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One feature of living things is that, in a metaphysical sense, the whole precedes the parts (you might get away with calling them simultaneous in some simple ca
by lo_zamoyski 3y ago
One feature of living things is that, in a metaphysical sense, the whole precedes the parts (you might get away with calling them simultaneous in some simple cases, but it isn't the case with complex organisms). To call a collection of things incidentally arranged "living" is to either pass the buck and assign "life" status to the thing doing the "using", or to adopt a mechanistic view of reality that renders the notion of "life" meaningless.
- actionfromafar 3y agoTrue, but your parent comment isn’t there.
- causi 3y agomechanistic view of reality that renders the notion of "life" meaningless. Correct. All notions are tools constructed by and for human minds for their own purposes. It's possible to hypothesize a definition-breaking example for nearly everything that isn't a mathematical abstract. What counts is useful definitions. In the case of "life" we already have many examples of things that don't perfectly fit the definition, like viruses and prions.