As indeed are conscious/not conscious, male/female, and probably most distinctions that practicality encourages us to model binarily in everyday usage --- creating in the process fertile ground for crackpots, zealots and fundamentalists of every persuasion to flourish, alas! WFL On 5/17/20, James Buddenhagen <jbuddenh@gmail.com> wrote:
Perhaps alive/dead is a false dichotomy. At best it there is a line it is blurry. See: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-viruses-alive-2004/
On Sun, May 17, 2020 at 2:07 AM Hans Havermann <gladhobo@bell.net> wrote:
Some weeks ago I had occasion to correct someone for noting that SARS-CoV-2 lives on surfaces for however-many days. "Of course viruses are not technically alive," I suggested. Since then, every doctor and health professional on TV has used the same "lives on surfaces" that I disparaged! Just English usage I thought to myself. Randall Munroe has now added to my dismay by placing viruses on the "alive" side of his latest xkcd:
I'll counter with the excellent recent Kurtzgesagt on the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QImCld9YubE _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com https://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
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