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References

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  4. Benner, Steven A. (2010), ‘Defining life’, Astrobiology, 10:10, pp. 1021–30.
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  5. Biemann, Klaus , Oró, Joan , Toulmin III, Prestley , Orgel, Leslie E. , Nier, Alfred O. , D. M. Anderson , P. G. Simmonds , D. Flory , A. V. Diaz , D. R. Rushneck and Biller, Jose A. (1976), ‘Search for organic and volatile inorganic compounds in two surface samples from the Chryse Planitia region of Mars’, Science, 194, pp. 72–76.
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  8. Cleland, Carol E. (2012), ‘Life without definitions’, Synthese, 185, pp. 125–44.
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  9. Cleland, Carol E. (2019), The Quest for a Universal Theory of Life: Searching for Life as We Don't Know It, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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  27. Kauffman, Stuart (2000), Investigations, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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  28. Kauffman, Stuart (2003), ‘The emergence of autonomous agents’, in N. H. Gregersen (ed.), From Complexity to Life: On the Emergence of Life and Meaning, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 47–71.
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  29. Kauffman, Stuart and Clayton, Philip (2006), ‘On emergence, agency, and organization’, Biology and Philosophy, 21, pp. 501–21.
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  30. Klein, Harold P. (1978), ‘The Viking biology investigations: Review and status’, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, 9:2, pp. 157–60.
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  31. Klein, Harold P. (1991), ‘The Viking biology experiments: Epilogue and prologue’, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, 21, pp. 255–61.
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  32. Kolb, Vera (ed.) (2019), ‘Section II: Definition and nature of life’, in Handbook of Astrobiology, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, pp. 55–106.
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  33. Kripke, Saul A. (1972), Naming and Necessity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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  34. Levin, Gilbert V. and Straat, Patricia Ann (1977), ‘Recent results from the Viking labeled release experiment on Mars’, Journal of Geophysical Research, 82:28, pp. 4663–67.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Lineweaver, Charles H. (2006), ‘We have not detected extraterrestrial life, or have we?’, in J. Seckbach (ed.), Life as We Know It, Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 445–57.77
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  36. Lovelock, James E. (1972), ‘Gaia as seen through the atmosphere’, Atmospheric Environment, 6, pp. 579–80.
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  37. Lovelock, James E. (2000), The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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  38. Lovelock, James E. and Margulis, Lynn (1974), ‘At atmospheric homeostasis by and for the biosphere: The Gaia hypothesis’, Tellus, 26, pp. 1–10.
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  39. Luisi, Pier Luigi (1993), ‘The chemical implementation of autopoiesis’, in G. R. Fleischaker , C. Stephano and P. L. Luisi (eds), Self-Production of Supramolecular Structures: From Synthetic Structures to Models of Minimal Living Systems, Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 179–97.
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  40. Luisi, Pier Luigi (2003), ‘Autopoiesis: A review and a reappraisal’, Naturwissenschaften, 90:2, pp. 49–59.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Machery, Edouard (2012), ‘Why I stopped worrying about the definition of life … and why you should as well’, Synthese, 185, pp. 145–64.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Margulis, Lynn (2004), ‘Gaia by any other name’, in S. H. Schneider , J. R. Miller , E. Crist and P. J. Boston (eds), Scientists Debate Gaia: The Next Century, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 7–12.
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  44. Margulis, Lynn and Sagan, Dorion (1995), What Is Life?, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
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  45. Maturana, Humberto and Varela, Francisco (1973), Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living, Dordrecht: Reidel.
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  46. Navarro-Gonzáles, Rafael , Navarro, Karina F. , de la Rosa, José , Iniguez, Enrique , Molina, Paola , Miranda, Luis D. , Morales, Pedro , Cienfuegos, Edith , Coll, Patrice, F. Raulin, François , Amils, Ricardo and McKay, Christopher P. (2006), ‘The limitations on organic detection in Mars-like soils by thermal volatilization-gas chromatography-MS and their implications for the Viking results’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103:44, pp. 16089–94.
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  47. National Research Council (NRC) (2007), The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems, Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences.
