> The core philosophical question is actually interesting: what is a machine? [...] I wish the author had focused on the philosophical substance of “what even i

> The core philosophical question is actually interesting: what is a machine? [...] I wish the author had focused on the philosophical substance of “what even is a machine?” Indeed, and here we enter the land of metaphysics. Empirical science is not inherently mechanistic, though you cannot be blamed for making the mistake of thinking so given the crude metaphors we learn in school or how the methodological presumptions within scientific disciplines affect how we model and make predictions about phenomena. Even when not intended as literal characterizations of reality, against the backdrop of scientism, it is easy to reify metaphors into metaphysical truths if you don't know any better, when an authority figure compels you to do so, or when you fail to detect the whiff of contradiction. From experience, I will say that it is difficult to dislodge the mechanistic bias after a childhood spent having it reinforced in school and educational material. It might take a while to heal from the brain damage. But where this article is concerned, I think the author missed what is the essential difference between a machine and a living thing, namely, that while the parts of a machine are arranged according to ends external to the arrangement (the artificer) and, more importantly, have no inherent tendency to operate the way they do, the "parts" of living things are inherently ordered toward an end. To put it in technical language, the parts of a machine (or artifact) are joined together by an accidental form, while what makes an organism is a substantial form. Of course, a mechanistic view of the world excludes substantial form and telos as a presupposition of its founding charter, not as the conclusion of a demonstration from observation or logical necessity, and so a "mechanist" is conceptually prevented from distinguishing machines from living things from the start. [0] A nice article about mechanism: https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/05/deus-ex-machina.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/05/deus-ex-machina.htm... [1] For those tempted to construe reality in computational terms: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4SjM0oabZazckZnWlE1Q3FtdGs/view?resourcekey=0-9o43hlDMbPHyAnPzxOn1iQ https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4SjM0oabZazckZnWlE1Q3FtdGs...