Materialism

[altonhare]

We might define life as that which engages in unpredictable, self-propelled motion. By self-propelled I mean the entire entity changes location through internal processes, i.e. the whole entity moves merely by moving its constituents. A rock does not undergo internal processes which change the location of the rock as a whole. Sure the atoms are vibrating back and forth and such, but the entity rock is defined by a specific set of distances of its constituents relative to each other only. In other words, it is defined by the internal coordinates of its constituents only. This makes sense, the entity "rock" shouldn't depend on anything except the constituents that comprise it.

*quick sidenote. I have said that an object that exists has always existed and will always exist. Here I need to distinguish between the definition of "object", which is continuous, and "entity", which is discontinuous (comprised of objects). An object, which is continuous, can not cease to exist because this demands that something become nothing, an explicit contradiction. An entity, however, can cease to exist if the spatial criteria we define it by are violated, i.e. Alice is no longer Alice when we chop her head off, she's Alice's head and Alice's body now.*

But the rock's location, on the other hand, is defined by the set of distances from its constituents to every other object in the universe. Although the constituents of the rock are moving relative to each other internally, they engage in no net motion relative to the other objects in the universe. Unless, of course, an object/entity that is not a part of the rock influences the rock.

On the other hand a living entity may engage in net motion relative to the other objects in the universe simply by moving the objects that comprise it. I stand up, my constituents moved in such a way that resulted in net motion of me as a whole. My constituents are at a new set of relative internal locations that resulted in a net change in my location as a whole. A rock cannot do this. It engages in net motion only by virtue of the motion of objects that do not comprise it. A living entity engages in net motion by virtue of its own constituents.

While you're sitting there, on the couch, your constituents are bouncing around fulfilling some limited set of internal spatial criteria. By definition you are moving relative to the other objects in the universe, but you are moving like a rock, only by virtue of the motion of other objects. Only when your internal configuration changes to fulfill a new set of internal spatial criteria *and* this results in a new location for you as a whole, have you moved like a living entity.

Succinctly, the first requirement of life is simply self-propulsion.

By unpredictable I mean that we cannot know what a living entity will do. This is not the same thing as non-determinant. Each action of the living entity is a result of the previous action. However, most of the motion of a living entity's constituents is devoted to maintaining the integrity of the entity itself, which I call internal integration. This is defined as a *purely internal* process. By this I mean it has nothing to do with how the constituents interact with outside objects, but rather has everything to do simply with the act of remaining at a specific relative proximity. If this were not true then the entity would not have developed life in the first place, it would have simply fallen apart. As a result typically very little of an entity's motions are involved in what we term "consciousness", which is simply constitutive motion not resulting in internal integration, which includes all interactions with external objects. The reason a living entity is unpredictable is because predicting is something only other living entities do, but is not related to maintaining structural integrity, so relatively small constitutive motion is devoted to it. So while a relatively small amount of a living entity is devoted to perception and prediction, that which is being perceived and predicted is quite vast.

Humans are very unique in that we have developed consciousness to an apparently high level. This seems somewhat anomalous. It seems far more advantageous for a living entity to devote as little to consciousness as possible and as much to internal integration as possible. Certainly if a living entity falls apart, that's the end of that. But if the entity sacrifices a bit of perception/response capability its chances of survival may be lower, but they are not 0 as they are when the entity falls apart.

Indeed, some of the most long-lived species known to man are also some of the most absolute basic and mundane. Most of the long-lived life forms (in terms of individual life span and/or the species' life span) we know of seem to possess only the barest degree of consciousness. Life exists to perpetuate life, by definition, or there would be no life. Perpetuating life itself isn't very difficult, perpetuating life with a fantastic consciousness that is doing nothing to maintain the life-form itself's structural integrity is quite a task.

Finally, people want to know if/when we will develop "antigravity machines". The answer is that we already have, right here on earth. A human, or any life-form, is an antigravity machine. It defies gravity (standing up) purely though its own internal effort, something a nonliving entity can never do. A living entity of sufficient structural integrity and of the right configuration could jump right off the planet. A rock, at best, may get knocked off the planet by another entity.

So, yes I believe living entities are unpredictable. No, I don't believe identical circumstances can have different outcomes.

[klypp]

Everything in the universe is constantly changing. This is as fundamental as matter itself. Or, as webolife put it, "matter and energy have no beginning or end, they are eternal."
If you want to get materialism right, you'll have to include this eternal and continual change. Or else, you'll inevitable end up with some kind of first cause or a cause from the outside , i.e. a god.