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  48. Pace, Norman R. (2001), ‘The universal nature of biochemistry’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 98:3, pp. 805–80.
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  49. Pályi, Gyula , Zucchi, Claudia and Caglioti, Luciano (2002), ‘Introduction: Definitions of life’, in G. Pályi , C. Zucchi and L. Caglioti (eds), Fundamentals of Life, New York: Elsevier, pp. 2–13.
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  50. Pevney, Joseph (dir.) (1967), ‘The Devil in the Dark’, Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 1 Episode 25, 9 March, USA: National Broadcasting Company (NBC).
  51. Popa, Radu (2004), Between Necessity and Probability: Searching for the Definition and Origin of Life, Berlin: Springer Verlag.
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  52. Putnam Hilary (1973), ‘Meaning and reference’, Journal of Philosophy, 70:19, pp. 699–711.
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  53. Putnam Hilary (1975), ‘The meaning of “meaning”’, in K. Gunderson (ed.), Language, Mind, and Knowledge: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. VII, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 131–93. [Reprinted in Putnam 1979.]78
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  55. Ray, Tom S. (2009), ‘Artificial life programs and evolution’, in M. Ruse and J. Travis (eds), Companion to Evolution, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 429–33.
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  56. Sagan, Carl (1970), ‘Life’, in Encyclopædia Britannica, 14th ed., Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Incorporated.
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  57. Schneider, Eric D. and Kay, James J. (1994), ‘Life as a manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics’, Mathematics and Computer Modelling, 19:6–8, pp. 25–48.
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Schrödinger, Erwin (1944), What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  59. Schulze-Makuch, Dirk and Irwin, Louis N. (2008), Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints, 2nd ed., Berlin: Springer Verlag.
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  60. Trifonov, Edward N. (2011), ‘Vocabulary of definitions of life suggests a definition’, Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics, 29:2, pp. 259–66.
     [Google Scholar]
  61. Tsokolov, Serhiy A. (2009), ‘Why is the definition of life so elusive? Epistemological considerations’, Astrobiology, 9:4, pp. 401–12.
     [Google Scholar]
  62. Vetsigian, Kalin , Woese, Carl and Goldenfield, Nigel (2006), ‘Collective evolution and the genetic code’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 103:28, pp. 10696–701.
     [Google Scholar]
  63. Woese, Carl (1998), ‘The universal ancestor’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 95:12, pp. 6854–59.
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References

  1. Bada, Jeffrey L. (2001), ‘State-of-the-art instruments for detecting extraterrestrial life’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 98:3, pp. 797–800.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Bedau, Mark A. (1998), ‘Four puzzles about life’, Artificial Life, 4, pp. 125–40.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Bedau, Mark A. and Cleland, Carol E. (eds) (2010), The Nature of Life: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives from Philosophy and Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Benner, Steven A. (2010), ‘Defining life’, Astrobiology, 10:10, pp. 1021–30.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Biemann, Klaus , Oró, Joan , Toulmin III, Prestley , Orgel, Leslie E. , Nier, Alfred O. , D. M. Anderson , P. G. Simmonds , D. Flory , A. V. Diaz , D. R. Rushneck and Biller, Jose A. (1976), ‘Search for organic and volatile inorganic compounds in two surface samples from the Chryse Planitia region of Mars’, Science, 194, pp. 72–76.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Biemann, Klaus , Oró, Joan , Toulmin III, Prestley , Orgel, Leslie E. , Nier, Alfred O. , Anderson, D. M. , Simmonds, P. G. , Flory, D. , Diaz, A. V. Rushneck, D. R. , Biller, Jose A. and Lafleur, A. L. (1977), ‘The search for organic substances and inorganic volatile compounds in the surface of Mars’, Journal of Geophysical Research, 82:28, pp. 4641–58.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Chyba, Christopher F. and McDonald, Gene D. (1995), ‘The origin of life in the solar system: Current issues’, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 23, pp. 215–49.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Cleland, Carol E. (2012), ‘Life without definitions’, Synthese, 185, pp. 125–44.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Cleland, Carol E. (2019), The Quest for a Universal Theory of Life: Searching for Life as We Don't Know It, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Cleland, Carol E. and Chyba, Christopher F. (2002), ‘Defining “life”’, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, 32, pp. 387–93.