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Comment by dekhn | Hacker News Reader

See buckyballs as a trivial refutation of your point.

Are buckyballs organic?

Yes! Not sure why you're asking- things don't have to be created by biological processes to be organic (this concept is totally unrelated to "organic" in the supermarket).

Formally, yes. "Organic chemistry" is not too far off a synonym for "chemistry with carbon involved".

"Not too far off" = "exactly defined as".

I wasn't sure if there were any weird edge cases, but yeah.

I mean, I don't think diamonds are considered "organic"; same for graphite. But that's where the term "organic" itself starts to break down as a category.

I was also thinking carbonates in a geologic context.

Wikipedia: "Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials (i.e. matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms)."

It doesn't break down at all. Diamonds are organic structures, in the classical definition of that term. (Assuming they weren't treated with insecticides in the mine... /s)

I don't think wikipedia is the best reference here, and I think you're also misinterpreting them; not all carbon-containing substances (including diamond) are considered organic. There is no true classical definition of the term- it's actually a fairly nebulous concept. Ultimately you're just arguing about definitions which is not particularly interesting.

CO, CO2, carbonate salts like Na2CO3, or CaCO3, and cyanides like HCN, NaCN, and KCN are usually considered inorganic compounds instead of organic compounds, despite containing carbons. But the vast majority of carbon-containing compounds are considered organic, and there are no organic compounds that don't contain carbon.

> there are no organic compounds that don't contain carbon

It's very much nitpicking and an edge case but now you've got me wondering if some silicone hydrocarbon analogs might not qualify. Noting that we have plausible theories about the feasibility of silicone based life.

> we have plausible theories about the feasibility of silicone based life.

... Do we? Last I heard those weren't really viable due to some combination of being too stable or too unstable in all the available solvents.

Maybe I'm out of date then. They looked plausible when I read about them years ago.

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