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Why Life Does Not Really Exist (2013)

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: Why Life Does Not Really Exist (2013)

#31

Post by uoaei »

hahajk wrote: post #6
Fellshard wrote: post #2

Reheated pure materialism. Not terribly interesting, and the only thing removing category distinctions here will do for you is give license to treat any organism however you wish - you have removed any semblance of moral consideration from the equation. And that, I think, few will accept: the experience each person has of living testifies against such a view. There is more to life, and to /our/ lives, than mere engin…

But morality only concerns itself a certain complex class of organisms, right? We don't weep for loss of innocent life we inflict when we take antibiotics.

Morality is importantly a question for the individual. The question is, what do you weep for, not what do we weep for. If you're taking moral cues from others, you're not doing morality, just groupthink.

Re: Why Life Does Not Really Exist (2013)

#33

Post by uoaei »

The main thrust of the argument (one I agree with vociferously) is that life is not a category, it is either an aspect of every physical system or it is one pole of a very-hard-to-quantify spectrum of such systems. Another way to put it is, living is what systems do and some systems do more of it than others.

There is much to say about intelligence in relation to life but best to stay on the latter for now considering this forum's apoplectic reactions to discussion on the former.

Re: Why Life Does Not Really Exist (2013)

#34

Post by karmakaze »

munch117 wrote: post #28

Lawyers have a saying: "Hard cases make bad precedent." I think a version of that applies here. ("Hard cases make bad definitions"?) We have a real and observable phenomenon surrounding us, and we have a name for it, 'life'. If we seek out border cases that may or may not be a part of this group of things, then that doesn't really help us describe what the main body of this thing is. Life is not an abstract thing, it…

Let's say there was a fractal set that included members that has a 'life' property, but that we had no simple test or definition. Looking at the boundaries of what's in or outside the set would be futile as we could indefinitely split hairs and find examples that are successively closer to being in but actually out. This isn't to say that such a set doesn't exist.

Re: Why Life Does Not Really Exist (2013)

#35

Post by sowbug »

dbsmith83 wrote: post #32
sowbug wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/whom/who/

No, "whom" is the objective form, and in this context, it functions as the object of the verb "is asking."

As I read the original quote, the questioner wants to know the identity of the person doing the asking (the subject), not the identity of the person or thing being asked (the object).

Or to look at it another way, a valid answer to the question would be "I am asking," or "she is asking," or "they are asking," all of which are subjects. It would be incorrect to answer "her is asking." He/she/they/who are a group, and Him/her/them/whom are a group.

Re: Why Life Does Not Really Exist (2013)

#36

Post by joenot443 »

munch117 wrote: post #28

Lawyers have a saying: "Hard cases make bad precedent." I think a version of that applies here. ("Hard cases make bad definitions"?) We have a real and observable phenomenon surrounding us, and we have a name for it, 'life'. If we seek out border cases that may or may not be a part of this group of things, then that doesn't really help us describe what the main body of this thing is. Life is not an abstract thing, it…

Well said. My immediate thought was to a legal expression as well, "de minimis non curat lex", "the law does not concern itself with trifles."

Leveraging edge cases to form one's understanding of a concept seems to leave one more concerned with the marginal than the broader topic at hand. It's a well written article, just not how I personally aim to taxonomize these days.

Re: Why Life Does Not Really Exist (2013)

#37

Post by sdiupIGPWEfh »

breuleux wrote: post #20
Fellshard wrote: post #2

Reheated pure materialism. Not terribly interesting, and the only thing removing category distinctions here will do for you is give license to treat any organism however you wish - you have removed any semblance of moral consideration from the equation. And that, I think, few will accept: the experience each person has of living testifies against such a view. There is more to life, and to /our/ lives, than mere engin…

> the only thing removing category distinctions here will do for you is give license to treat any organism however you wish This is only true if what stops you from treating certain organisms in a certain way are these objective category distinctions (rather than the approximate ones your brain makes), but I don't think that's generally how it works. People who wish to harm others will harm others regardless, the onl…

> People who wish to harm others will harm others regardless, the only thing that will stop them is consequences. On the other hand, people who don't wish harm to others will not harm others regardless of whether they believe objective categories or objective morality exists.

This discounts that there are those who wish to harm others who aim to persuade others still to look the other way or even join in on the harm. If the only argument against them is that they'll face consequences, they only have to grow their numbers large enough to avoid said consequences.

To say nothing of those who'll argue against there being any consequences in the first place.

Re: Why Life Does Not Really Exist (2013)

#38

Post by dbsmith83 »

sowbug wrote: post #35
dbsmith83 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, "whom" is the objective form, and in this context, it functions as the object of the verb "is asking."

As I read the original quote, the questioner wants to know the identity of the person doing the asking (the subject), not the identity of the person or thing being asked (the object). Or to look at it another way, a valid answer to the question would be "I am asking," or "she is asking," or "they are asking," all of which are subjects. It would be incorrect to answer "her is asking." He/she/they/who are a group, and…

Ah, I see your point now. Makes sense
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