Lifent Characteristics

from microbes to humans that can actually or potentially be observed or named.

characteristics, which remain constant over the time span of their existence. For a biologically based entity such as you, your body is one characteristic that remains constant over the time span of your life on earth. There are other things about us that can remain constant over the time span of our life as well, such as our brains, our sense of our self, and our names. A word is an example of a non-biologically defined entity that has a constant characteristic: the word itself. Other things about the word might change, such as its pronunciation, contemporary usage, or connotates, but the word itself is a minimum consistent identifying characteristic of the lifent.

A lifent can be a biological organism, any part of the organism or any groupings of the organism. An elk is a lifent, its heart is a lifent, and the herd is a lifent.

A lifent is also the behavior of biological organisms individually or in groupings, such as the behavior of a group of lions stalking its prey.

Lifents exist in a wide range of complexity. Lifents range in size from such things as a single cell or single, fleeting thought to those entities covering the face of the globe.

Lifents work to maintain their existence and reproduce themselves as if they possessed a life-force or independent volition. This is a key point about lifents. I have created the word “lifent” because I don’t see any other word that connotes and denotes this characteristic. Lifents that are not biologically defined entities are virtual entities. They have a virtual life-force and virtual volition, but their virtual nature does not diminish the strength of these characteristics.

The life-span of lifents ranges from a fraction of a second to millenniums.

Lifents that exist for more than a very brief time act to increase their strength, influence, and self-protection, but exist within a tremendous range from practically no influence to unbelievable power. While this could be a topic for another whole treatise, it seems to me that the increase of such things as strength, influence, and self-protection has a correlation with longevity. In my mind this is not an indication that lifents are “smart.” Lifents that survive longer are likely to do so because, by their “nature,” they are able to exist in compatible relationships with strength, influence, and self-protection. Strength, influence, and self-protection are themselves lifents.

Lifents can exist both intimately connected to us and at the same time independent of any one of us. I may be an avid fan of my favorite team and spend considerable energy and time as a fan focused on my team. On the other hand, while the team depends on fans, a team with a large fan base will not be measurably affected by whether I am a fan or not.

Lifents include all of the life forms currently identified by biologists. They also include all of the larger combinations of biologically based entities such as herds of animals, ecological niches, natural habitats, and BLE (biological life on earth).

Human-based thoughts, beliefs, emotions, behaviors, concepts, patterns of behaviors, and reactions are all lifents. Lifents include everything that has been imagined or created by humans. This includes organizations, fictional worlds, mythical beings, writings, art, inventions, rituals, correct perceptions of the world, and incorrect perceptions of the world.

Non-human-based behaviors, interactions, reactions, and patterns of behavior are also lifents. The seemingly organized ways in which influenza viruses constantly change to apparently outsmart antibodies and travel around the world in an annual pattern are lifents.

Lifents are not limited by the constraints of a biological entity as we traditionally think of a biological entity. For example, the knowledge “polar bears are white” is a lifent. That knowledge exists as a lifent in my brain. It also exists as a lifent in your brain. The bit of knowledge that I have is the equivalent of one cell in the larger lifent “polar bears are white.” “Polar bears are white” is a lifent that exists independent of any one of us even though it is dependent on there being at least one person in existence to hold that knowledge. Its current “body” is a global body in the is a member of the knowledge family.

Each lifent can be, and predominantly is, connected to many other lifents of various sizes and is usually connected to at least one larger lifent. You could visualize this as a huge interdependent web of interacting beings. The smallest lifent threads could branch off into replications of themselves. These threads could be interwoven with other lifent threads to form cords. The cords could then be woven into larger ropes and so forth. Each lifent thread or cord or rope could be interwoven with numerous other lifent threads or cords or ropes intersecting with those cords at one point or many different points.

Unlike a rope you can hold, which is one visible continuous cord, lifent “cords” are invisibly connected. These multiple bodied lifents are a lot like the atoms that make up the world. Atoms make up our physical world and seem solid from our vantage point. But there is mostly “empty” space within each atom and between each atom. Objects made up of atoms appear solid because of our vantage point. Many of the connections of the lifent that is “the fans of My Team” are invisible. However, the reality of the connection is very clear. The “cord” that connects all of the people who are “fans of My Team” is not physically visible but one can imagine the reality of this cord. The connection and continuity is quite strong and quite real.

Unlike atoms, any particular lifent can be a “body part” for numerous lifents simultaneously. Human initiated carbon-burning is one of the two key lifents for the innumerable CBI (Carbon-Burning-Industry) activities. Intentional carbon-burning also is connected to non-industrial carbon-burning activities such as camp fires. Industry is the second primary lifent of CBI. While carbon-burning is a huge part of many industries, industry is also connected to many non-carbon-burning enterprises. The industry lifent (as per the concept that an industry’s larger lifent body includes all of the body parts including consumers that are required for it to exist) and the intentional carbon-burning lifent join together to form another individuated lifent: CBI.

Lifents connect to people by forming some sort of relationship with us. Even though the human-based lifents that I will focus on are the product of our thoughts, behaviors, and imagination, they are not strictly our private possession. We are born into a world rich with human-spawned lifents. As we swim through the world we encounter entities such as the thoughts, habits, and beliefs that we will interact with. Some of these lifents will form more lasting relationships with us and some will form more transitory relationships with us. It is really a two-way street, though. We are seeking relationships with the lifents around us and they are seeking relationships with us. You could imagine them as street vendors offering us something in return for our accepting them into our community of lifents.

All lifents, even those not defined by a particular biological boundary, are dependent on biological entities for their existence. Lifent seeds may lie in a non-biological entity such as a book or a machine. However, their continued existence is dependent on being connected to at least one biological entity at some point in the future. The carbon-burning industry is a lifent because it has humans to host it at this time. If it were to dominate the earth to such an extent that it squeezed out human life entirely, it would die as a lifent. The results of its previous activity would continue, but not as lifents. Chemical processes initiated by CBI and the products and remnants of the products of CBI could be here, but not as lifents because they would not be connected to biological life. In the extreme and hypothetical case that all biological life was destroyed on earth, lifents would not exist on earth. Lifents depend on biological entities for their existence.