"Free will" is not working very well as a refutation of determinism. You will still have to explain how a determinstic world at some point turns into an indeterminstic world. If "free will" is not a consequence of matter and motion, you are left only with some kind of outside cause, a god.
However, you don't need this to see that determinism is not a good idea. After all, isn't a simple coin flip less predictable than any choice by a "free will"?

Here is what one materialist, Friedrich Engels, had to say about determinsim:

In opposition to this view there is determinism, which passed from French materialism into natural science, and which tries to dispose of chance by denying it altogether. According to this conception only simple, direct necessity prevails in nature. That a particular pea-pod contains five peas and not four or six, that a particular dog’s tail is five inches long and not a whit longer or shorter, that this year a particular clover flower was fertilised by a bee and another not, and indeed by precisely one particular bee and at a particular time, that a particular windblown dandelion seed has sprouted and another not, that last night I was bitten by a flea at four o’clock in the morning, and not at three or five o’clock, and on the right shoulder and not on the left calf – these are all facts which have been produced by an irrevocable concatenation of cause and effect, by an unshatterable necessity of such a nature indeed that the gaseous sphere, from which the solar system was derived, was already so constituted that these events had to happen thus and not otherwise. With this kind of necessity we likewise do not get away from the theological conception of nature. Whether with Augustine and Calvin we call it the eternal decree of God, or Kismet as the Turks do, or whether we call it necessity, is all pretty much the same. for science. There is no question of tracing the chain of causation in any of these cases; so we are just as wise in one as in another, the so-called necessity remains an empty phrase, and with it – chance also remains – what it was before. As long as we are not able to show on what the number of peas in the pod depends, it remains just a matter of chance, and the assertion that the case was foreseen already in the primordial constitution of the solar system does not get us a step further. Still more. A science which was to set about the task of following back the casus of this individual pea-pod in its causal concatenation would be no longer science but pure trifling; for this same peapod alone has in addition innumerable other individual, accidentally appearing qualities: shade of colour, thickness and hardness of the pod, size of the peas, not to speak of the individual peculiarities revealed by the microscope. The one pea-pod, therefore, would already provide more causal connections for following up than all the botanists in the world could solve.

And, while we're at it, I'll also include what Engels had to say about identy, as opposed to the views so far presented in this thread.

Abstract identity (a=a; and negatively, a cannot be simultaneously equal and unequal to a) is likewise inapplicable in organic nature. The plant, the animal, every cell is at every moment of its life identical with itself and yet becoming distinct from itself, by absorption and excretion of substances, by respiration, by cell formation and death of cells, by the process of circulation taking place, in short, by a sum of incessant molecular changes which make up life and the sum-total of whose results is evident to our eyes in the phases of life – embryonic life, youth, sexual maturity, process of reproduction, old age, death. The further physiology develops, the more important for it become these incessant, infinitely small changes, and hence the more important for it also the consideration of difference within identity, and the old abstract standpoint of formal identity, that an organic being is to be treated as something simply identical with itself, as something constant, becomes out of date. Nevertheless, the mode of thought based thereon, together with its categories, persists. But even in inorganic nature identity as such is in reality non-existent. Every body is continually exposed to mechanical, physical, and chemical influences, which are always changing it and modifying its identity. Abstract identity, with its opposition to difference, is in place only in mathematics – an abstract science which is concerned with creations of thought, even though they are reflections of reality – and even there it is continually being sublated. Hegel, Enzyklopädie, I, p. 235. The fact that identity contains difference within itself is expressed in every sentence, where the predicate is necessarily different from the subject; the lily is a plant, the rose is red, where, either in the subject or in the predicate, there is something that is not covered by the predicate or the subject. Hegel, p. 231. That from the outset identity with itself requires difference from everything else as its complement, is self-evident.

Continual change, i.e., sublation of abstract identity with itself, is also found in so-called inorganic nature. Geology is its history. On the surface, mechanical changes (denudation, frost), chemical changes (weathering); internally, mechanical changes (pressure), heat (volcanic), chemical (water, acids, binding substances); on a large scale – upheavals, earthquakes, etc. The slate of today is fundamentally different from the ooze from which it is formed, the chalk from the loose microscopic shells that compose it, even more so limestone, which indeed according to some is of purely organic origin, and sandstone from the loose sea sand, which again is derived from disintegrated granite, etc., not to speak of coal.

