Don't you think that trees and other plants have their own reasons for their actions as well? — Metaphysician Undercover

Only when I'm thinking poetically. The rest of the time I try to be a little more hard-boiled.

If a thing has its own reasons, internal to it, for behaving like it does, what else can we attribute these reasons to, other than motive, purpose, or telos? — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, why not, IF it has it's own reasons. We're talking plants, are you suggesting that plants have reasons?

Certainly plants do some things and do not do other things. I attribute to dumb instruction through DNA. Maybe that's not exactly accurate, but I'll stick with the dumb part.

This is irrational nonsense. The plants display every action necessary to demonstrate that they want water, yet for some undisclosed, and most likely irrational reason, you deny that they want water. — Metaphysician Undercover

Their processes require water to operate, for the plant to remain alive. I deny they want water: they need water. I'm taking "want" to be something that humans and arguably a lot of animals do. You're free to define "want" any way you please, but how can anyone understand you if you use private definitions without warning that you're doing so? You refer to "acting." How can I get you to distinguish what actually is happening, from your perception/interpretation of it?

Please keep in mind that, so far as I am concerned, these metaphorical descriptions are fine in the right context, where they're understood as metaphor. Wrong in any other context, especially where metaphor is represented as being the thing itself.

Is your mind a thing, or immaterial, or both, or neither? — Galuchat

I don't know. Maybe I'm ignorant (maybe everyone else knows what mind is, and I just don't happen to). But I rather suspect that what "mind" is depends on how it's defined, who's defining it, and for what purpose. How do you define it?

But I rather suspect that what "mind" is depends on how it's defined, who's defining it, and for what purpose. How do you define it? — tim wood

As above.

1) Is a human’s life then nothing but a product of human cognition and imagination, holding no ontic reality of its own (other than as an abstract human thought)?

2) If no, is a human’s life in your opinion then present strictly within parts of the human body—such as, for example, strictly in the body’s individual cells?

3) If no, is there an ontic distinction between a humans’ life and the same human’s total but dead corpse—this even when many of the given body’s individual cells are yet living?

4) If yes, what is the ontic distinction in your opinion between a human’s life and the same human’s life-devoid body—if not that of the human’s life being a gestalt process which vanishes when the processes of its physical substratum no longer interact in a certain way (decomposition too is a process of the physical organic substratum)? — javra

Thank you for composing and writing questions. I think it is usually the best way to proceed - even if I sometimes neglect them!

1) I get my "ontic" from reading Heidegger. But I can also look it up online. I find these:

Merriam: "of, relating to, or having real being." Perhaps we can agree that "real being" is so problematic that we can dismiss this one out-of-hand.

Wiki: ""Ontic" describes what is there, as opposed to the nature or properties of that being." This is more like it."

Or: "relating to entities and the facts about them; relating to real as opposed to phenomenal existence." Maybe this is enough. Informed by these definitions and what I get from Heidegger, I find I do not understand your question. But I'll answer by parts, and maybe that will suffice.

Life as sensing, perceiving, thinking, feeling, & etc., no ontic reality. Plenty real, just not ontic. Life as movement, the actions that constitute behaviour, ontic. I want a drink, not ontic. I get a drink and drink it, ontic. I benefit from the drink, ontic. I enjoy the benefits for the drink, not ontic. To be sure, I find the addition of the word "ontic" to any of this to be an unnecessary addition, creating unnecessary problems, without benefits.

2. Life within the body? I suppose; where else would it be? As to being in a particular part, Again I suppose. Not in my knee. Likely a creation of my brain, expressed through mind. And no, I do not know what mind is. Only that it dwells in connection to the brain.

3. "Ontic" again. I'm trying to read your question closely. "is there an ontic distinction between a humans’ life and the same human’s total but dead corpse?" What is an "ontic distinction"?

