Published in

Springer Verlag, Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, 2(40), p. 137-143

DOI: 10.1007/s11084-010-9192-3

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Is it Useful to Have a Clear-cut Definition of Life? On the Use of Fuzzy Logic in Prebiotic Chemistry

Journal article published in 2010 by Gilles Bruylants, Kristin Bartik ORCID, Jacques Reisse
This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

Full text: Download

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Green circle
Postprint: archiving allowed
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Many scientists, including one of the authors of the present paper, have devoted time to try to find a definition for life (Bersini and Reisse 2007). It is clear that a consensus will never be reached but, more importantly, it seems that the issue itself could be without major interest. It is indeed impossible to define a "natural" frontier between non-living and living systems and therefore also impossible to define dichotomic criteria which could be used in order to classify systems in one of these two classes (living or non-living). Fuzzy logic provides a natural way to deal with problems where class membership lacks sharply defined criteria. It also offers the possibility to avoid losing time with unnecessary controversies such as deciding whether a virus is, or is not, a living system.