I can very easily put my finger on why a tornado is inanimate, it is not living. And if you want me to detail the reasons why I say it is not living, I can do that as well. But as I said, I don't see the point, because you will just obstinately reject what I say, in order to maintain your unreasonable metaphysics. Evidence of this is that you use terms like "grow" and "die", in a way different from how we would apply these words to living things, preparing to make an argument through equivocation.

What your monadism implies, my dualism (which in fact unfolds to a hierarchical triadism) seeks to make explicit. — apokrisis

Groovy; so then there’s no disagreement that metabolism—again stated, regardless of its underlying metaphysics—serves as the essence by which life is defined.

You seem confused. I explained the speculative thesis of pansemiosis. It is based on the dichotomy of sign and matter. So it says that the animate and the inanimate are alike in being hylomorphically semiotic. There is formal and final cause acting by way of top-down constraint to shape substantial being. And what is new here is proposing a mechanism - semiosis - by which that interaction generally happens.

Now it is clear how boundary condition information or habits of interpretance impinge on material organisation in animate systems. That information is encoded locally by membranes, receptors, genes, neurons - a range of physical structures that deal in messages or signs.

But it is not so clear how the laws of the universe are encoded. Except that there is a striking shift happening in fundamental physics where information itself seems to have substantial existence. Cosmology is understood via the constraints of holographic boundaries or informational event horizons. Quantum collapse is understood via the thermal decoherence of information - again a limit imposed by the constraints of a context.

And generally, all inanimate systems - especially those that grow, move, self-organise and self-optimise to meet the global purpose of the second law - can be understood as dissipative structures. Which means they must be informationally negentropic to be able to maintain the entropic flows that sustain them. I mean, keep them inanimately alive. :)

So you are welcome to argue against that speculative metaphysics. But it does require you to be able to define what you mean by inanimate. As current physics has radically redefined what it might mean by inanimate.

Er, no.

Er, no. — apokrisis

Glad to have sorted this one out then.

Yep. The standard definition of metabolism is the "chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life". Which leaves then the informational processes that stand apart to regulate that chemistry.

So there’s agreement that tornados are not alive, and are thereby literally inanimate, since they don’t have that which is essential to defining physical life: a metabolism. This just like animated cartoons are literally inanimate—though we term them animations and say they are animated. Language can be an ambiguous thing, granted—especially since so much of it is metaphorical.

As to the metaphysics of what life is, from past discussions I presume you already know we disagree—mainly in the metaphysics of causality and selfhood. We reduce things to different holistic properties.

Animate vs inanimate was not my choice of jargon. I don't need to defend it - as it is what I've been cricitsing.

Sure biology is different from chemistry in some fashion we would want to pin down.

Now either one can argue that the differences are somehow metaphysically accidental - so life is "metabolism" or dissipative structure with a bit of extra DNA organisation - or one can take the view that there is a metaphysical strength difference worth noting here. And that is the hylomorphic position I take - information or semiotic constraint being as fundamental to being as material action.

To be honest, I can't remember what holistic properties you reduce things to. Was it God or spirit or some other kind of mystical transcendent cause?

Certainly, I choose the semiotic approach precisely because it is a holism which is immanent and natural. You have an ontic dualism in sign vs matter. And yet you also have the causal machinery to connect the two sides of the equation.

This is why it is important that physics has just found itself describing the world pansemiotically - as in reaching an equivalence at the fundamental level between Shannon uncertainty and Boltzmann entropy. My metaphysics isn't handwaving. It is the new universal basis for the scientific measurement of nature.

tornados are not alive, and are thereby literally inanimate, since they don’t have that which is essential to defining physical life: a metabolism. This just like animated cartoons are literally inanimate—though we term them animations and say they are animated. Language can be an ambiguous thing, granted—especially since so much of it is metaphorical. — javra

I noted before, the root of the term 'animate' is 'anima' , which is literally 'breath'. So in traditional metaphysics the defining feature of life is 'breath', which doesn't seem too far off the mark.

life is "metabolism" or dissipative structure with a bit of extra DNA organisation — apokrisis

What's the significance of 'dissipative'?

