And just what is life?

[Linusthe2nd]

Edward Feser gives an excellent explanation of just what life is in an article called, " Stop, you are killing me. " edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/03/stop-it-youre-killing-me.html#more

His thesis is that " hard " cases do not disprove the traditional Aristotelian/ Thomistic understanding. The fact that all living things can be reduced to inert substances, physically, one is yet left with the fact that the substance in which they exist exhibits behaviors and possesses properties, which point to an underlying essence which is the source of all these behaviors and properties. It is an excellent article but rather long. Worth reading.

Linus2nd

 

[hasantas]

Edward Feser gives an excellent explanation of just what life is in an article called, " Stop, you are killing me. " edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/03/stop-it-youre-killing-me.html#more

His thesis is that " hard " cases do not disprove the traditional Aristotelian/ Thomistic understanding. The fact that all living things can be reduced to inert substances, physically, one is yet left with the fact that the substance in which they exist exhibits behaviors and possesses properties, which point to an underlying essence which is the source of all these behaviors and properties. It is an excellent article but rather long. Worth reading.

Linus2nd

The article is so long and my English is not well to understand entirely. But ı can say something about source of life.

There is no source and reason for life in material world. I want to explain this issue with an illustration. Mirror is dead without any light on it. But with light on it mirror become lively, colourful and reflects and shows forms that makes it as if it is alive. Like this everything is deat witout reflect of attributes of God. Life is reflection of God’s life on mirrors(matters). At this point everything is a mirror for reflection attributes of God(life, mind and all other senses).

Cell is not alive by themselves. There is no life in enrgy in ATP form. All kinds of physical forces is not alive(indeed there is no a material and certain reasons for forces just effects of forces are being seen and feel. Sub-atomic molecules do not explain force at all)

 

[RPRPsych]

Edward Feser gives an excellent explanation of just what life is in an article called, " Stop, you are killing me. " edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/03/stop-it-youre-killing-me.html#more

His thesis is that " hard " cases do not disprove the traditional Aristotelian/ Thomistic understanding. The fact that all living things can be reduced to inert substances, physically, one is yet left with the fact that the substance in which they exist exhibits behaviors and possesses properties, which point to an underlying essence which is the source of all these behaviors and properties. It is an excellent article but rather long. Worth reading.

Linus2nd

I need to read that carefully, but I’d agree. Material structures and laws can provide explanations for the mechanisms of life and consciousness, but they are not life.

 

[Oreoracle]

I think this boils down to a game of semantics which makes things unnecessarily complicated.

Consider the question “What is water?” for example. We know that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, yet it exhibits properties distinct from either element. Does it really help to introduce some essence–say “water-ness”–to explain these properties? Not really. In chemistry, we understand these properties to be emergent, arising from the union of simpler substances. There’s no need to invent essences to explain it.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

The article is so long and my English is not well to understand entirely. But ı can say something about source of life.

There is no source and reason for life in material world. I want to explain this issue with an illustration. Mirror is dead without any light on it. But with light on it mirror become lively, colourful and reflects and shows forms that makes it as if it is alive. Like this everything is deat witout reflect of attributes of God. Life is reflection of God’s life on mirrors(matters). At this point everything is a mirror for reflection attributes of God(life, mind and all other senses).

Cell is not alive by themselves. There is no life in enrgy in ATP form. All kinds of physical forces is not alive(indeed there is no a material and certain reasons for forces just effects of forces are being seen and feel. Sub-atomic molecules do not explain force at all)

yes, that is all correct. And I’m sure all the Arab philosophers listed below would agree.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_philosophy
Thanks for stopping by.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I think this boils down to a game of semantics which makes things unnecessarily complicated.

Consider the question “What is water?” for example. We know that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, yet it exhibits properties distinct from either element. Does it really help to introduce some essence–say “water-ness”–to explain these properties? Not really. In chemistry, we understand these properties to be emergent, arising from the union of simpler substances. There’s no need to invent essences to explain it.

