Animal Cognition

1. Why is life excluded as an essential component when talking about determinism and volition?

I think this is so because it was asserted that there is no fundamental difference that we can currently describe that distinguishes life from any other physical matter.

Post 101

Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 11:37am

Mr. Mac,

... it was asserted that there is no fundamental difference that we can currently describe that distinguishes life from any other physical matter.

Both "replication" and "necessarily-perpetual" motion distinguish life from any other physical matter. Living beings are the only replicators. Stones don't replicate, matter doesn't ever "spawn."

Also, there is a necessarily-perpetual motion with all life. Just look inside a cell. A little water-ballon? No, it's much more than that -- it HAS to be much more than that. At ANY given time, there will be motion in that cell. Nutrient uptake, waste removal, protein construction. If this motion stopped, then death is here. There is nothing like this in the inanimate realm.

Ed

Post 102

Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 1:47pm

Hello, Bob,

Nice to meet you.

Who asserted that there is no difference between the living and the non-living? You said "it was asserted," but I couldn't find it. I didn't see anybody come right out and state it clearly. I have been seeing people talk all around it.

Dragging ideas like that out into the middle of the floor and letting the cat smell them is precisely what my questions are aimed at doing. Rand called it checking your premises.

(And for those who find that there is no essential difference between the living and the non-living, then it is reasonable to assume that such people will have no complaint about joining the non-living...)

Michael

(Edited by Michael Stuart Kelly on 1/14, 1:48pm)

Post 103

Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 2:26pm

The point is not that life has characteristics that are different from those of non-life (like self-replication with heredity). That is of course trivial, why should the concept otherwise exist at all? No, the point is that the laws of physics and chemistry are the same for life as for inanimate matter. From a purely physical viewpoint there is nothing special about life, even if it does exhibit features that are not found elsewhere. There is no such thing as a mysterious "life force", or "�lan vital". Such notions belong to the Stone Age of science.

Post 104

Saturday, January 14, 2006 - 6:25pm

Dragonfly,

We have come to our first major disagreement. To me, the WHOLE point is that life has characteristics that are different from those of non-life. When you claim that the "laws of physics and chemistry are the same for life as for inanimate matter," you seem to be excluding the laws of physics and chemistry that are specific to life.

False dichotomy time. How's this for a doozey? Either the "laws of physics and chemistry are the same for life as for inanimate matter" or they are not. There is no other possibility.

Like I said, close but no cigar. The physical laws that govern life are IN ADDITION to the laws for inanimate matter, and the new ones do not contradict the ones they build on, but they are specific to life. That is the correct view.

Michael

Post 105

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 12:34am

Michael:

The physical laws that govern life are IN ADDITION to the laws for inanimate matter, and the new ones do not contradict the ones they build on, but they are specific to life. That is the correct view.

No, it's nonsense. Name one physical law that is only valid for life and not for inanimate matter.

Post 106

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 1:52am

Dragonfly,

Coming into existence. Going out of existence.

That's two. There's more.

Michael

Post 107

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 2:24am

Michael:

Coming into existence. Going out of existence.

That's two. There's more.

But these are not physical laws! These are mere observations of what happens with some objects. Then I could as well call the fact that I go to bed in the evening and get up in the morning a "physical law". See for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_law . If you still insist in calling this a "law", it would be a biological law, not a physical law.

BTW, your examples are not only not physical laws, they're also not limited to life. Snowflakes also come into existence and go out of existence.

Post 108

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 10:34am

Dragonfly,

Dead wrong. Physical inanimate matter (and energy) changes form. It does not go into and out of existence.

Some premises here need some real checking.

Michael

Post 109

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 10:55am

Ahem... I didn't say "matter", I said a "snowflake". And snowflakes come into existence and go out of existence just like living beings. You may say that the matter of which a snowflake is composed only changes form, but this is equally true for the matter of which a living being is composed. Both living being and snowflake are specific configurations of matter, which disappear when the matter is rearranged.

Post 110

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 12:17pm

Dragonfly,

Life is a special substance. A snowflake is a particular arrangement of substance.

You exist. Believe me.

Michael

Post 111

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 12:42pm

Michael:

Life is a special substance.

Definitely not! That kind of mysticism has long been outdated (I wonder: do they really still teach such nonsense in school?). Life is not a special substance, living beings are made of ordinary atoms and molecules and obey the standard laws of physics and chemistry. What makes it special is the very special and highly complex arrangement of atoms and molecules, the highly complex machinery of DNA, RNA, proteins, enzymes, ribosomes etc. etc. Even a bacterium is much more complex structure than a snow crystal, but they're both an arrangement of ordinary atoms and molecules.

You exist. Believe me.

Of course I do exist. Where did I say that I didn't exist? Only: I'm not made of some special substance, I'm made of ordinary molecules. What's essential about me (and you) and what makes us unique beings is not the matter we're made of, but the specific structure and arrangement of that matter.

Post 112

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 12:52pm

life [thefreedictionary.com]
1.
a. The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.
b. The characteristic state or condition of a living organism.

Life is a PROPERTY of particular aggregations of matter. The same physical laws that govern all matter govern the matter contained in living organisms.

A particularly defined aggregation of matter can come into and out of existence, but not all aggregations of matter have the property of being alive.

Post 113

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 2:09pm

Life is not a substance, a configuration or a principle. It is a process. (The processing is done by and to ordinary matter, of course.)

Michael, I have suggested to your before, and you seemed to take it well, that sometimes you go too fast. This is one of those times. You need to slow way down. Splendid wasn�t even being tricky�yet he got you to sound just like Descartes in a very short exchange.

Jon

Post 114

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 3:03pm

If we are individuals, we are an individual something. Not individual processes.

A living thing comes into existence. This is called birth. It goes out of existence. This is called death. That thing did not exist before birth and does not exist after death. Inanimate matter does not act that way, nor does it have that attribute.

Life does use inanimate matter, but it also exists. I am more than a process of rearranged inanimate matter going through some mystical process that has no characteristics of its own. Life is an existent, just as much as an atom is. Life exists.

It's really strange discussing this on an Objectivist forum.

Michael

Post 115

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 3:17pm

�Life is a process of�� you know the rest.

Post 116

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 3:18pm

Life exists. A is A.

You know the rest.

Michael

Post 117

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 3:48pm

2 + 2 = 4.

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 4:06pm

Well it looks like this particular process of inanimate matter is disagreeing with other processes of inanimate matter.

Disagreeing?

Errggghh... (sorry... just another process of a process...)

Michael

Post 119

Sunday, January 15, 2006 - 5:40pm