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Cleland, Carol E. and Chyba, Christopher F. (2007), ‘Does “life” have a definition?’, in W. T. Sullivan III and J. A. Baross (eds), Planets and Life: The Emerging Science of Astrobiology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 119–31.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Damiano, Luisa and Luisi, Pier Luigi (2010), ‘Towards an autopoietic redefinition of life’, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, 40:2, pp. 145–49.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Dawkins, Richard (1983), ‘Universal Darwinism’, in D. S. Bendall (ed.), Evolution from Molecules to Men, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 403–25.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Dennett, Daniel C. (1995), Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life, New York: Simon and Schuster.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Dupré, John (1993), The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of Science, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Dyson, Freeman J. (1999), Origins of Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.76
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Feinberg, Gerald and Shapiro, Robert (1980), Life Beyond Earth: Intelligent Earthlings, Guide to the Universe, New York: William Morrow.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Gánti, Tibor (2003), The Principle of Life, with commentary by J. Griesemer and E. Swathmáry, New York: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Glavin, Daniel P. , Schubert, Michael , Botta, Oliver , Kminek, Gerhard and Bada , Jeffrey L. (2001), ‘Detecting pyrolysis products from bacteria on Mars’, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 185, pp. 1–5.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Grinspoon, David (2003), Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life, New York: Harper Collins.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Hazen, Robert M. (2005), Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origin, Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Hays, Lindsey, L. (editor-in-chief) (2015), NASA Astrobiology Strategy, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, DC: NASA.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Heward, Anita (2010), ‘Life on Titan: Stand well back and hold your nose!’, PhysOrg.com, 14 April, https://phys.org/news/2010-04-life-titan-nose.html. Accessed 5 April 2023.
  24. Hoelzer, Guy A. , Smith, Eric and Pepper, John W. (2006), ‘On the logical relationship between natural selection and self organization’, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 19, pp. 1785–94.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Jablonka, Eva and Lamb, Marion J. (2005), Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Joyce, Gerald F. (1994), ‘Foreword’, in D. W. Deamer and G. R. Fleischaker (eds), Origins of Life: The Central Concepts, Boston, MA: Jones & Bartlett, pp. xi–xii.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Kauffman, Stuart (2000), Investigations, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Kauffman, Stuart (2003), ‘The emergence of autonomous agents’, in N. H. Gregersen (ed.), From Complexity to Life: On the Emergence of Life and Meaning, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 47–71.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Kauffman, Stuart and Clayton, Philip (2006), ‘On emergence, agency, and organization’, Biology and Philosophy, 21, pp. 501–21.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Klein, Harold P. (1978), ‘The Viking biology investigations: Review and status’, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, 9:2, pp. 157–60.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Klein, Harold P. (1991), ‘The Viking biology experiments: Epilogue and prologue’, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, 21, pp. 255–61.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Kolb, Vera (ed.) (2019), ‘Section II: Definition and nature of life’, in Handbook of Astrobiology, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, pp. 55–106.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Kripke, Saul A. (1972), Naming and Necessity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Levin, Gilbert V. and Straat, Patricia Ann (1977), ‘Recent results from the Viking labeled release experiment on Mars’, Journal of Geophysical Research, 82:28, pp. 4663–67.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Lineweaver, Charles H. (2006), ‘We have not detected extraterrestrial life, or have we?’, in J. Seckbach (ed.), Life as We Know It, Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 445–57.77