4. Same problem.

Question to you. You're inclined to the use of modifiers, viz., gestalt, teleological, and other adjectives and adverbials, in your descriptions:
an autopoietic system
a gestalt process
the ontic reality of life
an ontically gestalt process
the causal process
against anthropocentric mindsets
entropic givens
absolute entropy
causally deterministic physicalism.
a strictly efficient-causation-grounded reasoning.

What do they add? I read them as taking away. I won't claim they're all jargon, but lots of them could be plain eliminated. "Ontic reality of life"; why not just "life"? Or is there an ontic reality of life, that isn't life - I don't even know what that means!

I don't find a definition there.

Starting with a definition of human life, I would find it difficult to extrapolate a definition of plant life and natural life using the term "awareness". Because I define human awareness in terms of human anatomy, physiology, and mental capacity (i.e., sensory stimulation/perception, interoception/sensation, and cognition). Also because my knowledge of plant (and other) biology is inadequate to the task.

A possible solution is to use the term "awareness" defined differently for each species, and avoid equivocation by stipulating types of awareness (e.g., plant awareness, animal awareness, bacteria awareness, etc.). Then use "awareness" in a definition of natural life without stipulating type.

Starting with a definition of human mind, I would find it easier to extrapolate a definition of plant life and natural life using the term "mind" instead of "awareness".

For example, abstracting "human mind" (the set of conditions experienced, and functions exercised, by a human being which produce its behaviour) to "mind" (the set of conditions experienced, and functions exercised, by an organism which produce its behaviour). — Galuchat

I don't like "awareness", or "mind" as defining terms for life. What's wrong with "self"? Living things seem to have an inherent selfishness, whereby they separate themselves from what is other than themselves with some sort of boundary.

Sure, why not, IF it has it's own reasons. We're talking plants, are you suggesting that plants have reasons? — tim wood

Yes, that's what I'm suggesting. Don't you think that a plant has reasons for producing seeds?

Certainly plants do some things and do not do other things. I attribute to dumb instruction through DNA. Maybe that's not exactly accurate, but I'll stick with the dumb part. — tim wood

Well the word "dumb" doesn't say much. If a plant does something through instruction from its own DNA, then isn't this its own reason? Why is this reason a dumb reason?

Their processes require water to operate, for the plant to remain alive. I deny they want water: they need water. — tim wood

Again this doesn't make sense. You say that plants need water. And, when they are dry, they show by their actions, that they need water. But you say that they do not want water. Do you know what "want" means? Let's say, for the sake of argument, it's like desire, can you agree to that? Do you not think that the dry plants are desiring water? What about animals, other than human beings? Do they desire food, water, and sex? Why do plants not desire as well? Just because you cannot imagine what it would be like for a plant to desire doesn't mean that the plant doesn't desire; especially since the plant acts like it desires.

I'm taking "want" to be something that humans and arguably a lot of animals do. You're free to define "want" any way you please, but how can anyone understand you if you use private definitions without warning that you're doing so? — tim wood

Actually, it is you who is trying to enforce odd, arbitrary restrictions on the use of terms. You suggest that human beings, and some other animals "want", while other life forms do not "want". Unless you can produce some principles for this division it is completely arbitrary, and is nothing but a display of the quirkiness of your own personality.

Please keep in mind that, so far as I am concerned, these metaphorical descriptions are fine in the right context, where they're understood as metaphor. — tim wood

I'm not speaking in metaphor, I'm speaking literally. When a plant is dry, it literally wants water. It demonstrates this by its actions of extending its roots, in search of water. There is no metaphor here, it's a simple fact of life. Plants grow their roots to follow where the water is because they want water. How else can we describe this activity?

You, on the other hand want to restrict the use of "want", to some colloquialism that you are more familiar with, and any usage outside your customary vernacular, you insist is metaphor.

"Ontic reality of life"; why not just "life"? Or is there an ontic reality of life, that isn't life - I don't even know what that means! — tim wood

Wikipedia: In philosophy, ontic (from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: "of that which is") is physical, real, or factual existence.

