Definition Of Life Declined

Assertion:

It is a common assertion that life can be defined in purely physical terms, using the science(s) du jour.

I decline to subscribe to this assertion.

Counterpoint:

Life is a function of the involvement of some spiritual entity (or energy, or force, or other such expression) with the elements of what we perceive to be physical space, time, matter, and energy.

There's a lot of other stuff implied by this, (only if you've lost all reason and assume truth of something for which there is no evidence.) but let's, for the moment, just deal with the most direct implication: the animating entity does not terminate when the animated physical construct "dies" (or is disconnected from that which animates it). That's not implied - for example, a computer (or program) may or may not terminate when the program (or subprogram) it's running terminates.

It's really clumsy to keep saying "animating force" or "animating entity" so I'm going to use an already overloaded word to express this concept: spirit (I believe a literal derivation is "breath" but I'm okay with that).

So, spirit + physical = life. Thoughts, dreams, wishes, and all that kind of thing are a function of spirit.

Another consequence of this is that spirit is not limited to a single intersection with physical. We come back.

This has its own special significance: you don't get to make a mess in this life and just leave. You get to live with the result. This makes irresponsibility a bad idea, since whatever good or evil you do will still be here for you when you show up again. (No - that implication would require spirit reproduction alongside physical reproduction and a number of other presuppositions which you haven't yet considered.)

Do I have the math for this? No, but I can tell you from personal experience that there's way more to life than the physical stuff. No, I'm not going the spout a stream of anecdotes. None of this stuff is derived from any sort of biblical work, this is first-hand data.

Was I hallucinating? Nope. [See below. Such data is useless by itself, since contradictions arise between different people's experiences.]

Did I imagine it? Is this all the product of a deranged mind? That would surely be a convenient argument. I've been through the "did it really happen" self-searching thing. I've also compared notes with others whose experiences (which happened in other places at other times) confirmed the general form of the event.

Science, to the degree that it ignores non-physical influence in the universe we inhabit, is going to have a tough time getting all the answers.

Don't close your mind to the unseen. There is such a place as "up" and I've been there. That may bother the inhabitants of FlatLand, but that doesn't make it untrue.

I realize that this rapidly degenerates into a FlatEarthArgument (qv), but still, though the premise be unpopular and "unscientific" I can only tell you what I know.

-- GarryHamilton

What I know may contradict what you know. Your "knowing" something doesn't imply it's more than just a concept.

Argument:

. . . this is first hand data.

Personal experience is worthless - if a color blind person says red doesn't exist... what good is that? When a schizophrenic hears voices and talks to god, what good is that? You cannot believe your own mind and senses; you must have real, objective, repeatable evidence or it is absolutely meaningless. You brain is built to fool you; that's its purpose. Everything you see, hear, touch, smell, taste and hear is filtered through your previous experiences and fluffed out to give you an impression of the world around you, but it's fake, it's a hallucination, you can't rely on a single source, especially yourself.

I agree that a person with impaired senses or someone wearing a blindfold will tend to argue that something does not exist "because I can't see it". I also agree that the brain is not a reliable sensory device. I don't agree that there is no such thing as reality because everything ... is filtered. I also don't agree that I can't rely on my own observation and must therefore seek some kind of consensus. I witness something, I don't believe that asking a dozen other people whether they believe I could have seen it. They weren't there. Now whose filter am I using?
I must disagree with the idea that personal experience is worthless, since relying on that experience has kept me alive. I would tend to agree that using a single source of observation to solicit a consensus in the scientific community is doomed. For that, you need method and reproducibility. If I figure out how to reliably reproduce the conditions that lead to such a conclusion, be assured I will bring that forth. In the meantime, I'm going to trust my own observation.
Color-blindness rarely causes death, but you'd change your opinion immediately if you discovered you are color-blind.

Science, to the degree that it ignores non-physical influence in the universe we inhabit, is going to have a tough time getting all the answers.

Science doesn't ignore anything, it gives credit to anything and everything that can be objectively shown to be true, that sort of rules out human delusions of course.

That may bother the inhabitants of FlatLand, but that doesn't make it untrue.

Scientific people are the only one's with open minds, they are the only group in history to continually change and adapt their beliefs voluntarily when faced with evidence. To believe things without objective evidence isn't having an open mind, it's having an irrational mind; don't confuse the two.