I think if you read the article carefully, you will see that your view is incorrect. Feser points out that the physical properties and behaviors flow form the underlying essence.. This is easily seen because the properties of the individual composing physical elements are different for the properties of the whole.

Linus2nd

 

[Oreoracle]

Feser points out that the physical properties and behaviors flow form the underlying essence.. This is easily seen because the properties of the individual composing physical elements are different for the properties of the whole.

Alright, so I have a simple question: If this idea is so useful, why is it never used in science to understand emergent properties?

I’m not saying you can’t think of properties as if they originate from essences, I just don’t see how it’s any more useful than conceiving of them as originating from a union of simple substances. Both are perfectly legitimate approaches, it’s just that the latter is simpler in that it posits one fewer entity.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Alright, so I have a simple question: If this idea is so useful, why is it never used in science to understand emergent properties?

I’m not saying you can’t think of properties as if they originate from essences, I just don’t see how it’s any more useful than conceiving of them as originating from a union of simple substances. Both are perfectly legitimate approaches, it’s just that the latter is simpler in that it posits one fewer entity.

That is a fair question. The fact is that science, especially the various life and animal sciences explicitly speak of the " natures " of various living things. If we said that a horse was simply constituted of the same basic inert substances as most other creatures and nothing else, how explain the behaviors and properties and powers that are specific to hores. It is obvious that what makes a horse different from a salmon is their natures or essences.

Even the sciences which deal with inert/inanimate elements, though they may not speak of natures and essences, assume that such realities exist as the source of a substance’s behavior and powers. An atom is certainly different from an electron, a proton, a neutron, etc. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, if we could not name things, using nouns by which we acknowledge that this thing has a different nature or essence from that thing.

And every day, ordinary people make the same true assumptions without even thinking about it. And all this has been true right back to the beginning of time. Abraham certainly knew the differences between a camel, a lion, and a lamb.

It is not only convenient and more efficient, it happens to also be true.

Linus2nd

 

[Oreoracle]

That is a fair question. The fact is that science, especially the various life and animal sciences explicitly speak of the " natures " of various living things.

The word “nature” is certainly used to describe animals, but I think it’s intended to refer to their behaviors and temperament (both observable features), not to some metaphysical construct.

If we said that a horse was simply constituted of the same basic inert substances as most other creatures and nothing else, how explain the behaviors and properties and powers that are specific to horses.

In my example with water, I pointed out how we take the relationship between the hydrogen and oxygen atoms into account. Analogously, while different animals may be made of the same parts, those parts are related in different ways for each animal. Breaking large things into parts and observing the relations between those parts is how science works.

Now imagine that we use the “essence” approach instead. Why are horses the way they are? Well, clearly they possess an essence that we’ll call “horse-ness”. But merely knowing there’s an essence involved doesn’t unveil much information unique to horses, so let’s proceed to inquire as to what “horse-ness” is. The way to answer this question is to actually observe horses. How do we observe them? We break their behavior/bodies down into smaller pieces and work from there.

So the essence really didn’t help at all. In fact it actually took us back a step, since “what is a horse?” is really more fundamental than the question of “what is horse-ness?”, as the latter is a generalization of a horse to the set of all horses.

 

[MPat]

The word “nature” is certainly used to describe animals, but I think it’s intended to refer to their behaviors and temperament (both observable features), not to some metaphysical construct.

In my example with water, I pointed out how we take the relationship between the hydrogen and oxygen atoms into account. Analogously, while different animals may be made of the same parts, those parts are related in different ways for each animal. Breaking large things into parts and observing the relations between those parts is how science works.

OK, so, in effect, you are asking if science ever uses essences provided that anything that uses essences is not allowed to be called “science”…? Well, sure, in that case it is easy to see that the answer can only be “No”. The problem is that it is not a very useful question, being equivalent to “Are essences used where they are not used?”…

Alright, so I have a simple question: If this idea is so useful, why is it never used in science to understand emergent properties?

I’m not saying you can’t think of properties as if they originate from essences, I just don’t see how it’s any more useful than conceiving of them as originating from a union of simple substances. Both are perfectly legitimate approaches, it’s just that the latter is simpler in that it posits one fewer entity.

