Vitalism vs. mechanism

Let's back up a step here, and translate, for those of us who get tired of seeing -isms everywhere.

lol ok.

I mean that whether ou believe in a 'life force' or that living things are machines. At least that's as far as I know about certain type of vitalism, mechanism, anyone who knows more please post if you can.

Ray

I don't accept neither of them.
Mechanism makes indispensable a God,with a purpose. You see, in any machine - a car, a gun, a watch - all parts exist only in order to achieve a final result. That final result is the function that was planned to that machine. A machine exists because it was built for a purpose.

We are not machines. But, if someone believes we are, then must also accept that an entity has created us with a purpose.

About vitalism: I don't see the need of introducing in a life system some exterior principle. Life to me is a chain of adequations, adaptations, compensations. Or, as Atlan says, "a game of molecular interactions".
I always saw Bergson's vitalism as some sort of metaphor, with no real meaning.

Good point Val.

I'm getting the feeling that mechanism is getting more support nowadays.

I like the idea of mechanism more.
But

I have an issue in the following, which I have thought of often:

This is making a ridiculous assumption, but please, bear with it, as I think the means of performing the following action are irrelevant. What are important are the implications.
Let us assume, for the moment, that my brother has 'the force' from star wars or has some other miraculous power. Let us assume that he has the power to take every molecule of my body and control it with the force, and he decides to explode my body, keeping careful track of each particle. To the ends of the galaxy go my component pieces, all in different directions. There they wait for ten or twelve days. As this is sufficient time to make the reality of what is happening sink in, my brother then draws back all of my component parts and reforms a person with all parts in their proper place, a few feet away from where I was standing before. Does the bag of cells created live? I think so. But do 'I' remain? what will this experience be like for me? Will it be a death? What if he made me half out of new particles and he discarded the replaced half? Does the fraction matter? If he used ALL NEW particles, then what?

This question really gets under my skin, and the answer is key to your question, I think.

By machinism, you refer to the whole biological emphasis on a body as a set of processes and organs and so forth, instead of something with a "life force"? Hmm. Well:

1. Even scientists don't have a set of rules for distinguishing a "living" thing from a "nonliving" thing (like a robot who has been programmed with human-like reactions).
2. If there is some "life force" or "spirit" I think it would be nature be out of the realm of science, and thus, scientists wouldn't be able to see it.

That's all I'm aware of on the subject, and it seems to leave us no closer to an answer. Either there is something, or we just don't know everything there is to know about how living things work. Or both.

Wow Binny, I had the same thoughts a while back, except that instead of the force I was thinking about teleportation and was actually pondering on one day writing a novel on that. As you might know, teleportation requires the original materials to be 'destroyed' and then the patterns of the materials will be scanned to a bunch of materials in another place and they will structure the body identical to the previous one. As you have mentioned, will 'I' still be there after my original materials are destroyed? The new body might have my memories and stuffs, but is it really me? Am 'I' still alive?

Binny and Ray, what is this "I" that you refer to? Is it not also an external mechanism imposed on the living organism, about as unnecessary for understanding the workings of the organism as are the spirit or life force and mechanism correctly rejected by Rufio and Val.

Ray, maybe we could collaborate!

JLN,
I think you're right about understanding the workings of the organism. For all persons other than oneself, the question of 'I' is a non-issue. But to oneself, it is a big issue due to the example I used.

What I mean is this: If you could describe the experience you think you would have, would you describe it as:
I'm standing there; I'm standing there; Whoa something happens; pain; a funny feeling; my leg is gone; my whole body except my head is gone; my head feels funny; I like ice creaasc;lakjsdlll,rj a;lkjfasdo ijsd;lkjv;asdlkf...
and then either
... forever
or
... ksdjfl;akdjorija;sldkfj ;klsdjf; lnm; lkj ;slkdjionem and corn is good; ow ow ow ow ow; ooooh I can see again; whoa that was weird; cool my body is back; I don't think I want to do that all the time

It seems obvious that the latter is what the "person" that exists in the new place would say was its experience. But is it you? Clearly if the particles used to construct it were ALL DIFFERENT, it WOULD NOT be you. But if the particles were half the same particles, and the others were new and introduced by my brother (but identical to their respective replacements), then would I still be me? Regardless of the percent of new particles (0% through 100%), the body, when asked, would answer the same. This is the essence of the question, "what am I" or "what is the soul", and I am not ready to dismiss it as nonsense.

binny, an interesting thought experiment (way out and untestable but creative). And your point shows the importance for human functioning of the ego, of the sense of being a center of experience and action. But that does not, nevertheless, make the ego ontologically real. It only shows it to be functionally necessary, and I have stated so in more than one thread before. We find the ego to be, in varying degrees of strength universal among humans; I doubt that we would have survived without it (and language). But as a philosophical (and spiritual) matter, it is illusory. By the way, if it is true that we replace virtually all of our cells every seven years or so, am "I" the same "self" now that I was twenty years ago? I feel, most of the time, that I AM the same self.

