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| Left: American plant physiologist Frank Thone's 1936 depiction and definition of a plant NOT is a living system (or vegetible life), but, using chemically-neutral terminology, as a "CHNOPS plus system". [8] Middle: modern evolutionary-depicted examples of "CHNOPS plus" systems, monkeys upwards through humans, each comprised, elementally, in composition, using agreed upon neutral terminology, as: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur (CHNOPS), plus calcium, potassium, etc. up to vanadium, depending, reactive animate systems. Right: a depiction of "reaction existence", the point in between synthesis (inception) and analysis (desistance), otherwise referred to in olden days, albeit now defunct, colloquial terms as "life" (see: defunct theory of life). |
“Let us abandon the word ‘alive’.”The issue, as English physiologist Charles Sherrington put it in 1938, is that: "chemistry does not know the word life", hence a religio-mythology based portmanteau such as "biochemistry" (bio-chemistry), a conjunction of biology + chemistry, or biophysics (bio-physics), a conjunction of biology + physics, are unrecognized neoplasms in modern hard physical science. [1]— Francis Crick, Of Molecules and Men (1966) [9]“[If] these terms [‘unit-mass of living matter’, ‘resultant of organic forces’, ‘continuity of organic substance’, etc.], biologists have adopted from physics, are used figuratively, we ought to find them re-defined.”— Karl Pearson (1892), Grammar of Science [11]
“After death the force, or power, we call ‘will’ undoubtedly endures; but it endures in this world, not in the next. And so with the thing we call life, or the soul—mere speculative terms for a material thing which, under given conditions, drives this way or that. It too endures in this world, not the other.”— Thomas Edison (1910), interview with NY Times journalist Edward Marshall [21]
“Physical chemistry uses mathematical language, and it is a large part of my evangelistic attitude to suppose that much of developmental biology will someday have to be written in much the same language that physical chemists use.”— Lionel Harrison (2008), The Shaping of Life (pg. 105)
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 Above: standard chemistry textbook (1858) definitions of synthesis ("putting together") and analysis ("taking apart"), according English chemist John Bidlake, with etymology, as the "taking to pieces a compound body [into] its constitute elements", both of which are free from anthropomorphic and or religio-mythology bias, and hence scientifically "neutral" terms. [12] Right: a generic synthesis icon, from an article on the synthesis of the product iron sulphide from the reactants iron and sulphur, showing that "heat", generally, is needed to bring about product formation, the sun being the heat source in synthesis of humans (see: human free energy of formation) from the elements of the periodic table (see: hmolscience periodic table). |
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| The new 21st century chemical thermodynamically-neutral interpretation of a new formed human (human molecule) brought into the universe NOT by the process of "birth" and coming "alive" but by the process of "synthesis" and "reactivity", the former of which are religio-mythology carryovers, the latter of which are upgraded terminologies; likewise for the reverse going out of the universe process of "death", a religio-mythology term (atoms and molecules don't die; nor are they alive to begin with), upgraded to "analysis", or the taking apart of a molecule or chemical species (the opposite of synthesis). [13] |
the former of which (old view) being crouched in religio-mythology based "life theory"; the latter (new view) being chemically and thermodynamically neutral. The above 1974 Henry Swan upgrade definition of biochemistry as the study of “powered CHNOPS systems” might equally apply as well.
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| In 2012 issues of the Journal of Human Thermodynamics, founding editor Libb Thims began to implement "life" terminology restrictions and to implement editorial rewrites/redactions of such terms into that of thermodynamically-neutral terms. |
“Per the Tesla (1915)—Sherrington (1938)—Ubbelohde (1954)—Nordholm (1997)—Thims (2009) ‘defunct theory of life’ perspective, all bio-related terms, such as ‘living, alive, life, etc., and their antonyms, e.g. dead, death, etc., have been editorially rewritten into thermodynamically-neutral terms.”
“Everything in this universe has its regular waves and tides. Electricity, sound, the wind, and I believe every part of organic nature will be brought someday within this law. The laws which govern animated beings will be ultimately found to be at bottom the same with those which rule inanimate nature, and as I entertain a profound conviction of the littleness of our kind, and of the curious enormity of creation, I am quite ready to receive with pleasure any basis for a systematic conception of it all. I look for regular tides in the affairs of man, and, of course, in our own affairs. In ever progression, somehow or other, the nations move by the same process which has never been explained but is evident in the oceans and the air. On this theory I should expect at about this time, a turn which would carry us backward.”— Henry Adams (c.1865), letter (or note) to someone [16]
“The object of education for [the] mind should be the teaching itself how to react with vigor and economy. No doubt the world at large will always lag so far behind the active mind as to make a soft cushion of inertia to drop upon; but education should try to lessen the obstacles, diminish the friction, invigorate the energy, and should train minds to react, not at haphazard, but by choice, on the lines of force that attract their world.”— Henry Adams (1907) (Ѻ), The Education of Henry Adams
“One cannot predict when any particular unstable atom will disintegrate or ‘die’, just as the case for mice or men.”— Paul Aebersold (1949), “Atomic Energy Benefits: Radioisotopes” [19]
“Out of all the scientists to have cited Goethe that I am aware of (Ѻ) and out of all the physical scientists to have employed free energy logic in social theory that I am aware of (Ѻ), you and myself are the only two existive (alive) people that I am aware of who has ever cited both Goethe and Gibbs in the same context (Ѻ). In this respect, would you be able to write up a short 3-5 page paper for 2014 JHT publication on your philosophy (opinion) on the connection of Empedocles to Goethe to Gibbs? The following page, which I wrote today, might give you some reference point (Ѻ). I’m sure you are busy, but if you could take a few moments of your time to donate such an article in our direction, it would be appreciated.”
— Libb Thims (2013), email to Jurgen Mimkes [17]
“It is impossible by means of inanimate material agency to derive mechanical effect from any portion of matter by cooling it below the temperature of the coldest of the surrounding objects.”
“The first thing needed is the rectification of names.”See also— Confucius (500BC), Analects 13:3“I propose the following definition, which is applied to everything, including minerals: ‘life is the faculty of reaction.’ Everything in the universe tends toward inertia, or absence of reaction. The proof of this inertia, which thermodynamics seeks in ‘absolute zero,’ has never been given, nor will it ever be, because absolute inertia can only be attained through the cessation of the formed matter or ‘thing’. This would be the moment the thing ceased to exist. Everything ‘existing’ is capable of reaction, insofar as it has ‘weight’, that is, fixed or specific energy. The vital phenomenon is the faculty of reacting, and to manifest itself this reaction requires a resistance of the same nature as the action.”— Rene Lubicz (1949), The Temple of Man