Well, it is not always simpler. If it was so, science would never use the essences. But it does (under different names, of course). For example, let’s look at one ANSYS tutorial of University of Alberta (mece.ualberta.ca/tutorials/ansys/CL/CAT/Joints/Print.html). At one step (“MP,EX,1,200000” and “MP,PRXY,1,0.33”) we are defining the material properties of steel (the “essence of steel” or “steelness”, if you wish). In another one we use those material properties and assign them to newly created elements (“MAT,1”, “E, 1, 6” etc.). How is it different from “combining the essence with existence”…? And are you actually going to claim that it is going to be “simpler” or “more useful” to divide the steel into atoms and free electrons in this case…?

Another example where essences are used under different names is object-oriented programming (classes correspond to essences, objects correspond to substances).

And a third example can be from Biology itself - if we accept the article that Feser cites in the blog post mentioned here. Yes, the same one that claims that life does not exist. It does end up saying that the tries to explain life as sum of parts have failed and that we should give up on that. Only the author concludes that life does not exist rather than concluding that we need something else (essences?) to explain it…

 

[polytropos]

Theories resembling essentialist hylemorphism are not anathema in contemporary biology. And it is widely acknowledged in philosophy of science and philosophy of biology that there are not scientific research programs that aim to reduce the natural sciences to each other (ie. biology to chemistry and chemistry to fundamental physics). In order to take Occam’s razor to essentialism, we would need anti-essentialism to be equally explanatory, which it’s not.

It could be added that if we forego essences in favor of viewing everything as a composite of simple particles, we haven’t avoided the problem. When that bottoms out, the regularities embodied by the simple particles would be brutally factual, and brutally factual explanations (being essentially non-probabilistic and unintelligible) are not explanations at all. This issue is external to the practice of science, because if you are in the business of finding proximate explanations, you will still be able to crunch the numbers. What is at stake is scientific ontology, and whether the regularities that underwrite our best physics are intelligible or not.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

The word “nature” is certainly used to describe animals, but I think it’s intended to refer to their behaviors and temperament (both observable features), not to some metaphysical construct.

In my example with water, I pointed out how we take the relationship between the hydrogen and oxygen atoms into account. Analogously, while different animals may be made of the same parts, those parts are related in different ways for each animal. Breaking large things into parts and observing the relations between those parts is how science works.

Now imagine that we use the “essence” approach instead. Why are horses the way they are? Well, clearly they possess an essence that we’ll call “horse-ness”. But merely knowing there’s an essence involved doesn’t unveil much information unique to horses, so let’s proceed to inquire as to what “horse-ness” is. The way to answer this question is to actually observe horses. How do we observe them? We break their behavior/bodies down into smaller pieces and work from there.

So the essence really didn’t help at all. In fact it actually took us back a step, since “what is a horse?” is really more fundamental than the question of “what is horse-ness?”, as the latter is a generalization of a horse to the set of all horses.

You are taking a " reductionist " approach. But even you realize each thing that is recognized as a substance, animate or inanimate, is recognized as having a nature or essence from which all its behaviors, powers, habits, etc. flow. If we do not recognize that there is a nature from which all this flows, how can we explain the differences that exist between these substances? They do not differ by the the ultimate matter that forms them, for they are all reduced to molecules and or atoms, which are formed of protons, neutons, electrons, etc. The point is that all these ultimate particles owe their specific organization, leading to specific behaviors, powers, etc. to the underlying nature or essence. There is no other reasonable answer.

The reductionist approach, as Feser’s article points out is fruitless and unscientific. It is in fact a construct of those dedicated to destroying the idea of nature and essence and it is a relatively recent inovation and not a very widely accepted one. Even those who espouse it, like yourself, assume the existence of natures/ essences or they could not live or work.
When you go out to work in the morning, you jump into your car not your washing machine. Why? Because each has a specific nature ( even though this is a case of natures which are manufactured.)… .

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I think this boils down to a game of semantics which makes things unnecessarily complicated.