There's more than one way to approach things, for different goals and interests. A doctor is required by ethics and by law to follow a very precise definition of "life" and of "death", and one which is grounded in both science and in law.

A biologist has goals which are best met if they have some kind of scientific definition of "life" and "death".

If you are not a doctor, not a biologist, you may not have reason to be interested in any legal or scientifically oriented definition of life, and instead look in more philosophical or spiritual directions.

None of these things are necessarily in conflict with each other, even though they are different.

-- DougMerritt

You make a good point. An interesting extension of this "science and law" thing is "what happens to law when spiritual recycling is confirmed?" The law of today is essentially founded in the "knowledge" that people only make one trip through life. If/when it is established that it's possible to recover the experience and knowledge of a previous life (is that chuckling I hear at the back?), how does this influence the establishment of trusts and such? Schooling? Voting? What a CanOfWorms. I take it all back. You just get one life. -- gh [How do identical or conjoined twins go from one life to two lives, then?]

Aside from providing a stronger argument for capital punishment :-), possibly proof of reincarnation should have no impact on the laws at all. This life is this life, and the next is the next.

Check out Kim Stanley Robinson's moderately recent "Years of Rice and Salt" alternate history, tracing characters through successive lifetimes in a world where the west was 100% wiped out by the plague about a thousand years ago. An imperfect novel, but interesting if you make it all the way through (aside from the lack of an ending).

Oh my, what a shock. It really did turn into the FlatEarthArgument. I'm hurt. I'm crushed. I'm ruined. Well, sorry, I guess I should bow to the superior IvoryTower thinking. Or not.

Here's someone who will never be in the trenches, doesn't know what a trench looks like, has a shelf full of books with contradictory discussions of what a trench might be, but is careful not to sully this "knowledge" with anything as dirty as experience (since "Personal experience is worthless ...").

His greatest contribution is "you can't prove it" which, frankly, isn't my job. I was there. I saw what I saw. I'm telling you. You're not obliged to believe it. It's true anyway. And, besides, the Earth actually is round.

-- GarryHamilton

Oh, btw, does it seem to anyone else that this idea of there being a spiritual component to man really threatens someone's fundamental beliefs? Hell, I've lived for decades in a world where people have been progressively argued out of the idea that there's anything like a spirit, and managed to continue quite comfortably with my "irrational" insistence that you can't argue it away. The concept has been banished from science. I can speculate that science will eventually figure it out, but I'm disinclined to sit and wait for that day. So, for the time being, I'll just have to continue being an irrational, misguided wretch. -- gh

Maybe it's less that your position is threatening than your claim to have some special sense deprived to the poor "flatlanders", that you don't have to justify yourself because everyone else is blind, is insulting? The earth is round has been the battle-cry of unsubstantiated theories for centuries, most of which are wrong. The response you got out was basically the same as what you put in.

The concept of spirit doesn't threaten my fundamental beliefs, but I see it as a potentially harmful concept. If "spirit" is something that can't be observed, measured, modeled or predicted, it makes science irrelevant. If we accept that sort of "spirit", we can never be sure if an event was the result of physics or spooks. Such a concept would require extraordinary levels of evidence before I could accept it, but by its definition (can't be observed, measured, modeled or predicted) it can't provide those levels of evidence. Even if I had some personal experience that seemed to indicate a spiritual component to man, I'd be skeptical about my perceptions. What sort of evidence could get someone to chuck all of science out the window? -- EricHodges

Why would anyone want to chuck science? Science can't (yet) explain a number of things, but there's plenty of stuff that it does explain/model/predict. I have no beef there. If I have a (shared) experience, and the only logical conclusion I can draw from it is that there is a component to man that, measurable or not, must nonetheless exist, then I don't ask science for its blessing in order to maintain that conclusion.

