The properties of living matter are useful to know, because this is something that concerns each of us. And directly. After all, a person is a living matter, which is endowed with reason. However, this is an incomplete definition.
Concept
Before you start listing the properties of living matter, you should understand the meaning of the term. A good option was proposed by Mikhail Vladimirovich Volkenstein, a Soviet biophysicist and chemist. He said that all living bodies that exist on our planet are self-reproducing and self-regulating systems. And their main component is nucleic acids and proteins. So not only man is living matter. And also birds, marine life, mammals, etc. But a person is a highly organized living matter, which is distinguished from everything else by special signs and properties. And now they would like to pay more attention.
Chemical composition
This is the first feature to note. And the simplest formal property that distinguishes living matter from non-living. They have absolutelydifferent molecular composition and structure. All elements that make up living matter can form compounds and react.
The human and animal body includes water, organic and inorganic substances - calcium, magnesium, sodium, iron, zinc, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, selenium, chromium, cob alt and much more in those or other quantities. The simplest example is proteins and fats. They are found in humans, animals and even plants. And they are able to digest, assimilate, dry out. The opposite example is oil. Naturally, this is inanimate matter, which is a colloidal, and not a biological system. And oil consists of micelles - semi-solid clots of high-molecular resins, carbenes and asph altenes, which do not dissolve in liquid hydrocarbons.
Metabolism and self-regulation
This is another specific property of living matter. Metabolism, in simple terms, is a set of chemical reactions that occur in the body to keep it alive. And self-regulation is the ability to maintain one's stability at one level or another, which is distinguished by constancy. And the person most clearly manifests it. Since in the case of a personality, self-regulation is carried out not only at the biological level, but also at the sociological and psychological.
And it's all natural. A person is able to control his mental state, influence himself with the help of words and mental images. Separately, there is a place to be emotionalself-regulation. This is the ability of a person to respond to what happened in the way that is accepted in society, while maintaining a certain “flexibility”. That is, he can allow the manifestation of spontaneous emotions, but he also manages to hide them. This is already something higher, which is the control of one's own feelings.
Theoretical example. A man, when he was riding the bus home, received an SMS that he had won a million rubles in the lottery. If he remained neutral and, as soon as he arrived at the apartment, began to jump for joy and enthusiastically thank fate, we can say that he owns emotional self-regulation.
Development and growth
It is impossible not to note these properties of living matter. In a science such as biology, growth is an increase in the mass of an organism, which occurs due to an increase in non-cellular formations and cell sizes. And development is directly related to this process. Sometimes even these two concepts are used, identifying. Which is logical, because certain stages of development can occur only after the body reaches a certain size. At the same time, none of the above is possible without metabolism.
Variability
This is what develops and grows. It is important to take this fact into account. Because not only a person, a plant or an animal can grow, but also a snowdrift or a crystal, for example. But only living matter can change. In fact, this is what evolution is all about. Recall at least the same theory of Darwin - a vivid example. Growth without changeis possible because the organism, developing, adapts to the environment. Which is also changing.
The same process includes irritability. This is the ability of every living matter to respond to the environment. As well as the manifestation of the vital activity of all biological systems. Irritability is the main property of any living organism, be it a blade of grass or a person. The minimum value of the stimulus, by the way, is usually called the threshold of perception. And by the way, the manifestation of this property in many organisms has something in common. For example, a flower always "turns" towards the sun. A person, if he is cold outside, will also try to find a less shaded place. And there are many such examples.
Reproduction
It is worth noting this factor, talking about the basic properties of living matter. The ability to self-reproduce (reproduce) provides one or another species with relative immortality. And it is difficult to refute this statement, since we are a clear example of this. About 7.3 billion people currently live on Earth. But back in October 1999, there were 6 billion. In 17 years, the population has increased by a billion! So the species Homo sapiens will exist for a very long time (if not forever).
True, there are species that have already become extinct, unfortunately. For example, quagga. This is an artiodactyl animal, which was considered a species of zebra. Quaggas were tamed by man and used to guard herds. The last representative died in 1883 at the Amsterdam Zoo. Today, many animals are on the verge of extinction, and in order todisappearance did not occur, they must actively reproduce themselves, that is, perform one of the functions of living matter.