Example: Unicorns are not ontic—and, hence, not ontically real—despite being real as human concepts of the imagination, i.e. despite being real concepts of what could be ontic in some fictional, alternative world.

You can either like or dislike my use of the adjective “ontic” to emphasize the difference between 1) that which is in ways independent of thought and theory (that which is ontic) and 2) that which is strictly a product of the human mind's theorizing.

Yet something is to me extremely amiss with the overall replies you’ve provided to my questions.

Whatever it might be—an ongoing lack of attention to what I write, an ongoing lack of charitability, I don’t know—I’ve encountered it too often on this thread between us. We have been and continue talking past each other … And, for better or worse, I no longer hold any interest in this discussion. Goodbye for now.

I don't like "awareness", or "mind" as defining terms for life. What's wrong with "self"? Living things seem to have an inherent selfishness, whereby they separate themselves from what is other than themselves with some sort of boundary. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm certainly open to the possibility of defining life in terms of self. Perhaps you could elaborate somewhat on your conception of self and/or provide an example of its use in a definition of life. I haven't given the notion of self much consideration outwith a sociological context, and as it pertains to experience, so I would be interested in your take on it to see if it is something I can work with. PM me if you like. Cheers.

Otherwise, I'm outta here (too much of a reality disconnect from the OP for my taste). Perhaps the apparent intransigence is down to an attempt to see the world through Heideggerian-tinted glasses. Whatever it is; good luck with it.

Despite teleology being deemed erroneous by the prevailing materialist metaphysics of the day, you’ll notice that in our mode of thinking teleology will be intrinsic to both aspects you address: something being done for the purpose of some given X; e.g. “using fuel” for the purpose of (i.e., because of the need of) “creating energy”, or “reproducing” for the purpose of (as one example) “preserving one’s own identity”. In both examples, the latter is the telos to the former activity. — javra

Do you not see anticipation in photosynthesis, seed production, and growing in general? How can anyone deny that these are goal oriented, purposeful? — Metaphysician Undercover

An organism must be able to both persist and to adapt. In the long run, it must be stably centred or balanced - hence homeostasis. In the short run, it must be able to adjust that general balance in locally useful ways. — apokrisis

It can be convenient and useful to refer to trees as acting in accord with purpose, or motive, or telos, but these accounts are simply abstract fictions, there being nothing in the tree purpose or motive or telos occurs. — tim wood

The above are mostly intended to be representative quotes. I think the trouble in this discussion comes from trying to fit the square peg of purpose into the round hole of benefit.

I think the trouble in this discussion comes from trying to fit the square peg of purpose into the round hole of benefit. — Srap Tasmaner

But why wouldn't there be a direct connection between purpose and benefit? What would a benefit-less purpose even be? What would a benefit be except that it served some purpose?

I want to start by saying I love the description of yours I quoted above:

An organism must be able to both persist and to adapt. In the long run, it must be stably centred or balanced - hence homeostasis. In the short run, it must be able to adjust that general balance in locally useful ways. — apokrisis

I think that really captures something nicely: I picture the difference between a boulder rolling down a hill at a fallen tree and a deer running down a hill at a fallen tree: the boulder just plows into it, but the deer leaps gracefully over it.

Think of the different ways of drinking water:
1. A towel placed on a spill will "drink" the water, but this is a purely mechanical effect. The towel has no agency here; it's not "doing" anything. Absorbing spills is the function of the towel, the reason for which it exists, the use to which it is put, and that's one sense in which the word "purpose" is used. But the towel absorbing water is not intentional or purposeful on the part of the towel. And the water is not of benefit to the towel.
2. A deer seeks out water periodically because water is of benefit to the deer. Is this intentional, purposeful behavior? Well, the actions the deer takes to get water might be, might not -- I don't know much about the inner life of deer. Trees send roots into the soil because water is of benefit to trees, and I have no reason to think trees have inner lives. The mechanical process by which roots take up water is probably not much different from the towel's.
3. We drink water much as deer and trees and towels, but we can also choose not to, for any number of reasons. When we do so, we have agency, our action is intentional and purposeful, but it is not our purposefulness that makes water have benefit for us.

