 But nothing can fall under these descriptions when understood only in terms appropriate to a non-living physical thing. Consider, for example, the case of eating: for an organism to be regarded as eating something, one must take it to be ingesting that which is normally nutritious for its kind, as well as absorbing it in such a way as to derive nutrition from it. Otherwise, we could not say that we witnessed an organism eating something, but instead we would be observing a fortuitous occurrence whereby an organism takes in some sort of material which happens to further its life (Thompson 2008: 57). Only against the background of a life form, which determines a background of norms for understanding the doings of an instance of that form of life, can the activities of an organism be understood as eating, or any other vital activity (Thompson 2003).