* * *
The law of identity in the old metaphysical sense is the fundamental law of the old outlook: a=a. Each thing is equal to itself. Everything was permanent, the solar system, stars, organisms. This law has been refuted by natural science bit by bit in each separate case, but theoretically it still prevails and is still put forward by the supporters of the old in opposition to the new: a thing cannot simultaneously be itself and something else. And yet the fact that true, concrete identity includes difference, change, has recently been shown in detail by natural science (see above).

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... /ch07c.htm

Or, as Heraklit once said, "one cannot step into the same river twice"!

[altonhare]

Everything in the universe is constantly changing. This is as fundamental as matter itself. Or, as webolife put it, "matter and energy have no beginning or end, they are eternal."eternal."

I'd state the first sentence as:

Every continuous object in the universe constantly changes location. More succinctly, every continuous object moves.

And yes I agree that this is fundamental, just as the existence of an indivisible continuous constituent is fundamental. I also agree that the fundamental constituency of the universe has no "beginning or end" and neither does the motion of these constituents have some first cause "beginning".

"Free will" is not working very well as a refutation of determinism. You will still have to explain how a determinstic world at some point turns into an indeterminstic world. If "free will" is not a consequence of matter and motion, you are left only with some kind of outside cause, a god.

Agreed again. Every motion of every existent object is caused by the motion of another existent object. If one disagrees they are left saying that the motions of objects are caused by... nonexistent objects.

However, you don't need this to see that determinism is not a good idea. After all, isn't a simple coin flip less predictable than any choice by a "free will"?

Now this I don't really understand. Your first sentence implies that the previous sentences give one reason to think determinism is a "bad idea" and states that there is a more compelling reason to think this in the sentence following. But the previous sentences all appeared to be arguments in favor of determinism.

The second sentence is talking about predictability. Predictability only has meaning in the context of conscious, living entity that has achieved self-propulsion. The living entity defines external entities as living or nonliving on the basis of how "predictable" they are *only* after determining that it is self-propelled. The coin is incapable of moving itself purely through the motion of its internal constituents.

After determining that an entity is self-propelled the observer analyzes how predictable it is and classifies it as alive or not. Yes this distinction is a matter of degree in the sense that a coin is not perfectly predictable, in the sense that no event is perfectly predictable because living entities devote most of their constitutive motion to simply staying together. What's left over is devoted to perceiving/reacting to externals like coin flips.

There is no question of tracing the chain of causation in any of these cases; so we are just as wise in one as in another, the so-called necessity remains an empty phrase, and with it – chance also remains – what it was before. As long as we are not able to show on what the number of peas in the pod depends, it remains just a matter of chance, and the assertion that the case was foreseen already in the primordial constitution of the solar system does not get us a step further.

Right, here Engels is distinguishing between determinism i.e. causation, and predictability i.e. conscious perception/reaction. Determinism is not an empty phrase because it distinguishes those who are searching for *existent* causes from those who are searching for *nonexistent* causes. A scientist that does not accept determinism runs into the problem I outlined earlier, in the example with the two scientists. The scientist who does not accept determinism never learns anything because, well, there's nothing to learn. There are no causal pathways.

A science which was to set about the task of following back the casus of this individual pea-pod in its causal concatenation would be no longer science but pure trifling; for this same peapod alone has in addition innumerable other individual, accidentally appearing qualities: shade of colour, thickness and hardness of the pod, size of the peas, not to speak of the individual peculiarities revealed by the microscope. The one pea-pod, therefore, would already provide more causal connections for following up than all the botanists in the world could solve.

Engels has it exactly backwards here. In science we are *always* trying to find causal pathways, i.e. we are *always* trying to explain what happened. If you're not tryign to explain what happened, what the hell are you doing?

The other options. Instead of explaining WHY (causal pathway) the pea-pod has 4 peas, you could simply state THAT it has four peas. The latter is a description and the former is an explanation. Of course, if modern science is just all about describing what you see then science has lost its way. You don't have to be a genius to state that light IS fast, or that this pea IS green, or that bricks ARE hard. Science is about explaining whyyy light is fast, this pea is green, and this brick is hard. Explaining why involves a causal pathway.

Engels' objection that there are innumerable qualities of the pea is irrelevant. All he is describing is the "limited bandwidth" of consciousness. Just because we pursue the explanation of a single observation at a time, in a sea of potentially millions, does not alter the fact that we *must* accept determinism in order to say anything meaningful.