One of the things I learned from our last conversation about purpose is that an action can be construed as serving any number of purposes, and that the goals actions serve can also in turn be construed as means for reaching other goals. Purpose is a never-ending hall of mirrors.

What I want to do here with "benefit" is cut that off: water is of benefit to the tree as a tree, for it to persist, as you said, as a tree, doing whatever it is trees do, whatever it would make sense for trees to think and talk about if they thought and talked. The towel is a particular, but it is not an individual, and so nothing can be of benefit to the towel. Purpose in the sense of function, you can find all over the place; purpose in the other sense, I think only makes sense for us and whatever critters have inner lives enough like ours.

To your specific questions:

But why wouldn't there be a direct connection between purpose and benefit? — apokrisis

Obviously for critters like us there often is, but it's optional.

What would a benefit-less purpose even be? — apokrisis

It should be clear by now that I mostly mean benefit as benefit-to-the-organism whose behavior we're looking at. So I'm happy allowing humans, for instance, to have purposes that do not benefit them. Guy saves a guy at the cost of his own life -- I don't need to concoct some benefit to him to "explain" that. It's just what he chose to do.

What would a benefit be except that it served some purpose? — apokrisis

See that's where I think there's just too much slippage between the senses of "purpose". Water benefits trees, it has a use within a tree, serves a purpose -- but we're just talking functionally here. There's nothing like intentional behavior in the water or in the tree, so I don't see any purpose in that sense.

Again, I would take the baseline position that mind, life and physics have purpose or finality in this specific deflationary sense - a sequence of distinctions that reflects the underlying levels of semiotic mechanism in play.

So finality is the nested hierarchy of {propensities {functions {purposes}}}. Or to use the jargon, {teleomaty {teleonomy {teleology}}}.

And that reflects broadly physics with its information-constrained tendencies, biology with its genetically-constrained functionalities, and humans with their culturally or linguistically constrained purposes.

The notion of physical telos is the most alien to the usual reductionist way of view causality. But as I say, physics has to smuggle in the notion of generalised tendencies. The second law of thermodynamics especially stands for a universal and irreversible direction for change. Everything must entropify.

And then an informational view of physics - one where holographic event horizons are the "living" context that shape local events - is spelling that out in terms of spatiotemporal structure. You are getting thermal models of time and holographic models of gravity from applying this kind of constraints-based thinking.

Now back to your examples.

1. A towel placed on a spill will "drink" the water, but this is a purely mechanical effect. — Srap Tasmaner

Alarm bells should go off any time your philosophy starts to employ human-made objects as putative examples of natural systems. Chairs, doors, towels and all those kinds of things are artificial and unnatural in exactly the way that a reductionist and mechanical metaphysics describes. They are material objects denuded of any purpose or self-organising form.

And that is because it is us, their users, who want to be in complete control of any form or function that is involved in their existence. They are our instruments and the best instruments are the ones with no minds, no degrees of freedom, of their own. A machine is a system so mechanically constrained that it has no possible choice about what to do. And so does nothing until we inject it with our purposes - like using a towel to mop up a spill.

So yes. The towel acts completely mechanically. That is how we designed it and how we employ it. It is useful to us to the degree it has no use to itself. It is a passive tool of our desires. We get complete choice. The towel could be twisted into a hat or used to flick an arse. And it can't protest that that is outside its proper job description.

So you have picked a good example of an inanimate and unnatural object - one that lacks even the ordinary tendencies of normal physical objects. A river or any other natural feature is doing a job - entropifying. Give a towel a thousand years in a cupboard and it may not even have decayed appreciably. Same with a chair or door. These are machines in that they lack inherent purpose, thus allowing us to supply any purpose they could possibly have.