That's one take on it, JLN!

I will be more confident when you tell me the same thing after pondering on it a few thousand years as one of the cyborgs I will help us (all?each?) to become!

I have thought often of the cellular problem, too. But a flaw in that is that nervous system cells do not fall into this category, unless I have my facts wrong. But I would have no problem with this even if all cells were replaced. It's the possibility of all at once, and large fractions at once that worries me.

Binny

I will leave the concept of "soul" in peace, because it's something I think has no real meaning.

Now, about your statement.
If all particles that are in Val as an entity suffer a dispersion and later are united in the same patterns as before, will that entity be Val?
I would say "yes" if, the new entity has all memories of Val and only those memories. But it has more: his memory includes the loss of legs, organs ... but, a Val without all that is still Val? Don't you think that in that case, the new entity would have, in some ways, the memory of the death of the previous Val? The new entity would have memories that the first entity had not. Could we see in the second entity the same entity as the first? Here, I would say "no".

The point is, if I understand you, to know if identity is the same as a number of particles in a configuration or pattern.
But in order to answer that, as you have pointed, I would have to know "what is to be Binny". And I don't know. No one knows that. Except Binny.

I was thinking that because the continuing pattern of his life would be broken, then the new identical binny might not be 'binny' after all.



You might be right there. I'm wondering whether what the Buddhists call ego is the same as what I meant when I talked about self. What I mean by self is the continuing pattern of life, but I think it's a mistake for me to call it self. However, I see your point, at least I'm trying to, in asserting that the self isn't real. This is one of the things that when I was studying Buddhism I was confused about.

Ray, we've discussed that matter on many other threads in the philosophy and religion forums. I'm leaving town soon, but I'm taking my lap top with me. I'll get back to this issue with you this afternoon.
JLN

Thanks JLN, there are some things I need clarified.

First, what do they mean by 'ego'.

Second, if there is no self in people then what does matter?

Third, who exist?

Ray, I can't make any definitive statements on this complex matter, but I do have opinions. You ask what Buddhists mean by ego. I understand "ego" to refer to the illusion of a "being" within us, a subject of experience and agent of actions. That is to say, that I do not just have experiences, but experiences are happening to a "me" (ego). Moreover, when I feel thirst and drink water, there is not just "drilnking water", there the agent of this action, another expression of ego. Self implies all that is not self, or "other." Subject implies object. Therefore, the world is objectified; it consists of all that is not me. This division alienates, or gives the illusion of alienation of a self from the world. From the Buddhist perspective, you do not HAVE experiences and PERFORM actions. You ARE those experiences and actions. This non-dualist orientation re-connects you with the world, including the world of your experiences which are your very life. This is my understanding of the term, "religion." Re-connect=re-ligion, where "ligion" comes from "ligare" or ligament, that which connects (our ligaments connect bones and muscle, something like that).
You ask if there is no self "in" people then what matters? And you ask who exists? The wonderful experience of mystics (e.g., hindu yogis, Islamic sufis, taoist and zen practictioners, etc.) rest on "liberation" from the illusion of a separate self. For them life is non-problematical, without need for fame, recognition, security. They just live each moment without grasping at it for the enhancement and protection of imagined selves. Who exists? That's for you to find out by examining your experience of self, by seeing it for what it is.

-edited

val,

it seems that by your description, the me of two minutes from now is not the same me as now in the same sense. Is this an accurate conclusion, or am I reaching beyond my grasp?

JLN, of all the 'isms' (including atheism) I find buddhism the most likely to be 'right'. However, I find atheism to be much more suited to me, as I don't want to dedicate my life to an 'ism' that is not motivated toward the ascension to the 'superlife' I envision.

Ray, the Buddhism I resonate to is not an "ism." It is not a set of ideas to attach to. Indeed, I always feel uncomfortable when I discuss the perspective as I understand it. An aspect of this Buddhism is its indifference to egos, souls, gods, afterlives, etc. I guess it may be considered atheistic, but not a system of atheISM.
But I understand you position: enjoy your own trajectory, not mine.

Look lads:-

I think you might be better off smoking something a bit milder.

spendius.