Consider the question “What is water?” for example. We know that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, yet it exhibits properties distinct from either element. Does it really help to introduce some essence–say “water-ness”–to explain these properties? Not really. In chemistry, we understand these properties to be emergent, arising from the union of simpler substances. There’s no need to invent essences to explain it.

To be specific, if you set a glass of water and a glass of wine side by side the separate natures or essences become very important.

To say that properties of an element are emergent is " waving a magic wand, " it explains nothing. The properties " emerge " because there is an underlying nature or essence from which these properties flow. The principle is more easily seen in animate beings.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Theories resembling essentialist hylemorphism are not anathema in contemporary biology. And it is widely acknowledged in philosophy of science and philosophy of biology that there are not scientific research programs that aim to reduce the natural sciences to each other (ie. biology to chemistry and chemistry to fundamental physics). In order to take Occam’s razor to essentialism, we would need anti-essentialism to be equally explanatory, which it’s not.

It could be added that if we forego essences in favor of viewing everything as a composite of simple particles, we haven’t avoided the problem. When that bottoms out, the regularities embodied by the simple particles would be brutally factual, and brutally factual explanations (being essentially non-probabilistic and unintelligible) are not explanations at all. This issue is external to the practice of science, because if you are in the business of finding proximate explanations, you will still be able to crunch the numbers. What is at stake is scientific ontology, and whether the regularities that underwrite our best physics are intelligible or not.

Excellent.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

OK, so, in effect, you are asking if science ever uses essences provided that anything that uses essences is not allowed to be called “science”…? Well, sure, in that case it is easy to see that the answer can only be “No”. The problem is that it is not a very useful question, being equivalent to “Are essences used where they are not used?”…

Well, it is not always simpler. If it was so, science would never use the essences. But it does (under different names, of course). For example, let’s look at one ANSYS tutorial of University of Alberta (mece.ualberta.ca/tutorials/ansys/CL/CAT/Joints/Print.html). At one step (“MP,EX,1,200000” and “MP,PRXY,1,0.33”) we are defining the material properties of steel (the “essence of steel” or “steelness”, if you wish). In another one we use those material properties and assign them to newly created elements (“MAT,1”, “E, 1, 6” etc.). How is it different from “combining the essence with existence”…? And are you actually going to claim that it is going to be “simpler” or “more useful” to divide the steel into atoms and free electrons in this case…?

Another example where essences are used under different names is object-oriented programming (classes correspond to essences, objects correspond to substances).

And a third example can be from Biology itself - if we accept the article that Feser cites in the blog post mentioned here. Yes, the same one that claims that life does not exist. It does end up saying that the tries to explain life as sum of parts have failed and that we should give up on that. Only the author concludes that life does not exist rather than concluding that we need something else (essences?) to explain it…

Excellent.

Linus2nd

 

[Oreoracle]

OK, so, in effect, you are asking if science ever uses essences provided that anything that uses essences is not allowed to be called “science”…?

No, I don’t define science to not be in the business of essences. I am talking about any natural science, really–any discipline that uses the scientific method as its main method of investigation.

At one step (“MP,EX,1,200000” and “MP,PRXY,1,0.33”) we are defining the material properties of steel (the “essence of steel” or “steelness”, if you wish). In another one we use those material properties and assign them to newly created elements (“MAT,1”, “E, 1, 6” etc.). How is it different from “combining the essence with existence”…?

Certainly you can talk about “steelness” once you’ve ascertained what “steel” is. But to ascertain what steel is and the properties it has, you need to parse steel into its components and see the relationships. If I ask “what are the properties of steel?” and you answer “they are the properties bestowed by steelness”, then I hope we can agree that you would have effectively explained nothing. If anything you’ve only restated the question.

Now I would certainly agree that essences are useful as nouns that save time in conversations. For instance “water-ness” would be a synonym for “the set of properties resulting from the relationships between hydrogen and oxygen atoms that are bonded so as to form the molecule H2O”. But the point is that appealing to water-ness doesn’t help us explain water’s properties. We only began to understand water by understanding the interactions between the relevant atoms.