2. A deer seeks out water periodically because water is of benefit to the deer. Is this intentional, purposeful behavior? — Srap Tasmaner

Of course. The deer has to feel thirsty, remember where the water might be, make decisions about how safe the water hole is.

At a biological function level, there is a reason for systems for maintaining a state of hydration. Then at a mental level, the deer is modelling the world in terms of its physical propensities (the tendency for a waterhole to be in some place) and its organismic purposes (the desires of the hungry wolves that might lurk in the bushes). The full range of telos - from the physical likelihood of boulders rumbling down slopes to out-guessing other minds - is part of the way the deer sees its world.

The mechanical process by which roots take up water is probably not much different from the towel's. — Srap Tasmaner

Except trees grow roots in the direction of the moisture they seek. It is mindful or purposeful behaviour in that they can detect and follow gradients of what they need.

And why do we make towels from cotton? Why is the best insulation wool or duck down? Is there some functionality in the form of the materials that you are overlooking? Do they work "mechanically" because evolution found some kind of optimal solution to a purpose it had?

So a bit of googling finds....

...Cotton is pure cellulose, a naturally occurring polymer. Cellulose is a carbohydrate, and the molecule is a long chain of glucose (sugar) molecules. If you look at the structure of a cellulose molecule you can see the OH groups that are on the outer edge. These negatively charged groups attract water molecules and make cellulose and cotton absorb water well. Cotton can absorb about 25 times its weight in water. Chemists refer to substances like cotton as hydrophilic, which means that they attract water molecules.

The nylon molecule, too, has a great number of places where it can form bonds with water molecules, but not as many places as the cotton molecule. Nylon absorbs water, but not nearly as much as cotton. It only absorbs about 10 percent of its weight in water.

https://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/household-hints-tips/cleaning-organizing/question547.htm

...There are two primary reasons: structure and chemistry. First, the easier-to-explain structure. A cotton fiber is like a tiny tube formed of six different concentric layers (see diagram). As individual cotton fibers grow on the plant, the inside of the “tube” is filled with living cells. Once the fiber matures and the cotton boll opens up to reveal its puffy white contents, these cells dry up and the fiber partially collapses, leaving behind a hollow bean-shaped canal, or “lumen” (see the ultra-magnified image below). This empty space holds lots of water.

Lumens also help provide cotton with its exceptional “wicking” ability, drawing water up along the fibers through capillary action—like sucking on a straw. (Synthetic fibers like nylon are solid, with no internal spaces within the fiber to contain water. Whatever water is absorbed is contained on the fibers’ surfaces.) Lumens also radically increase the surface area of the fiber for water to interact with, which leads to the chemistry part of this.

https://www.outdoors.org/articles/amc-outdoors/why-does-cotton-absorb-so-much-water

So biology has in fact designed a material with just the right qualities we have in mind. And then we turn it into a "spill mopping device" that now exists completely outside the world of nature - the world of evolution and entropification.

3. We drink water much as deer and trees and towels, but we can also choose not to, for any number of reasons. When we do so, we have agency, our action is intentional and purposeful, but it is not our purposefulness that makes water have benefit for us. — Srap Tasmaner

Yet water has benefit to us - to the degree we might be dehydrated. Too much water is not a benefit, but lethal.

So a very elaborate hierarchy of mindfulness has evolved to keep us suitably hydrated. It starts way down at the cellular level as the same problem had to be cracked by single cell life. And the hierarchy of increasingly high level semiotic control has developed to the point that deer can worry about lurking wolves, or we humans can say no - we are thirsty, but for some reason or other (could be fasting or politeness or who knows), we decide not to. There is some other purpose we can think of that delivers some more contextual benefit (whatever that was).

