The opposite of life, is odd way of framing the question to me, I would have said “what constitutes life?”

Answering the question the way you framed it; that which is most opposite of life is “nothing” no dimensions, no time, no matter, no energy, “nothing.” That is because “nothing” has none of the characteristics like atoms or energy or dimensions.

To answer the question of what constitutes life; here are the 12 characteristics needed for something to be considered life according to The Scientist: Is it life? (note these characteristics apply only to biological life)

1 membrane enclosures
2 that can capture energy
3 maintain ion gradients
4 encapsulate macromolecules
5 divide
6 Macromolecules must be able to grow by polymerization
7 evolve in a way that speeds growth
8 store information
9 Add to that information store the ability to mutate
10 direct growth of catalytic polymers
11 contain genes and enzymes that can be replicated
12 share genes and enzymes among daughter cells

You could simplify those 12 requirements down to 4 general requirements:

1. environmental barrier
2. metabolism
3. store information
4. evolve

I think that life is kind of like the 3 phases in chemistry.

Gas—Liquid—Solid

Life—Death—Rebirth

If you want to ask me :“Then how can we go from life to rebirth ?”

I think that has something to do with cloning, you dont die, but you get reborn, or in other words you multiply yourself. Unnaturally of course, not the natural way by having sex.

Shawn - 11 July 2008 08:16 AM

Most would say death, but isn’t birth the opposite of death?

After some thought, I think that the question is kind of broad and open ended.

What is the opposite of life?  .... does life it self have an opposite, or more of just an ending?

I would imagine that (yes) the opposite of birth, is indeed death; but the opposite “life”?
Death being the physical process of dying, dead would be the condition after dying finished.

To make the statement more accurate (to me) I would have to change the wording to “The opposite of being alive, is being dead.”

Kind of like the opposite of living is being living impaired.

Icedbullet77 - 02 October 2008 11:31 AM

I think that life is kind of like the 3 phases in chemistry.

Or like the three kings, or the three stooges, or the Lord of the Rings trilogy, or Plato’s utopian city’s three populations, or the three musketeers, or the trinity, or the three Darwinian essentials of evolution: variation, heredity, and struggle for existence, or…

Or the Marx Brothers, of course, but there would be an added mystery, as there sometime were four of them.

Sorry.  I couldn’t resist.

Hey, I thought there was a fifth Marx brother.  It wasn’t Gummo, but I think he had something to do with handling their finances.

Occam

If I may speculate.

I am of the opinion that evolution is more than a biological trait, that it is a universal function (or even constant) and life is a part of this process.

This may rephrase the question to “what is the opposite of evolution?”

To which I would reply: “Entropy.”