Another example where essences are used under different names is object-oriented programming (classes correspond to essences, objects correspond to substances).

Again, I would agree with this usage. But keep in mind that discussing a class is only useful once you’ve already ascertained the particular substances. In other words, you can only talk about a set once you’ve defined its elements. To appeal to the class to prove something about the particulars is usually a circular form of argument, as the class is rather understood in terms of the particulars.

They do not differ by the the ultimate matter that forms them, for they are all reduced to molecules and or atoms, which are formed of protons, neutons, electrons, etc.

Yes, they all reduce to the same substances, but the substances are related differently. That is how they are distinguished. For example, hydrocarbons are made of the same types of atoms, but we distinguish them based on how those atoms are bonded. Pretending that the distinctions were made before these various types of bonding were observed is circular at best and dishonest at worst.

Now you can say that some abstract metaphysical gobbledygook “caused” the atoms to be related differently, but the point still stands: we learn about differences between objects by comparing components and their relations, not by philosophizing about essences. We learn by reducing, not compounding (for, if you can’t solve a problem, how would you solve an even more difficult, compounded problem?).

 

[Linusthe2nd]

No, I don’t define science to not be in the business of essences. I am talking about any natural science, really–any discipline that uses the scientific method as its main method of investigation.

Certainly you can talk about “steelness” once you’ve ascertained what “steel” is. But to ascertain what steel is and the properties it has, you need to parse steel into its components and see the relationships. If I ask “what are the properties of steel?” and you answer “they are the properties bestowed by steelness”, then I hope we can agree that you would have effectively explained nothing. If anything you’ve only restated the question.

Now I would certainly agree that essences are useful as nouns that save time in conversations. For instance “water-ness” would be a synonym for “the set of properties resulting from the relationships between hydrogen and oxygen atoms that are bonded so as to form the molecule H2O”. But the point is that appealing to water-ness doesn’t help us explain water’s properties. We only began to understand water by understanding the interactions between the relevant atoms.

Again, I would agree with this usage. But keep in mind that discussing a class is only useful once you’ve already ascertained the particular substances. In other words, you can only talk about a set once you’ve defined its elements. To appeal to the class to prove something about the particulars is usually a circular form of argument, as the class is rather understood in terms of the particulars.

Yes, they all reduce to the same substances, but the substances are related differently. That is how they are distinguished. For example, hydrocarbons are made of the same types of atoms, but we distinguish them based on how those atoms are bonded. Pretending that the distinctions were made before these various types of bonding were observed is circular at best and dishonest at worst.

Now you can say that some abstract metaphysical gobbledygook “caused” the atoms to be related differently, but the point still stands: we learn about differences between objects by comparing components and their relations, not by philosophizing about essences. We learn by reducing, not compounding (for, if you can’t solve a problem, how would you solve an even more difficult, compounded problem?).

Without a nature or essence, there would be no properties. You are objecting because of the implications. That’s O.K. but your objections will not be accepted by anyone but a reductionist. No one sincerely believing what you are saying can function, even daily life would be impossible. That is why I don’t think even the hard core reductionist believes what he is saying.

Linus2nd

 

[Oreoracle]

A question for you, Linus: Do essences have properties?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

A question for you, Linus: Do essences have properties?

Yes, the properties are sourced in the essence or nature of the substance being observed. The properties flow from the essence of the substance. Otherwise there would be no way to tell the difference between substances, because ultimately all the physicalities of every substance are identical - protons, newtons, electrons, etc. It is the essence which organizes these ultimate physicalities into specifically different properties, powers, etc. Without an organizating source all you would ever have is " free, " floating ultimete, particles - there would be no identifiable substance, there would be no specific differences to be observed…

Linus2nd.

 

[Oreoracle]

Yes, the properties are sourced in the essence or nature of the substance being observed. The properties flow from the essence of the substance.

So if objects require essences to account for their properties, what then accounts for the properties of an essence? It seems to me that it could only be another essence, by the same reasoning. For if there are no essences of essences, we could not distinguish the variety of essences that we do.