There's nothing like intentional behavior in the water or in the tree, so I don't see any purpose in that sense. — Srap Tasmaner

Well I would say that if a tree has chemoreceptor mechanisms to direct its root growth, then that is pretty purposeful - a lowest state of mind. You could call it functional if you like. But having roots would seem the more general functional imperative. How the roots grow then becomes an expression of that intention. A choice has to be made to serve the purpose and provide an actual benefit to have those roots.

So look close enough at nature and we can see that it does have this general hierarchical story - the very one in which long-term stability becomes the basis for short-run adaptations. A general set of habits must be established that freeze an intentionality in, so that more particular states of intentionality can be formed to achieve more localised benefits.

It seems to me this thread has played out the sense of the two quotes in the OP. Almost from the second post the argument has been to reason and meaning, and meaning so as to control the argument. In short, down the rabbit-hole of language. The life itself did, has done, will do, no such thing. It is that we all lose sight of, and language in most cases abets that loss of view.

It seems to me that in that language is much confusion, in the use of anthropological terms and understandings to explain the beings and actions of things not people.

An example:

that is pretty purposeful - a lowest state of mind. You could call it functional if you like. But having roots would seem the more general functional imperative. How the roots grow then becomes an expression of that intention. A choice has to be made to serve the purpose and provide an actual benefit to have those roots. — apokrisis

"...purpose, mind, functional, imperative, expression, intention, benefit."

I have to admit this language works, as a practical matter and as a shortcut for people always already aware of its shortcomings, although the number of people unaware and deceived by it seems large, even on this site! But it adds nothing to any understanding of what the tree does. This language will not do at all for any theoretical account of the tree's activity. Descriptive, metaphorical, convenient where the convenience is understood as such, sure. Adding to the confusion is stretching the metaphors to suggest that the metaphor has tecnical meaning - which of course as metaphor it cannot have.

The quote just above starts,

Well I would say that if a tree has chemoreceptor mechanisms to direct its root growth, then...

This is language (imo) that is on the right track. The same author (I think) remarked above that the lives of trees are alien to the lives of us and animals in general. This language starts to set out that alien nature and to give some account as to what it is and how it works. It is not understanding's role to bend things to fit understanding; it is instead our business to subject our understandings to the sometimes extreme torque (extreme means extreme, in this usage: the person who has never felt that torque is either very lucky or has never really come to understand anything) of learning and coming to understand.

The primordial life of trees was the original topic. We never got there - or have not got there yet. Maybe it's not possible, or maybe possible only through the rigorous language of theoretical science. But certainly not possible if the only way I can understand that life is in terms of my Uncle Gilbert!

I have to admit this language works, as a practical matter and as a shortcut for people always already aware of its shortcomings, although the number of people unaware and deceived by it seems large, even on this site! But it adds nothing to any understanding of what the tree does. This language will not do at all for any theoretical account of the tree's activity. Descriptive, metaphorical, convenient where the convenience is understood as such, sure. Adding to the confusion is stretching the metaphors to suggest that the metaphor has tecnical meaning - which of course as metaphor it cannot have. — tim wood

I think that this is exactly the opposite of reality. The language of intention, with words such as "want" are appropriate for this subject. It is the designating of this as metaphor, which is driving a wedge of separation between the activities of various life forms, plants and animals, that is misleading, and given to misunderstanding. There is no scientific evidence to support such a wedge of separation, which is driven by bias and superstition, while science and evidence demonstrate a close relationship rather than a division of separation.

This is language (imo) that is on the right track. The same author (I think) remarked above that the lives of trees are alien to the lives of us and animals in general. This language starts to set out that alien nature and to give some account as to what it is and how it works. — tim wood

But this is obviously false. Evolutionary theory proves that plants and animals are descendent of the same ancestry. DNA and genetics demonstrate that plants and animals are actually very closely related. To say that the lives of trees is alien to the lives of animals is simply false, unless you mean it in a sense like you would say that your life is alien to my life.

