In this blog post, we explore the essence of existence through the ambiguous boundary between life and non-life, between living and non-living.
‘Professor Farnsworth’s Explanations in Biology’ is a biology textbook with a unique structure. Professor Farnsworth is a fictional character created by author Frank Hefner, and this book is presented as a compilation of his lecture notes. Its conversational style, reminiscent of actual lecture transcripts, combined with illustrations and elegant prose, significantly eases the burden of complex biology for readers, making it highly meaningful.
However, the most impressive part of this book is Chapter 2, which deals with the definition of life. After the lecture introduction concludes in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 opens with a scene where a man rides a motorcycle into the lecture hall. Amidst everyone’s bewilderment, he explains he made a bet with friends that a motorcycle could be considered a living organism and came seeking the professor’s help to prepare counterarguments. This sparks a debate between the students and the man over whether a motorcycle is a living organism. The students criticize that motorcycles cannot evolve, self-repair, or reproduce, so they are not living organisms. However, the man argues that improved versions of motorcycles exist and they can self-repair within certain limits. He further counters by pointing out that mules are living organisms yet cannot reproduce, throwing the students into confusion. Then, the man calmly removes his disguise, returning to the appearance of Professor Pansworth, and begins his lecture by asking how one can define the boundary between life and death. Various opinions are presented, such as cardiac arrest or brain death, but the professor concludes, “Life and death are continuous states; a clear boundary cannot be defined.” He mentions that to study biology, one must become familiar with such concepts, thus concluding Lecture 2.
Defining concepts like living and non-living, life and death, may seem straightforward at first glance but are actually complex issues. For example, viruses replicate like living organisms but are indistinguishable from non-living matter when inactive. A stopped heart doesn’t necessarily mean death, and the advent of artificial hearts and recent discussions about the possibility of head transplants raise new questions about life.
A topic closely related to the themes explored in this book is the cyborg problem. It has become commonplace for individuals who lost limbs in war or accidents to return to daily life wearing robotic prosthetic arms or legs. But if an entire body is replaced with machinery, can that person still be called human? Or, as depicted in ‘Ghost in the Shell’, if not just the body but even the brain’s functions are replaced by machines, can it still be considered human? Conversely, if machines become capable of thought, as in ‘I, Robot’ or ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ should they be considered inanimate simply because they lack a body made of protein?
Why do we encounter such boundaries? I believe this problem arises because we try to confine dynamic, continuous concepts within the rigid, discrete framework of words. We—or at least I—struggle to accept concepts with blurred boundaries. If there’s A and B, it’s either A or B; we find it hard to acknowledge a state that is both A and B. It was the same when learning about the evolution of atomic models. If an electron is in the first orbit, it’s in the first orbit—the idea that it exists in an unspecified location, described only by probability distributions like the orbital concept, felt too ambiguous. In everyday life, we hear phrases like “You’re so kind,” but we’ve never heard someone say, “I feel about 74% kindness.”
So does discussing the ambiguity of words even matter? Of course, concepts like living and non-living, life and death, or kindness and unkindness show clear differences at their extremes. I’ve never heard anyone argue for respecting the life of oil, nor have I met someone who wants to dig up a grave to meet their ancestors again, nor would anyone call throwing a delivery box away an act of kindness. Yet, many problems arise precisely in this ambiguous gray area. Real-life dilemmas—whether abortion is murder, whether brain-dead patients should be considered candidates for euthanasia, or whether a store has grounds for a customer complaint—arise precisely at these ‘boundaries of words’. Therefore, in modern society where codified laws form the foundation, debating the boundaries of words is unavoidable.
Are these boundaries fixed and unchanging? Before concluding his lecture, Professor Pansworth asks his students if a circle has a starting point. One student answers that while a circle has neither beginning nor end, for convenience, a specific point can be designated as a reference. The professor is greatly satisfied with this answer, stating that while a reference point can be established if needed, it is not absolute and can be shifted as circumstances require.
However, this standard is often set based on vested interests rather than a valid consensus. Language does not exist independently of society; it is entangled with numerous interests. Decades ago in our country, many people felt fear at the words “communist” or “red.” Rather than judging based on specific actions or ideologies, people were often branded as communists simply for opposing government policies. Similar phenomena emerge today. For instance, the word “passion” no longer carries solely positive connotations. It is sometimes used as rhetoric to justify exploitation. That is, the ‘passion’ for achieving one’s dreams has, at some point, shifted in meaning to signify “the willingness to gain work experience while being paid less than the minimum wage.”
In short, while many concepts are continuous, the words that contain them are discontinuous, creating ambiguous boundaries. These boundaries, like lines with thickness, are directly relevant to various real-life problems. For law enforcement, a line must ultimately be drawn at some point along this ambiguous boundary. In this process, numerous conflicting interests collide, and the boundary line continually shifts.
As mentioned earlier, I believe this is the inherent limitation of words. Loss of meaning is inevitable in the process of extracting and abstracting the characteristics of an object. In the struggle to pull these ambiguous boundaries to one’s advantage, unreasonable interpretations sometimes arise. However, I do not wish to succumb to the pessimism that correct expression is impossible. I believe that by recognizing the limitations of words and engaging in constant discussion to find more precise boundaries, better communication becomes possible. It is especially necessary to re-examine whether specific words are truly used appropriately. For instance, society must be able to redraw the line regarding expressions that package labor exploitation as passion.
In the past, when technology and society were simpler, narrowing the boundaries of words wasn’t so crucial. Catching an infectious disease meant imminent death, and being deaf didn’t necessarily mean being treated as disabled. However, as technology advanced and society grew more complex, it became harder to make clear-cut judgments and definitions. This is a time-consuming and cumbersome process, but it is extremely important and necessary. Didn’t the development of biology itself begin with the discovery of cellular boundaries through the microscope?
