Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26296057-20150413141933/@comment-26217701-20150415110417

BadlyBruisedMuse wrote: ThePhilosophunculist wrote: The gems can't technically be considered alive because all the things that livings things have to do to be considered alive and live they can't do.

And the CGs wouldn't have had him try if he couldn't. Utterly and unequivocally false.

The Gem species meets all requirments for biological living status.

We don't know what the exact biom-makeup of Gems are but they definitely are living creatures.

http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Living_thing


 * ability to reproduce
 * ability to grow
 * ability to metabolize
 * ability to respond to stimuli
 * ability to adapt to the environment
 * ability to move
 * ability to respire

Mind you a living organism does not need to meet all of those requirement of even any of them. The list of common living characteristics is just a dossier of what we currently understand as life, it's not written in stone.

For instance we know that some living organisms don't breath or sleep - much like the gems.

And some living organims, such as Trees and Lobsters - like the gems, have no experiation date. Yes, it is true much like the gems some creatures only die because they are inflicted with some malidy of life or killed, but otherwise would never have died from old age.

So with that said - even if the Gems did not meet any of those standards it still would not in anyway suggest that they are intrinsicly non-living, because ultimately the biggest defining characteristic of their livelihood is the fact that they are concious beings. Not only concious but abstract thinkers - something a nonliving object would not be able to do. Hmm. I still personally disagree but I see and understand what you're saying. I'll take this into consideration.