. It is the new universal basis for the scientific measurement of nature. — apokrisis

What about providing a basis for values? I can't see that falling out of what you say. What if what gives rise to life is tendency towards novelty or new kinds of experience? I mean, aside from 'semiosis', your basis for life still seems essentially inanimate.

What about providing a basis for values? — Wayfarer

It gives a naturalistic and immanent basis to value or purpose.

Your other choices are then either the arbitrary or nihilistic answer given by regular materialism, or the transcendent and mystic answer given by the many varieties of religious/romantic belief systems.

I of course have explained many times how both materialism and mysticism are in fact disguised dissipative structure. They both are simply reflections of human social entrainment to the desires of the second law of thermodynamics.

What's the significance of 'dissipative'? — Wayfarer

The same structure or pattern or organisation is sustained by its production of entropy. So it exists because it can waste.

At the end of the day, you're still talking engineering, not philosophy.

At the end of the day, you are talking religious conviction.

Right! Perfectly true. And I think it provides a superior basis for philosophy, because it provides a basis for values, for a sense of reason in the sense of 'the reason why everything exists', not simply the reason why some things breathe, and some things don't, from the perspective of scientific analysis.

So what is it about the values of satanism, for instance, that convinces us of its claims to being a superior basis for philosophy?

Where in the great anthropological variety of transcendent belief structures and moral values am I going to find "the right one"?

And then, to tackle the OP, what is the value of being animate vs inanimate? Is one better than the other, more foundational than the other? What exactly is your argument?

So what is it about the values of satanism, for instance, that convinces us of its claims to being a superior basis for philosophy? — apokrisis

That's like asking, what is it about the destructive power of atomic weapons, or the invention of biological or chemical weapons, that convinces us that science is beneficial for mankind?

Where in the great anthropological variety of transcendent belief structures and moral values am I going to find "the right one"? — apokrisis

That is something each has to decide, and it's a risk. We might get it wrong, and that is part of what we have to deal with (which is one of the lessons from existentialism).

It is one thing to see 'the creator God' as a cosmic demiurge or super-engineer. What I take to be the inner meaning of the Christian tradition, is that the 'source of being' is actually within ourselves. Humans are in some real sense a replica or epitome of the Universe itself, and contain within themselves the source or ground of being, which is what has to be discerned through self-enquiry (although that does sound much more neo-platonist or Vedantic, which is not coincidental.)

So it says that the animate and the inanimate are alike in being hylomorphically semiotic. There is formal and final cause acting by way of top-down constraint to shape substantial being. And what is new here is proposing a mechanism - semiosis - by which that interaction generally happens. — apokrisis

That's what I disagree with, and I think is unreasonable metaphysics. I think there is no reason to believe that physical systems, which are commonly considered to be inanimate, can be said to act through a mechanism of semiosis. Do you believe that a tornado practises semiosis? I think that this is totally unfounded, and therefore your dissolution of the division between animate and inanimate is also unfounded.

And generally, all inanimate systems - especially those that grow, move, self-organise and self-optimise to meet the global purpose of the second law - can be understood as dissipative structures. Which means they must be informationally negentropic to be able to maintain the entropic flows that sustain them. I mean, keep them inanimately alive. — apokrisis

That a system may be modeled as a dissipative structure does not justify the claim that this system practises a mechanism of semiosis. There is a huge gap here which you seem to totally ignore, but it threatens to drop me into the abyss. So I'll just stay clear, and let you pretend that the gap is not there.

That is something each has to decide, and it's a risk. We might get it wrong, and that is part of what we have to deal with (which is one of the lessons from existentialism). — Wayfarer

Fair enough. But then that is the essence of the scientific method. Have a guess and see how it fares in terms of inductive confirmation.

That is Peirce's epistemology in a nutshell. And then that was his pansemiotic metaphysics - his definition of the summum bonum as the universal growth of reasonableness.

