Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things.
...Among the Greek philosophers, the conflict between these worldviews is evident in the disagreement between Democritus and Aristotle. Democritus’ deterministic theory proposed that nature, including humans, consisted of atoms. Aristotle’s vitalistic theory proposed that living organisms consisted of a primordial substance (soul) and form, which transformed it into a specific thing.
The will to live or Wille zum Leben is a concept developed by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, Will being an irrational "blind incessant impulse without knowledge" that drives instinctive behaviors, causing an endless insatiable striving in human existence, which Nature could not exist without.
Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things.
What do you think Darwin would have to say about people living in the 21st century and still believing in a "soul"? Is it possible that Aristotle was right, and that Darwin was wrong? — chiknsld
As I wrote in my last post, Darwin's work didn't say anything about where life came from and what it's nature is. In his view natural selection only acts on already living organisms. Your summary of Darwin's position is, to be kind, inaccurate. If you haven't read "Origin of Species," I suggest you do. — T Clark
Aristotle was truly ahead of his time. — chiknsld
Elan vital, if memory serves, is about a so-called life principle that is infused into the physical (chemical soup?) for life to exist. Not a bad hypothesis if you ask me as the genesis of life hasn't yet been put on a firm physical foundation. Until such a time as that's done, we're free to speculate as much as we wish, oui? — Agent Smith
Non. On ne peut pas spéculer sans comprendre.
We know enough about how life began to understand that there's nothing magic about it. No elan vital. All the materials are standard stuff - carbon, hydrogen, iron, water, oxygen, nitrogen, calcium, etc. They're all put together by chemical processes that follow the rules of organic chemistry. Of course there's more to it than that, but it's clear it's one of those things science is good at figuring out and will — T Clark
Aristotle was truly ahead of his time. Do you believe that humans have a soul? Where does our soul come from? — chiknsld
Is there a connection between Aristotle's idea of the "soul" and Schopenhauer's "will to live"? — chiknsld
What do you think Darwin would have to say about people living in the 21st century and still believing in a "soul"? Is it possible that Aristotle was right, and that Darwin was wrong? — chiknsld
All the materials are standard stuff - carbon, hydrogen, iron, water, oxygen, nitrogen, calcium, etc. — T Clark
...humans are possessed of all manner of inclinations, proclivities, talents, dispositions, memories, intentions, and so on. Only a minor aspect of that is apparent to either the individual or others. — Wayfarer
Vitalism is associated with a late-nineteenth-early-20th-c philosopher called Henri Bergson. 'Élan vital (French pronunciation: [elɑ̃ vital]) is a term coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 book Creative Evolution, in which he addresses the question of self-organisation and spontaneous morphogenesis of things in an increasingly complex manner. Élan vital was translated in the English edition as "vital impetus", but is usually translated by his detractors as "vital force" — Wayfarer
...It is a hypothetical explanation for evolution and development of organisms, which Bergson linked closely with consciousness – the intuitive perception of experience and the flow of inner time.' — Wayfarer
There's actually nothing in that which contradicts Darwinism, it's more that Charles Darwin didn't think along those lines. Whereas his associated, Alfred Russel Wallace, did, and although he pre-deceased Bergson's work, I'm sure he would have found it congenial. — Wayfarer
Quite possibly. Aristotle and Schopenhauer are very much representative of a specific intellectual tradition. — Wayfarer
It's not one or the other. Evolution is an indubitable fact, but what evolution means is wide open for reassessment. There are plenty of dissident movements in evolutionary biology, not even counting 'intelligent design' - like the The Third Way. — Wayfarer
There's nothing about chemical and physical laws which in itself will give rise to living organisms. — Wayfarer
living organisms are fundamentally different to inanimate matter — Wayfarer
there's memory, and there's intentionality, even if its rudimentary in the very simplest forms. — Wayfarer
Could there ever be a unification between evolution and vitalism? — chiknsld
s a biological concept, the inheritance of acquired characteristics has had a wild roller coaster ride over the past two centuries. Championed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck at the beginning of the 19th century, it soared to widespread popularity as a theory of inheritance and an explanation for evolution, enduring even after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Then experimental tests, the rise of Mendelian genetics, and the wealth of discoveries substantiating chromosomal DNA as the principal medium of genetic information in complex organisms all but buried the idea until the mid-20th century. Since then, the theory has found at least a limited new respectability with the rise of “epigenetics” (literally, around or on top of genetics) as an explanation for some inherited traits.
