Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-8-2026

Published In

Organisms: Journal Of Biological Sciences

Abstract

Life is one of the most fascinating features of the physical world. Despite centuries of scientific study, experts still disagree about the definition, and even the possibility or utility of a definition, of this field. In a recent paper, we used AI to analyze the conceptual space formed by definitions of life given by a select set of modern workers in the life sciences and related fields. However, some of the most interesting material emerged as real-time conversations among those polled. In order to ensure that these ideas are not lost to the peer-reviewed scientific record, we here provide a minimally-edited (largely verbatim) transcript of the email chain among leading thinkers, containing numerous clarifications, disagreements, and challenges that enrich the topic of Life. It is our hope that this case study serves as an example for future papers, since the exchange of ideas among scientists is at least as interesting and valuable as formal scientific manuscripts written from a single perspective.

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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This work is freely available under a Creative Commons license.

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