The primordial life of trees was the original topic. We never got there - or have not got there yet. Maybe it's not possible, or maybe possible only through the rigorous language of theoretical science. But certainly not possible if the only way I can understand that life is in terms of my Uncle Gilbert! — tim wood

I am not arguing, that when we discuss the lives of trees, we must of necessity, use the terms of telos or intention. It is possible to discuss many aspects of living beings without using such terminology. However, if we are discussing the reasons why a particular living being, plant are whatever, acts in one way rather than in another way, then we cannot exclude the terminology of telos or intention, or even designate it as metaphorical, without justification for this exclusion.

You seem to want to make this exclusion without justification, implying that such talk is unscientific. In reality, the exclusion which you request is what is unscientific, because it is supported by nothing other than bias, while the science demonstrates that such an exclusion is uncalled for.

Is there any reason to think that a plant in need of water might refuse it?

The primordial life of trees was the original topic. We never got there — tim wood

Possibly because this is a 'philosophy forum', mainly concerned with the nature of reason and life in a philosophical sense; not a biological sciences forum, which is probably where that particular question might belong.

Possibly because this is a 'philosophy forum', mainly concerned with the nature of reason and life in a philosophical sense; not a biological sciences forum, which is probably where that particular question might belong. — Wayfarer

I really don't like this as an answer, and you get to find out why. The two quotes in the OP refer to the difficulty of thinking, speaking (writing), reasoning about life, for that author especially and particularly about trees.

I accept as a definition of science that it is organized, self-critical thinking about a determinate subject matter. Philosophy as science I take to be organized self-critical thinking about the thinking about a determinate subject matter. Here at the start were several implied questions: 1. can we think about the life of trees at all? 2. Given that as subject matter, has the thinking that has been done to date on that subject actually been about that subject? 3. Is better thinking on that subject matter possible?

I think the answer to 1. must be yes. The answer to 2, in this thread at least, is no. And it's a matter of faith with me that the answer to 3 must be yes.

In order to think about the thinking we've done, or can do, on this topic, it seems to me we have to give some preliminary account of what that life is and how it works. If you've followed this thread, you will have recognized that some folks vehemently insist that the correct understanding of plant life is to describe it in terms of human capacities and the capacities of living things that possess a considerable brain and a central nervous system. Apart from some obvious absurdities with this, it does seem defensible on the grounds that it re-presents an ancient Greek understanding that nature is permeated with mind. I say "defensible," I mean quaint, that reasonably smart and well-read contributors will settle for a descriptive non-scientific account of nature based in understandings at least 2300 years old that were even then a minority report (Aristotle v. Pythagorean thinking), and not informed by anything post- Roger Bacon or Galileo.

But for all their shortcoming, they're worthy interlocutors, if dogged. They man their boat and attempt to sail it - with more persistence than sense - which is about the best you can do trying to keep afloat on a set of presuppositions 2300 years out of date.

You, however, rule out the possibility of a science of these life forms, and especially any thinking about that science. For that you're an enemy of open philosophical enterprise, a serious charge. Or maybe you're right and I'm wrong. Make your case!

Well researched post. Every person would like to know the motive of life with reason. I think this post is the correct answer to readers.

If you've followed this thread, you will have recognized that some folks vehemently insist that the correct understanding of plant life is to describe it in terms of human capacities and the capacities of living things that possess a considerable brain and a central nervous system — tim wood

No - not ‘plant life’. The other question in the (rather complicated) OP was a much broader one about the relationship of language and meaning, life and reason. That's what I responded to. But because you seem to want to steer the debate towards naturalism, then any attempt at analysis in anything other than those terms was dismissed. I think, perhaps, the introduction of 'the life of trees' was to enable you to then deal with the rather more obscure questions about the relationship of life, meaning and reason, in a rather positivist fashion:

The trouble with metaphysical mysteries is that they have no bound. Can you solve for me the metaphysical mystery of how my glass of water got on my desk? Not how, but the metaphysical mystery of how. See how quickly it becomes nonsense? The question becomes, is it ever not nonsense? — tim wood

The quote from the original post, that ‘meaning is too young a thing to have much power over [life]’ reflects the perspective which understands the human mind as something which has appeared at the very end of evolutionary time. The quote about reason, likewise, followed by your question about language, and whether life is ‘an abstract noun’. All of which brings to mind the following:

In traditional metaphysics, ‘the natural’ was largely conceived as the evil, and ‘the spiritual’ as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned, or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature – even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man – frequently amounts, in practice, to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature.

Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination, or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which it is taken to be anything more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy. — Max Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason

I accept as a definition of science that it is organized, self-critical thinking about a determinate subject matter. Philosophy as science I take to be organized self-critical thinking about the thinking about a determinate subject matter. — tim wood

Agree. But there's been a deep change in the conception of the nature of reason - which is that reason has been instrumentalised, understood in terms of its adaptive or utilitarian power, as per the above. Reason no longer stands on its own two feet - and it can't, because the 'furniture of reason' has a kind of reality which today's empiricism can't admit or even comprehend. Hence, my reference to Aristotelianism. I know it’s ancient, but it’s philosophy.

Is there any reason to think that a plant in need of water might refuse it? — Srap Tasmaner

No, but I don't see how that's relevant to the issue of whether a plant wants water. Learning how to refuse one's wants and desires is morality, and I would not expect plants to be moral beings. I expect that plants have a reason for wanting water, but I do not expect the plant to judge a particular water as to whether it is good or bad water, prior to taking it up. Even animals must smell or taste something before they decide whether to eat it.

But there's been a deep change in the conception of the nature of reason - which is that reason has been instrumentalised, understood in terms of its adaptive or utilitarian power, as per the above. Reason no longer stands on its own two feet - and it can't, because the 'furniture of reason' has a kind of reality which today's empiricism can't admit or even comprehend. Hence, my reference to Aristotelianism. I know it’s ancient, but it’s philosophy. — Wayfarer

That quote from Horkheimer provides a good description of why I don't like "homeostasis" as a description of what living systems are doing. Through its principal descriptive term, "stability", the same principle of "adaptation" is implied. it's implied that the living system adapts toward a stable existence. But this completely neglects the evidence which we observe all around us, in the vast array of living creatures, that the living systems are actually seeking "mastery" over their environment, not equilibrium. This becomes very clear in human reasoning.

The problem I see is that people like tim want to reverse the relationship between the desire for mastery, and human reasoning, such that the desire for mastery is derived from human reason instead of vise versa. A quick glance around the animal kingdom will show this desire for mastery as prevalent, demonstrating that this reversal is wrong. Human reasoning comes from the desire for mastery. This attitude of reversal is drawn from a faulty understanding of evolution which models evolutionary changes as based in chance and adaptation, with the chance changes providing for adaptation. That completely neglects the living creature's innate desire to have mastery over its environment, which is so obvious, and well expressed by the human capacity of reasoning. Once we separate human reasoning from the desire for mastery, it becomes very evident that all the living creatures, trees included, express this desire.

Trees - news to me - are apparently amazing, dynamic and engaging in behaviours often described in anthropomorphic terms. See two books, The Secret Life of Trees, The Hidden Life of Trees. — tim wood

If you read Wohlleben's "The Hidden Life of Trees", you will find that he describes all of the various activities of trees (and there's very many of them, it's a relatively long book), in terms of intention. He is clearly not using the words metaphorically. It takes a bit to get used to this way of writing, where he describes the activities very technically and scientifically, with intention thrown in on top. We don't commonly get "intention" mixed in with scientific jargon, so it takes a few chapters to get used to. However, it is very logical, very interesting, and makes very good sense to write in this way. And the amazing thing is that the critics, as much as they may reproach him, they have no argument against him because they are science minded individuals, and Wohlleben cites all the science, as supporting what he is saying.