Engels, like most, doesn't understand identity. In particular he mixes the static concept of identity with the dynamic concept of motion and erroneously concludes that, just because objects move, they can't retain a particular (concrete) identity.

Abstract identity (a=a; and negatively, a cannot be simultaneously equal and unequal to a) is likewise inapplicable in organic nature.

Anyone, anywhere, show me a single example of ANYTHING that is not itself. Just once! Here he makes a blanket statement about "organic nature". In his ensuing argument he forgets about the immutability and fundamental necessity of a fundamental constituent altogether, then he confuses the static identity of an entity (THIS set of locations of THESE constituents right now) with the dynamic concept of motion (the constituents of this entity move over there and now this entity is not itself anymore but a new entity *with a new identity*). A does not magically change identities because of motion. A ceases to exist and B comes into existence, purely by virtue of the motion of fundamental constituents.

Dorothy=Dorothy (right now, this very instant)

I chop off dorothy's head

Dorothy's head = Dorothy's head

Dorothy's body = Dorothy's body

In all cases something is what it is. What happened was the motion of particular objects and entities brought about a change in the motion/location of other objects/entities, destroying their previously defined identity, resulting in new entities each with a particular specific identity.

The plant, the animal, every cell is at every moment of its life identical with itself and yet becoming distinct from itself, by absorption and excretion...

An excellent example of what I was just talking about. Engels uses the word "moment" to indicate a static concept, i.e. the entities identity *right now*. Then he invokes the dynamic word (verb) "becoming" i.e. changing. The definition of static (moment) is unchanging/motionless and the definition of dynamic (becoming) is change/motion. He is trying to tell us that, when an object/entity does not move, it moves! Har, guffaw.

He uses an explicit violation of identity as evidence against identity lol. This is garbage.

Just show me something that isn't what it is, I dare you. I'll pay anyone a million dollars. I'll sign a contract beforehand stating that I will.

in short, by a sum of incessant molecular changes which make up life and the sum-total of whose results is evident to our eyes

Right, all he says here is that molecules move, or their constituent atoms move. At one moment we have trans dichloro-ethene and the next moment we have cis.

Trans=Trans
Cis = Cis

Whew, identity's still there, we're safe.

The further physiology develops, the more important for it become these incessant, infinitely small changes, and hence the more important for it also the consideration of difference within identity, and the old abstract standpoint of formal identity, that an organic being is to be treated as something simply identical with itself, as something constant, becomes out of date.

All Engels is saying here, is that the closer we look the more motion we notice. Instead of "in the old days":

Human=Human

We now have something more like:

Human_withthisDNAsequence=Human_withthisDNAsequence

Human_withanotherDNAsequence=Human_withanotherDNAsequence

We have two specific identities, in one case maybe a piece of the DNA goes CAG and in the other case it goes CCG.

In practice we typically assign a range of possible locations of constituents to an entity such as "human" because this makes life easier. So we might have:

Human_with_A,B,C,D,or E_DNAsequences=Human_with_A,B,C,D,or E_DNAsequences

and just shorten that to "Caucasian". Now the word "Caucasian" refers to anything that fulfills the criteria laid out.

The fact that identity contains difference within itself is expressed in every sentence, where the predicate is necessarily different from the subject; the lily is a plant, the rose is red, where, either in the subject or in the predicate, there is something that is not covered by the predicate or the subject.

Herein Engels is just describing what I just got done saying. This is essentially taxonomy, i.e. instead of dealing with every single entity and its identity we often place several entities into a category that fulfill some broader criteria. This does not, in any way, strip them of their individual identity.

The funny part is that Engels has to accept identity explicitly to do this, i.e. he has to accept that a lilies and plants either have a specific identity or refer to sets of criteria with specific identities, in order to compare them. This is hilarious.

Arguments against identity pretty much all qualify as "hilarious". For instance, Engels had to assign "moment" and "becoming" some particular identity in order to make his original argument against identity. Har, guffaw. Now he has to assign plant and lilly some identity (or as referring to a group of objects each with identity) in order to have any hope whatsoever of the sentence "a lily is a plant" making sense.

In fact, his entire argument against identity is meaningless unless he accepts identity. Riotous good laugh.

