Only when I'm thinking poetically. The rest of the time I try to be a little more hard-boiled.Don't you think that trees and other plants have their own reasons for their actions as well? — Metaphysician Undercover
Sure, why not, IF it has it's own reasons. We're talking plants, are you suggesting that plants have reasons?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
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?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
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?Is your mind a thing, or immaterial, or both, or neither? — Galuchat
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
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
Sure, why not, IF it has it's own reasons. We're talking plants, are you suggesting that plants have reasons? — tim wood
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
Their processes require water to operate, for the plant to remain alive. I deny they want water: they need water. — tim wood
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
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
"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
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
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
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
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
But why wouldn't there be a direct connection between purpose and benefit? — apokrisis
What would a benefit-less purpose even be? — apokrisis
What would a benefit be except that it served some purpose? — apokrisis
1. A towel placed on a spill will "drink" the water, but this is a purely mechanical effect. — Srap Tasmaner
2. A deer seeks out water periodically because water is of benefit to the deer. Is this intentional, purposeful behavior? — Srap Tasmaner
The mechanical process by which roots take up water is probably not much different from the towel's. — Srap Tasmaner
...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
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
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
"...purpose, mind, functional, imperative, expression, intention, benefit."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
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.Well I would say that if a tree has chemoreceptor mechanisms to direct its root growth, then...
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
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
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
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. — Wayfarer
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
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
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
Is there any reason to think that a plant in need of water might refuse it? — Srap Tasmaner
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
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
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