| | I wrote (to Brady): "You evidently meant inanimate matter. What I meant by "matter in motion" is simply material entities that act according to their natures. In that respect, animals and human beings are "matter in motion." He replied, Animate matter? Could you define what animate matter is? Don't you mean beings that are independent of necessary determinism? You recognize that there is a difference between a human and a rock. The question is not "are humans matter in motion," but "is that all that humans are?" This is the question that you have avoided answering and your cosmology does answer in the affirmative. And thus the contradiction between your experience and your cosmology. Brady, I didn't use the term "animate matter"; I said "inanimate matter." Inanimate matter is simply non-living matter, e.g., rocks, water, etc. When you ask me if "matter in motion" is "all" that human beings are, are you simply asking if I believe that human beings are no different from a rock? Of course, human beings differ from rocks. A rock is an inanimate object; a human being is a living organism with a rational mind. Big difference. But to say that human beings are rational animals doesn't mean that they aren't material organisms.
As for being "independent of necessary determinism," everything is determined by its nature -- by the kind of entity it is -- not just inanimate matter. But that doesn't mean that everything is governed by the same principles of causal necessity. Plants differ from rocks in the kind of action possible to them (i.e., growth and self-sustenance through photosynthesis), but the action of plants is still a necessary consequence of their natures and of the environment in which they live. Similarly, the kind of action possible to an animal differs from that of plants, but is still governed by causal necessity, although the causal necessity is of a different order; viz., the animal's conscious awareness in conjunction with its needs and desires are what determine its action. Human beings, who also possess conscious awareness, have a rational faculty, which gives them a greater range of abilities and powers in the service of their lives and interests, but I would argue that they too are governed by causal necessity. They necessarily choose their actions according to what they perceive to be their highest values. It is their values that motivate their actions, but on a much more sophisticated level than that of the lower animals.
The difference between inanimate matter, on the one hand, and living organisms like plants, animals and human beings, on the other, is not that former is governed by deterministic necessity whereas the latter are not. The difference is that inanimate matter is governed by mechanistic causation, whereas living organisms are governed by teleological causation. We know that matter in motion must follow the laws of nature. We do not see particles traveling across the galaxy and deciding to make a left turn at the next nebula. We do not see Jupiter change its orbit because it wants to. It is because matter in motion is necessarily determined that science works. You have an unnecessarily restrictive view of science. Science isn't restricted to physics. There are the sciences of biology, physiology, psychology and the social sciences as well. Yet we have the experience of independence and free thought. It is because you experience independence and free thought and are not necessarily determined that you can do science. So, do we experience independence because the matter in our heads is no longer matter or because that matter is still matter, but it is no longer bound to follow the laws of nature as other matter must? Or is there something else there? Perhaps, you have another option? We are certainly not bound, like inanimate matter, by the laws of mechanistic causation, but that is not because we are somehow non-material. The fact that we are composed of atoms, electrons, proton, neutrons, etc., which are subject to the laws of physics, does not mean that we must act mechanistically as human beings. As I pointed out on the "Objectivism and Atheism" thread, the whole is more than the sum of its parts, but that does not imply some mysterious supervening principle of order or entelechy. A human being, as a whole, exhibits different principles of action than the parts of which he or she is composed, because a human being is a different kind of material entity than the parts themselves, viz., an integrate or integration of the parts.
I wrote, "The non-rational animals, which evolved from lower forms of (plant) life, acquired the attribute of awareness. which plant life does not possess. Man, who evolved from more primitive forms of animal life, acquired the attribute of rationality, which the lower animals do not possess." The word "evolved" in the above is nothing more than a synonym for the phrase "the magic happened here." Simply naming some matter "animate" and naming other matter "sentient" doesn't answer my above questions. Again, I didn't use the term "animate matter"; the term was "inanimate matter." And the fundamental difference is not between inanimate matter and sentience; it is between inanimate matter and life. Not all life is sentient; vegetative life is non-sentient, but it is still life.
Why do you say that "evolved" suggests something magical. Things act according to their natures; the fact that we don't understand how to produce an animal or a human being from scratch in the laboratory does not mean that biological evolution is magical or miraculous. Life evolved gradually over millions of years, and we have some idea of the processes that brought it about, not enough to create the higher forms of life artificially, but enough to understand something of their creation. What you want to say is that if we don't know enough to reproduce them artificially, we must, therefore, attribute the process to a conscious, immaterial creator, for which we have absolutely no concrete evidence whatsoever, and which, moreover, contradicts everything we know about the nature of consciousness, i.e., that is a faculty of a living organism. Instead of being the origin of life, consciousness is the result of a long chain of biological evolution. It is the consequence of living processes, not their cause.
- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 4/19, 1:27am)
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