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Lovelock, James E. (1972), ‘Gaia as seen through the atmosphere’, Atmospheric Environment, 6, pp. 579–80.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Lovelock, James E. (2000), The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Lovelock, James E. and Margulis, Lynn (1974), ‘At atmospheric homeostasis by and for the biosphere: The Gaia hypothesis’, Tellus, 26, pp. 1–10.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Luisi, Pier Luigi (1993), ‘The chemical implementation of autopoiesis’, in G. R. Fleischaker , C. Stephano and P. L. Luisi (eds), Self-Production of Supramolecular Structures: From Synthetic Structures to Models of Minimal Living Systems, Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 179–97.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Luisi, Pier Luigi (2003), ‘Autopoiesis: A review and a reappraisal’, Naturwissenschaften, 90:2, pp. 49–59.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Machery, Edouard (2012), ‘Why I stopped worrying about the definition of life … and why you should as well’, Synthese, 185, pp. 145–64.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Margulis, Lynn (2004), ‘Gaia by any other name’, in S. H. Schneider , J. R. Miller , E. Crist and P. J. Boston (eds), Scientists Debate Gaia: The Next Century, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 7–12.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Margulis, Lynn and Sagan, Dorion (1995), What Is Life?, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Maturana, Humberto and Varela, Francisco (1973), Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living, Dordrecht: Reidel.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Navarro-Gonzáles, Rafael , Navarro, Karina F. , de la Rosa, José , Iniguez, Enrique , Molina, Paola , Miranda, Luis D. , Morales, Pedro , Cienfuegos, Edith , Coll, Patrice, F. Raulin, François , Amils, Ricardo and McKay, Christopher P. (2006), ‘The limitations on organic detection in Mars-like soils by thermal volatilization-gas chromatography-MS and their implications for the Viking results’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103:44, pp. 16089–94.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. National Research Council (NRC) (2007), The Limits of Organic Life in Planetary Systems, Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Pace, Norman R. (2001), ‘The universal nature of biochemistry’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 98:3, pp. 805–80.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Pályi, Gyula , Zucchi, Claudia and Caglioti, Luciano (2002), ‘Introduction: Definitions of life’, in G. Pályi , C. Zucchi and L. Caglioti (eds), Fundamentals of Life, New York: Elsevier, pp. 2–13.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Pevney, Joseph (dir.) (1967), ‘The Devil in the Dark’, Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 1 Episode 25, 9 March, USA: National Broadcasting Company (NBC).
  51. Popa, Radu (2004), Between Necessity and Probability: Searching for the Definition and Origin of Life, Berlin: Springer Verlag.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Putnam Hilary (1973), ‘Meaning and reference’, Journal of Philosophy, 70:19, pp. 699–711.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Putnam Hilary (1975), ‘The meaning of “meaning”’, in K. Gunderson (ed.), Language, Mind, and Knowledge: Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. VII, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 131–93. [Reprinted in Putnam 1979.]78
     [Google Scholar]
  54. Rasmussen, Steen (1992), ‘Aspects of information, life, reality, and physics’, Artificial Life, 2, pp. 767–74. [Reprinted in Langton and Taylor 2003.]
     [Google Scholar]
  55. Ray, Tom S. (2009), ‘Artificial life programs and evolution’, in M. Ruse and J. Travis (eds), Companion to Evolution, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 429–33.
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Sagan, Carl (1970), ‘Life’, in Encyclopædia Britannica, 14th ed., Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Incorporated.
     [Google Scholar]
  57. Schneider, Eric D. and Kay, James J. (1994), ‘Life as a manifestation of the second law of thermodynamics’, Mathematics and Computer Modelling, 19:6–8, pp. 25–48.
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Schrödinger, Erwin (1944), What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  59. Schulze-Makuch, Dirk and Irwin, Louis N. (2008), Life in the Universe: Expectations and Constraints, 2nd ed., Berlin: Springer Verlag.
     [Google Scholar]
  60. Trifonov, Edward N. (2011), ‘Vocabulary of definitions of life suggests a definition’, Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics, 29:2, pp. 259–66.
     [Google Scholar]
  61. Tsokolov, Serhiy A. (2009), ‘Why is the definition of life so elusive? Epistemological considerations’, Astrobiology, 9:4, pp. 401–12.
     [Google Scholar]
  62. Vetsigian, Kalin , Woese, Carl and Goldenfield, Nigel (2006), ‘Collective evolution and the genetic code’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 103:28, pp. 10696–701.
     [Google Scholar]
  63. Woese, Carl (1998), ‘The universal ancestor’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 95:12, pp. 6854–59.
     [Google Scholar]

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