Most recently, some researchers have found evidence that even some learned behaviors and physiological responses can be epigenetically inherited. None of the new studies fully address exactly how information learned or acquired in the somatic tissues is communicated and incorporated into the germline. But mechanisms centering around small RNA molecules and forms of hormonal communication are actively being investigated. — Lucy Reading-Ikkanda/Quanta Magazine
the inheritance of acquired characteristics has had a wild roller coaster ride over the past two centuries. — Lucy Reading-Ikkanda/Quanta Magazine
When I read "Origin of Species," I was surprised to see that Darwin included inheritance of acquired characteristics as a potential mechanism for evolution in addition to natural selection. — T Clark
I made a statement of fact about what Darwin wrote in "Origin of Species." Any political interpretation is yours. — T Clark
Life is completely consistent with chemical and physical laws. — T Clark
As I wrote in one of those posts, you are palling around with Thomas Merton and his hippie noosphere cohort. — T Clark
But it's not. Or rather, they are included, but there are other levels of organisation which are not apparent on the level of physics and chemistry. You're preaching reductionism, whereas I'm saying there's a (warning: philosophical terminology) ontological distinction in play. — Wayfarer
And you're looking at the entire discussion through the spectacles of an engineer. — Wayfarer
You say there is an "ontological distinction." I'm not sure what that means. — T Clark
For Schumacher one of science's major mistakes has been rejecting the traditional philosophical and religious view that the universe is a hierarchy of being. Schumacher makes a restatement of the traditional chain of being.
He agrees with the (Aristotelian) view that there are four kingdoms: Mineral, Plant, Animal, Human. He argues that there are important differences of kind (i.e. 'ontological distinctions') between each level of being. Between mineral and plant is the phenomenon of life. Schumacher also argues that there is nothing in physics or chemistry to explain the phenomenon of life.
For Schumacher, a similar jump in level of being (i.e. an ontological difference) takes place between plant and animal, which is differentiated by the phenomenon of consciousness. We can recognize consciousness, not least because we can knock an animal unconscious, but also because animals exhibit at minimum primitive thought and intelligence.
The next level, according to Schumacher, is between Animal and Human, which are differentiated by the phenomenon of self-consciousness or self awareness (and reason, abstract thought and language). Self-consciousness is the reflective awareness of one's consciousness and thoughts.
Schumacher suggests that the differences can be diagramatically expressed thus:
"Mineral" = m
"Plant" = m + x
"Animal" = m + x + y
"Human" = m + x + y + z
Living things are different from non-living things, but we're all in the same family.
I'm strongly anti-reductionist and I think I've shown that in what I've written on the forum over the years. — T Clark
non-living matter self-organizing is what lead to the beginning of life. — T Clark
It's philosophical terminology for 'being of a fundamentally different kind'. — Wayfarer
which is what you said. — Wayfarer
So it is said, but that, in turn, depended on a causal chain that goes back first to the way that stars produce heavy elements, and before that to the way that the Universe produces stars. But I'm dubious of the idea life just spontaneously generates and evolves really constitutes any kind of theory. — Wayfarer
I'm aware of some books on the physical possibility of life spontaneously self-generating, but the question I always have is, why is it felt that this constitutes an explanation? Or rather, what kind of explanation does it provide? — Wayfarer
As I wrote in one of those posts, you are palling around with Thomas Merton and his hippie noosphere cohort. — T Clark
The whole structure of Teilhard’s “religious thought,” ... is based on this contention that evolution has made man once again the center of the universe, not spatially, not metaphysically, but in Teilhard’s word, “structurally.”
“Man is the hub of the universe,” “the structural key to the universe.”
Hence for Teilhard it is not only religion but science itself which declares that “man is the key and not an anomaly” in the world of evolution. For “man is the greatest telluric and biological event on our planet,” and “the supreme achievement of the organizing power of the cosmos.”
Consequently man is “the key to the whole science of nature” and the “solution of everything that we can know.”
This is the principal challenge of Teilhard to the thought of his time, and it is a challenge which, implemented by a cosmic and incarnational mystique, is directed against scientific positivism more than against the traditional theology of the Church.
Indeed, one would have expected the scientists to dismiss Teilhard’s thesis as reactionary even more emphatically than the theologians who fought it as revolutionary. But scientists were on the whole more friendly to Teilhard than theologians.
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/teilhard%E2%80%99s-gamble
They exhibit self-organisation, homeostasis, the ability to reproduce, evolve and mutate, and heal from injury. — Wayfarer
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