Perry Marshall challenges the case made in Michael Levin's article last Thursday that patterns are alive, and that all life forms and thought are living patterns. Marshall argues that bacteria and viruses are more complicated than we imagine, but this is not a basis to claim that all lifeforms and thought can be explained by patterns.

Michael Levin insists the line between thoughts and thinkers is blurry. Other life forms might exist at forms and scales entirely foreign to us.

He’s right. However… we don’t have a snowball’s chance of recognizing those, until we first acknowledge the living capacities of our own bodies and back yards.

In 1955, Alfred Hitchcock aired "Breakdown" on TV. It’s a gripping episode about William Callew, a businessman left paralyzed but conscious after a car accident. Mistaken for dead, Callew's car is ransacked by convicts. Immobile, he can only watch as passersby also assume he’s deceased.

The TV audience is privy to Callew's internal monologue. His desperation ratchets upward as he silently pleads for someone to notice signs of life.

As darkness descends, authorities arrive to clear the accident scene. They transfer Callew's presumed corpse to a morgue. Moments before the autopsy begins, a mortician spots a tear rolling down Callew's cheek.

"He's alive!"

An assistant reassures Callew, "It's alright. Don't worry, fellow. We know! We'll take care of you."

Do rocks feel pain?

Do dead people feel pain?

How do you know if someone is alive?

How we know if anything is alive???

These are all versions of the qualia problem, which says: though we define red as “light at 650nm wavelengths,” there’s no way to test whether your inner experience of red is the same as mine.