So while as usual you are keen to frame me as dealing in Scientism to legitimate your transhuman perspective, when you have to make sense of your own ontology, it winds up sounding classically semiotic.

Thus yes, we both reject the idea of an engineer God. And humans are somehow - naturally - a deep reflection of the form of existence at the cosmological level. Which is the thesis of pansemiosis. The difference is that pansemiosis also makes sense as actual scientific inquiry now. We have begun to talk in constructs that we can physically measure.

Do you believe that a tornado practises semiosis? I think that this is totally unfounded, and therefore your dissolution of the division between animate and inanimate is also unfounded. — Metaphysician Undercover

I said what I believed is that a tornado is the product of semiosis. As a dissipative structure, it is formed almost entirely by constraints outside of itself. It has no self-stabilising level of memory. So it can't "practise" semiosis.

So my ontology both picks out the critical difference and yet still speaks to the semiotic commonality.

For you, there is an abyssal gap perhaps. But that is simply the product of you not reading what I actually say.

We have begun to talk in constructs that we can physically measure. — apokrisis

Which is why I say yours is an engineering perspective. And that's not 'framing you for scientism', as you openly acknowledge being physicalist.

Whereas, part of what is lost with religion is a consciousness of 'the immeasurable'.

At this point, I part company at 'pan-semiosis', as I think that illegitimately takes aspects of Peirce's philosophy, which was overtly idealist, and then substitutes what he meant by 'mind' with the second law of thermodynamics. It's ahead of materialism, but it's still physicalist.

That's the rhetorical advantage of founding your "metaphysics" in the ineffable. No one can call you out for your failure to speak about it meaningfully, let alone provide the material evidence. ;)

That's true. You have to have a sense of what you're missing (and few do).

What secular reason is missing is self-awareness. It is “unenlightened about itself” in the sense that it has within itself no mechanism for questioning the products and conclusions of its formal, procedural entailments and experiments.

At this point, I part company at 'pan-semiosis', as I think that illegitimately takes aspects of Peirce's philosophy, which was overtly idealist, and then substitutes what he meant by 'mind' with the second law of thermodynamics. — Wayfarer

That's what comes from reading too much Pattee, and not enough Sebeok.

It's disingenuous to tout pansemiosis while ignoring psychosemiosis and disparaging aspects of cultural semiosis.

I also would be very much interested in an explanation of how informational constraint and material dynamic combine to form human value systems, not!

never had heard of Sebeok, but thanks, he seems very interesting. Will delve.

But consider an organism that has never reproduced during the entirety of its lifespan; it would hold no biological fitness but would yet have been alive. — Javra

In view of the above, it seems prudent that I elaborate upon my definitions of life to include (N.B. the following examples of definition, not argument):

Life
1. The condition extending from cell division to death, characterised by the ability to metabolise nutrients through semiosis.
2. The duration of an organism's existence.

Natural Life
1. The natural condition extending from cell division to death, characterised by the ability to metabolise nutrients, respond to stimuli, mature, and adapt to the environment through semiosis.
2. The duration of an organism's natural existence.

Human Life
1. The natural condition extending from fertilisation to death, characterised by the ability to metabolise nutrients, respond to stimuli, be aware, mature physically and mentally, reproduce, and adapt to the environment through human semiosis.
2. The duration of a person's existence.

Artificial Life
1. The artificial condition extending from cell division to death, characterised by the ability to metabolise nutrients through semiosis.
2. The duration of an organism's artificial existence.

These are dependent upon the following definitions:

Artifice
Human design.

Nature
The universe unaffected by human beings.

Hence, I would be inclined to classify mules under artificial life, or life which exists by human design, or plan. As well as that condition which obtains when unresponsive human beings are placed on life support machines in hospital.

I said what I believed is that a tornado is the product of semiosis. As a dissipative structure, it is formed almost entirely by constraints outside of itself. It has no self-stabilising level of memory. So it can't "practise" semiosis. — apokrisis

If the semiosis which creates the tornado is external to the tornado itself, then it doesn't fulfill the conditions of "living", which I described earlier, as self-actuating.