[If the component is measurable then science can model and predict it. I thought "spirit" meant something that was outside the scope of science, something that could never be measured. -- EH]

I'm well aware that you can't just tell this to critical thinkers and get any acceptance. On the one hand, I could have introduced this on the DefinitionOfLife page, but the RuleOfDibs had already been declared there, and it would have been summarily deleted. I could have simply not bothered in the first place, knowing that scientific disciplines are highly valued here. However, even granting that wide acceptance is unlikely, I still feel that it's worth saying. There will be a small, quiet minority of those who read this who will know it to be true and who will not lay their reputation on the chopping block about it. That's okay. I don't have a reputation to protect, and consensus is not my objective. Besides, it can be kind of fun to poke a little dissent into an otherwise strenuously academic discussion. -- gh

[It's impossible to "know it to be true"; at best, others have similar experiences. More than one person may be color-blind, but that doesn't imply their color vision is better or truer than that of people who are not color-blind.]

Science has made mankind what it is today, science works, it's reliable, and repeatable. I have nothing against the concept of spirit, as a metaphor.. because that's all it is until someone can prove otherwise. Anyone who's ever done any "chemical experimenting" can tell you your brain can make you believe and see a lot of things that aren't true and aren't there, so trusting in ones own personal experiences is not a reliable method of obtaining evidence. With an uncountable number of potential things to choose to believe in, how is one to choose.... I could choose to believe in spirits but I don't, because then I'd also have to believe in pink unicorns, Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, the boogy man, leprechauns and every other unproven myth mankind has created. Science gives us the answer, we believe in things that offer evidence of their existence, otherwise how is one to tell the difference between fact and fiction? We're a story telling race, people enjoy fiction, I love a good story as much as the next person, but people who can't tell fact from fiction scare me. Rational people don't believe things just because. They question everything and look at the known facts and decide based on evidence. There was a time when I assumed most people were rational, however, I've come to realize the vast majority of people on this planet are irrational and can be made to believe just about anything, and that's truly scary! Rationality is a scarce resource! Look at the world today... the US, Iraq, Muslims and Christians... all this fighting is about who's pretend deity is better.

There seems to be an assumption quite often that there is a conflict between accepting an elusive "spirit" and embracing scientific principles. I don't see a need for such a conflict. As science progresses, we find that there is even more to know than we ever thought before. That elusiveness of concrete knowledge drives scientists to strive for greater understanding. That elusiveness of knowing, in my eyes, is at the core of the fabric of life and the embodiment of "spirit". I, for one, decidedly decline to define life. More than that, I believe in not defining it; at the same time as believing strongly in following scientific principles to know it better. As I write this, a zen-like calm washes over me. Is that "spirit"? I don't know, and I am comfortable in not knowing. I DO, however, want to come closer to knowing. -- RonJandrasi

That's the thing about science... we truly want to know, everyone does, we're just more methodical in chasing down the truth, we won't accept myth, we want facts. I'd love to find out there's an after-life, who wouldn't, but with every religion claiming superiority on that subject, one can only ignore them and look to science for facts. Embracing science simply means being big enough to admit that we don't know, but we're looking. Embracing religion and spirit means deluding ourselves into thinking we know, and hiding from the truth that we don't.

I agree; that's why I say I'm comfortable in not knowing... I feel you don't have to follow religious dogma to be in awe of life and have a sense of an underlying spirit though. Nor do I think trying to stay in touch with that elusive mystery is in conflict with conducting science. -- Ron

Science doesn't tolerate anything outside science. If "spirit" is truly outside science (and not just an unknown force/event/physic/whatever) then it invalidates science. There's not much point in studying gravity if ghosts can come along and violate any gravity model we create. There is more to know than we thought before. Accepting "spirit" introduces an obstacle to knowing that. Either everything that exists/occurs is subject to the scientific method or it isn't. There's no middle ground. -- EricHodges

By definition, there can be nothing outside of science, for anything that can be observed falls within the realm of science. Gods, Ghost's and Spirits already fall within the realm of science as is... they are currently classified as superstition! Science doesn't close it's mind to anything, it just classifies and explains them... if someone comes along and proves spirits exists, then science will accept it, study it, and move on because that's what science does, it searches for truth, rather than attempting to make it up, which is the realm of religion.

