetary surface, like a compass needle picks up an electromagnetic field.

"Vitalism is the doctrine that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things".--Wikipedia

If living things can exist as ordinary matter without divine intervention, then maybe we need not invoke divine intervention after all. I don't find that depressing, I find it liberating.

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