About heredity
Telling about the basic properties of living matter, one cannot fail to note this aspect as well. The way an organism will be depends on heredity. And the part is "laid" in it directly. A simple example is eye color. If a man has a blue iris, like his wife, the probability that a couple will have a brown-eyed baby tends to zero. Green has more "chance" - 1%. All other percentages are in blue. But, by the way, if both parents are brown-eyed, then the probability is distributed differently. 75% - that the child will have the same color. But there is an 18.75% chance of a baby being born with green eyes. Blue has the least chance - 6.25%. However, this is another topic, but the principle is clear. Heredity is what is included in the most important properties of living matter.
About levels
So, based on all of the above, we can understand what constitutes biological nature. It's a complex system. And it has levels of organization of living matter. The table consists of several items-characteristics.
So, the first one. Molecular level. This is what was originally said. That is, the manifestation of the interaction of micromolecules, such as polysaccharides, nucleic acids, etc.
The second level is cellular. Just like any form of life. After all, a cell is not just a structural, but also a functional unit of reproduction of organisms.
The next level we will stop at is organismic. It is preceded by tissue and organ. Here the principle is clear. An organism is a living system consisting of a certain number of cells. Take, for example, plankton. This is a unicellular algae. But a living organism. A human is made up of about 100 trillion cells. And he is also a living organism. The essence is the same, the composition is different. This is proved by the levels of organization of living matter.
The table also contains other concepts. There is also a population-species level. It includes aggregates of individuals that have a common origin and are similar in structure and functional organization.
Last levels - biogeocenotic and biospheric. They are the largest. Biogeocenotic includes organisms of varying complexity and habitats. And to the biospheric - all the aggregates and manifestations of life that exist on our planet.
Psyche
This is a property of highly organized living matter. This aspect has already been discussed earlier. But now it is worth paying a little more attention to him.
Why is the psyche peculiar only to people and animals? Because it implies the experience of emotions and sensations, as well as the presence of memory and perception. Of course, maybe our smaller brothers are not able to think about the meaning of life, the existence of God and the purpose of our planet. But they feel pain, fear, peace,fatigue and much more - just like us. That is, they also manage to reflect objective reality, interact with it.
This property of highly organized living matter also includes the notorious irritability, sensitivity, behavior and consciousness. And if the first three qualities are inherent in both man and animal, then only we possess the latter. In any case, the opposite has not yet been proven. Consciousness is a set of certain images (stable or changing) that are formed in the process of life. Which, in fact, form an individual worldview.
Discreteness
Or, in other words, what is opposed to continuity and integrity. Discreteness is a universal property of matter. And it is inherent in any biological system. Since absolutely everything (be it an organism, a population or even a cell) consists of many particles. They are separate, but they constantly interact with each other. And thus form a single, integral system.
The concept of discreteness is easy to explain on the example of the same human body. It consists of many organs, tissues, tendons, cells, vessels. Together they form our body. Without one thing, he cannot fully exist.
Negentropy
This aspect is also included in the properties of living matter. In short, this is the same as ordering. Without which discreteness cannot exist (if we talk about biology). Everything is simple here. All living systems create order and structure. Again, a prime example is our blood circulation. Which, by the way, provides the notorious metabolism. Blood circulation is the most complex process that occurs in the cardiovascular closed system. And this process is signed by specialists for several pages. It happens all the time, every second - a person (or any other creature) does not even think about it. This is because our body is a living system that has formed this structure, a complex of complex processes.
Mobility
This is the last thing I would like to pay attention to, talking about the basic fundamental properties of living matter. Mobility is characteristic of every being. It implies the ability to move, which is necessary for everyone. The same flower - to turn to the sun. Thanks to mobility, every living creature can find food for itself, get out of an unfavorable situation, evolve or find a mate for reproduction (be it lions, people or birds). Motor function should not be underestimated. After all, it is needed not only by the body as a whole, but also by its parts. Needless to say, even if our organs and cells show a certain activity: the blood circulates, the heart beats, the lungs contract. And the notorious plankton moves by tiny flagella. No wonder they say that movement is life. This statement is true, since everything that exists in the world and is called alive is in constant motion. If you think about it, you canunderstand: this is true.
Well, having studied what properties are inherent in living matter, we can draw an unambiguous conclusion. All of the above are closely related. Since it concerns the manifestation and maintenance of the vital activity of the organism. One is impossible without the other. And only by thinking about this topic and correlating everything with real examples, one can understand how carefully everything is thought out by nature.