And, if the universe itself, as an object, is such a dissipative structure, it would require a semiosis external to it, to produce it. Do you not see this as a serious problem for your metaphysics? You claim to have a metaphysics of immanence, yet your dissipative structures always require an external semiosis for their existence.

Natural Life
1. The natural condition extending from cell division to death, characterised by the ability to metabolise nutrients, respond to stimuli, mature, reproduce, and adapt to the environment through semiosis.
2. The duration of an organism's natural existence. — Galuchat

Worker bees serve as another example of life that does not reproduce. Less genetically predetermined but nevertheless real is the non-reproduction of most wild canids that are not themselves alpha mates.

Would such examples then not constitute natural life within this system of classification?

Worker bees serve as another example of life that does not reproduce. Less genetically predetermined but nevertheless real is the non-reproduction of most wild canids that are not themselves alpha mates. — Javra

Noted. Thanks very much; will drop "reproduce" from Natural Life definition.

Hey, blushing here. Thanks, though. You got me thinking some more about life and reproduction. From previous arguments and examples, I obviously uphold that reproduction is non-essential to life as life applies to individual lifeforms. That stated, and while it is still stringently upheld by me, on the physical plane reproduction is however an essential aspect of generalized-life’s preservation given the fact of death. Wanted to acknowledge this latter aspect of the situation as well.

Biology is replete with its own intense philosophical questions. Such as in questions of identity as pertain to the underlying given(s) whose preservation matters to the sustainment of life in general. We typically think in terms of individual lifeforms. Yet many individual lifeforms depend upon a biological context of species. Hence, one can easily take the perspective that a species’ preservation is paramount in relation to that of one of its individual members. And a species preserves itself via a gene pool comprised of all individual reproducing lifeforms of the species. But then individual species—much like individual genes—are human devised abstractions that no longer neatly correlate to reality once the details are gotten into (obviously when addressing what we conceive as closely related species; for example, such as when the offspring of two species can itself successfully reproduce [as one example, this has recently happened on the East Coast of North America between coyotes and wolves, in part due to scarcity])

Eh, for those who are interested, this line of philosophical thought addressing biological themes can extend in myriad ways.

Basically, however, wanted to acknowledge the importance of reproduction to the continuation of physical life in general. This, again, while denying reproduction to be an essential property to individual life.

Still, imo, to better understand the metaphysical significance of biological reproduction (where one so inclined to enquire) it is good to first understand that reproduction is not essential to the presence of individual, naturally occurring, physical lifeforms.

Thanks very much for your follow-up thoughts. I think if I leave the definitions as they now stand, the phrase "through semiosis" (i.e., information processing, or with reference to organism reproduction, DNA replication) meets the need to convey species survival while the remainder serves to define individual instances.

Please don't hesitate to share any further insights you may have. My intent is that these definitions become formal domain ontology (information science) classes (fields in a relational database). Thanks again.

I of course have explained many times how both materialism and mysticism are in fact disguised dissipative structure. They both are simply reflections of human social entrainment to the desires of the second law of thermodynamics.

Perhaps you can with materialism, but not with mysticism. This is because mysticism is, or is as far as I am concerned, not necessarily concerned with materials. It recognises them as vehicles and realises that the presence of vehicles cannot, with our present degree of knowledge be explained. Following from this is the acknowledgement that the second law is an effect of those vehicles.

That is Peirce's epistemology in a nutshell. And then that was his pansemiotic metaphysics - his definition of the summum bonum as the universal growth of reasonableness.

There is, of course, the caveat of the limitations of the human perspective. Along with this any mature philosophy ought to factor in the possibility that human experience is a construct, a confection hosted by a reality of which those humans are not aware.

That's the rhetorical advantage of founding your "metaphysics" in the ineffable. No one can call you out for your failure to speak about it meaningfully, let alone provide the material evidence. ;)

As any mature philosophy would.

I have pointed out before that there need not be a difference of opinion between the philosopher and the mystic when it comes to metaphysics. The mystic realises she is wearing blinkers, surely philosophers do also.