think he might mean that “life” and “consciousness” should not be nouns because they aren’t persons, places and things. I don’t think it is beyond reason to suspect the grammar itself could lead to strange theories and conclusions, for instance vitalism. — NOS4A2
I suspect Mayr's complaint is that, in line with Darwinian materialism. — Wayfarer
Therefore why would life and consciousness be problematic? — frank
At best the point isnt one that usually needs to be made. At worst, this is wrong. Both life and consciousness most certainly do exist. — frank
↪god must be atheist sorry, it's hard for me to follow what you're saying. — frank
A body is a set of processes, but it is also a blob. Or at least, calling it a blob, certainly for certain middle-aged overweight men, is not misleading.I think this may be true of adolescents, but I don't think an adult will have a problem understanding, for instance, that the Law involves processes as opposed to being a blob of Stuff. — frank
A body is processes or activities and so 'body' is a reification. At the same time I think is fair to call them separate entitites, each one. Perhaps minds are like this. The might not be physical entities - or perhaps the word physical is really rather misleading, since many things considered real and physical in science are not blobs - but they might be entities."As far as the words “life” and “mind” are concerned, they merely refer to reifications of activities and have no separate existence as entities. — frank
A body is processes or activities and so 'body' is a reification. — Coben
Compliment?You know how to completely mess things up, don't you. — god must be atheist
Are you saying that my body is not a collection of processes?You are denying this, and you are making actual material blobs into processes, which is outright false — god must be atheist
It sure looks like one at the atomic level. And then if we go deeper to the quantum level the whole thing is made up of probable and shifting locations of stuff that is sort of wave, sort or particles.It's like calling a brick a process. — god must be atheist
Who said anything about religion?Why, oh why do people put their religion before their reason? — god must be atheist
Well, actually, I don't think what matter is and what 'physical' means are obvious. The idea of 'physical' has gone way beyond bricks, to include massless particles, fields, 'things' in superpostion....Religion can co-exist with reason, you don't have to deny the obvious in order to believe in a god. — god must be atheist
There is very little that is both true and obvious about matter, certainly not when it comes to bodies or when comes to considering issues of processes vs. things.Religion can co-exist with reason, you don't have to deny the obvious in order to believe in a god. — god must be atheist
A body is a set of processes, but it is also a blob. Or at least, calling it a blob, certainly for certain middle-aged overweight men, is not misleading. — Coben
↪god must be atheist I think the issue may be in the realm of psychology. Those who talk about embodied life and consciousness are, in a sense, talking to themselves. They themselves have a clunky, pre-Maxwellian view of the universe and their struggle to free themselves of it without breaking down into Dionysian lunacy leads them to project out some primitive, superstitious interlocutor.
Strange, but probably true. — frank
Does Darwin have an interest in this topic? An what is Darwinian materialism? — bert1
Those who admit my interpretation of the evidence now adduced -- strictly scientific evidence in its appeal to facts which are clearly what ought not to be on the materialistic theory -- will be able to accept the spiritual nature of man, as not in any way inconsistent with the theory of evolution, but as dependent on those fundamental laws and causes which furnish the very materials for evolution to work with. They will also be relieved from the crushing mental burden imposed upon those who--maintaining that we, in common with the rest of nature, are but products of the blind eternal forces of the universe, and believing also that the time must come when the sun will lose his heat and all life on the earth necessarily cease--have to contemplate a not very distant future in which all this glorious earth--which for untold millions of years has been slowly developing forms of life and beauty to culminate at last in man--shall be as if it had never existed; who are compelled to suppose that all the slow growths of our race struggling towards a higher life, all the agony of martyrs, all the groans of victims, all the evil and misery and undeserved suffering of the ages, all the struggles for freedom, all the efforts towards justice, all the aspirations for virtue and the well-being of humanity, shall absolutely vanish, and, "like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wrack behind."
As contrasted with this hopeless and soul-deadening belief, we, who accept the existence of a spiritual world, can look upon the universe as a grand consistent whole adapted in all its parts to the development of spiritual beings capable of indefinite life and perfectibility. — Alfred Russel Wallace
You, Frank and @Wayfarer agree, that mind is not something material. So if it's not made of matter, what is it made of? There is nothing to make things out of in this world, but matter. — god must be atheist
And even if one were to argue Emergent entities/genetic codes causing action, one would still be left with how they would occur from material reality. — 3017amen
There is nothing to make things out of in this world, but matter. — god must be atheist
You, Frank and @Wayfarer agree, that mind is not something material. So if it's not made of matter, what is it made of? There is nothing to make things out of in this world, but matter. — god must be atheist
In my model, the 'consciousness' entity is pure energy — Sir Philo Sophia
Perhaps 'souls' or other 'things' are on a spectrum within what will be considered physical. — Coben
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