Design collective Kurzgesagt's latest video asks the biggest questions: "What is life?" and "Is death really even a thing?"
The discussion starts with physicist Erwin Schrodinger's definition of life, "Living things avoid decay into disorder and equilibrium." Take, for example, a cell. This fundamental building block has all the elements needed to classify as alive: a wall separating the body from the external world, the ability to self-regulate, the ability to consume energy to stay alive, the ability to grow and develop, the ability to react to its environment, and the ability to evolve.
But then what does it mean to be human?
"If everything in the universe is made of the same stuff," the video's narrator asks, "does this mean everything in the universe is dead or that everything in the universe is alive? That it's just a question of complexity? Does this mean we can never die, because we were never alive in the first place? Is life and death an irrelevant question and we just haven't noticed it yet?"
For more on philosophy of mind and self, check out this blog post from Wait but Why?
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