If you're using a definition of "spirit" that falls within science, then we can just call it an unknown something. We don't have to decline to define life. We don't have to treat spirit any differently than we treat dark matter. I thought GH was talking about "spirit" that was outside the scope of science. If not, then his experiences can be reproduced, measured, modeled, predicted, etc. -- EricHodges

Accepting spirit might be absolute if you do so dogmatically, but not if you accept the POSSIBILITY of spirit. That would be very scientific. -- ron

Science accepts the possibility of anything not yet observed and/or modeled. Spirit has no special status. -- EH

In particular, since GarryHamilton has direct personal evidence, a simple scientific interpretation would be that GarryHamilton has "spirit" while the status of other people's spirit remains undefined. This isn't a particularly threatening viewpoint for anyone other than the dogmatics and pedantics.

Or, it could be an illusion. Am I to take all illusions as actually real, but simply invisible to me?

Just to play devil's advocate, usually reproducibility (at least in principle) is considered a requirement, yet it's conceivable that there are real but inherently non-reproducible phenomenon. The thing about the famous "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences" is that we're sort of lucky that the universe largely seems to behave in a reasonable way. But if it also includes weird stuff that doesn't play by the rules, then science might eventually be out of luck. -- dm

So your simple scientific interpretation is that some people can "have spirit"? How do they have it? Where is it located? How much does it weigh? -- EH

I don't know, how much does imagination weigh? If someone believes they have spirit, then as far as they're concerned, they do, the mind is a wonderful thing that way. Your world in completely shaped by your own beliefs and prejudices, but that doesn't make belief physically real. I can accept that people believe they have spirits, as long as they accept it's only their opinion and not fact. People need to believe all sorts of things to help them cope with the world, not all need be real.

Beliefs are real. They are configurations of neurons in nervous systems.

No, beliefs are abstract, they are metaphor... yes, everything is a configuration of neurons, but beliefs are software... not hardware. Methods are metaphors, but you don't call them real because they are configurations of transistors do you? The best you can say is that beliefs are virtual, they exist in an abstract space we call the self, our own personal operating system.

I call them all real. Everything is real. If it isn't real, it isn't a thing. It's a tautology. The self is not an abstract space. Operating systems are not abstract. They occupy real space and real time.

Moving electrons are real, the information we compute from that, while real, is abstract, it exists in an idea space. I'm not saying it's not real, I'm saying its metaphor, which is a concept, not a physical thing. If you don't believe the self is an abstract space, the please enlighten me on its exact location, you'll have solved the greatest philosophical problem of all time.

My "self" is sitting in a chair (slouching a bit), in front of a keyboard and monitor, in an office on the planet Earth. My sense of self, my self-awareness, my metaphors for my self, etc., are all located in my nervous system. None of them slop over onto the desk. These words about them are stored on Ward's hard drive as magnetic patterns in RAM and on disk. Most of the neurons in my nervous system are located inside my skull, but others are distributed throughout my body. This is not a great philosophical problem.

Sure it is, because you can't say which piece is the self. Cut off your arm - is your self still there? Scoop out a chunk of brain - is your self still there? In most cases, the answer is yes. We know the self is centered somewhere in the brain, but we know too little about how the brain works to say where and how the idea of self is stored. Take away all your senses, and you still feel a sense of self, hell, cut out half the brain.. and you still feel a sense of self, the self isn't a physical thing you can point too. If you don't think this is a philosophical problem, you don't read much philosophy.

I can say that all of me is my self. I can say that some set of neurons contains my sense of self. I don't have to know which neurons those are to make that claim. Every thing is a physical thing, even ideas about things. I've read enough philosophy to know this isn't a great philosophical problem.

Apparently not!

Also, what's the difference between it and material substances? Is it ever destroyed, and is it ever created?

Do we have reason to think it isn't composed of matter and/or energy?

[Yes. The self is composed of information. Information, unlike an electron, requires no minimum amount of energy to store or compute it.]

All information is composed of patterns of matter and/or energy. I challenge you to provide an example that isn't.

There was a hypothesis and a movie that said the soul weighed 21 grams.. -- ron

Debunked. Pre-20th-century scientific hypothesis. No truth to it. -- dm

Clearly, the truth of "1=1" is real but not physical. The exchange above confuses reality and physicality.

Information, unlike an electron, requires no minimum amount of energy to store or compute it.

Yes, but it does require a minimum amount of energy to erase it or communicate it. See ReversibleLogic.

There is also a minimum volume of space to store information. See Bekenstein Bound.