[webolife]

Wow, great responses and good debate here... I am much too simple of a thinker to engage directly with much of this very thoughtful commentary, however I offer a few propositions:
1. Determinism is a key component of materialism.
2. "Determinism" is largely about philosophy, and not the only view of "causality".
3. Both philosophy and science require careful definitions, but...
4. There is a difference between philosophy and science.
5. Science is about recognizing and explaining patterns of reality we observe in the universe.
6. It is possible to be "scientific" without agreeing on the rhetoric of determinism.
7. It is possible to do science without being a materialist, by my previous definition...
8. It is probably not possible to do science apart from a philosophy.
And a couple of questions, looking for some succinct replies :
How does this discussion relate to:
1. the EU, eg. its place in the history of science?
2. Objectivism? (eg. Is determinism an essential component of Oism?)
3. Spirituality? (this subtopic for some of my friends who have not put in their two cents yet!)

[webolife]

Alton,
I'm concerned about your fairly narrow definiton of "life" as essentially "unpredictable locomotion". What about the component of intelligence, ie DNA code?

[klypp]

Determinism.
altonhare:

Right, here Engels is distinguishing between determinism i.e. causation, and predictability i.e. conscious perception/reaction. Determinism is not an empty phrase because it distinguishes those who are searching for *existent* causes from those who are searching for *nonexistent* causes. A scientist that does not accept determinism runs into the problem I outlined earlier, in the example with the two scientists. The scientist who does not accept determinism never learns anything because, well, there's nothing to learn. There are no causal pathways.

and

Engels' objection that there are innumerable qualities of the pea is irrelevant. All he is describing is the "limited bandwidth" of consciousness. Just because we pursue the explanation of a single observation at a time, in a sea of potentially millions, does not alter the fact that we *must* accept determinism in order to say anything meaningful.

What you are doing here, altonhare, is confusing determinism with causality. Engels doesn't make this mistake, and he doesn't try to refuse causality. If you'd been able to read him carefully, you would have seen that Engels uses causality to show that determinism fails!
You also make your own definition of predictability. My dictionary says that to predict means "to state. tell about, or make known in advance, especially on the basis of special knowledge." But you are talking about "conscious perception/reaction". Well. I can see no foretelling in that...
And then, to state that Engels is distinguishing between your higly private definitions of determinism and predictability is nothing but impertinent - in every meaning of this word!
You use this trick all the time. Whenever you encounter something you don't understand, you quickly build up a barricade of your very own definitions and hope to hide your ignorance behind it.

Here is how Laplace describes determinism:

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_demon

This is often called Laplace's demon. Not a bad name. Only a supernatural being would be able to know everything in the past and the future. And thus, altonhare, your "materialism" ends up with a god as good as any.
You should try to learn from great thinkers, not laugh at them simply because you don't understand what they are saying.

Motion.
The only form of motion altonhare seems to be able to conceive is an object moving from A to B. It becomes apparent right from the beginning of his post. I said the universe is constantly changing and used the word change in order to make sure that it included more than just the motion of bodies. I also referred to webolife, who used the word energy. Engels would include even more: "Motion in the most general sense, conceived as the mode of existence, the inherent attribute of matter, comprehends all changes and processes occurring in the universe, from mere change of place right to thinking."
Altonhare immediately redefines all this to: "Every continuous object in the universe constantly changes location. More succinctly, every continuous object moves." and "Every motion of every existent object is caused by the motion of another existent object."
This is far more mechanistic than the gravity-based Big Bang. The universe is reduced to some kind of a 3D billiards game with a lot of bouncing balls. No room for EU there...

Identity.
Here, of course, altonhare goes haywire. His mantra in life, "A=A", is threatened!
He even offers a million dollars. hoping to give the impression that he stands on firm ground!

Engels starts out by saying: "Abstract identity (a=a; and negatively, a cannot be simultaneously equal and unequal to a) is likewise inapplicable in organic nature."
Altonhare immediately interrupts to say:

Here he makes a blanket statement about "organic nature". In his ensuing argument he forgets about the immutability and fundamental necessity of a fundamental constituent altogether, then he confuses the static identity of an entity (THIS set of locations of THESE constituents right now) with the dynamic concept of motion (the constituents of this entity move over there and now this entity is not itself anymore but a new entity *with a new identity*). A does not magically change identities because of motion. A ceases to exist and B comes into existence, purely by virtue of the motion of fundamental constituents.

"The blanket statement" is of course just an initial statement. Engels immediately fills this "blanket" with numerous examples. Not mentioned here by altonhare.
But now, we have altonhare's theory of identity. When A moves, "A ceases to exist and B comes into existence". He goes on to "prove" this by chopping off Dorothy's head and claiming that he now got two new identities (Dorothy's head and Dorothy's body), in stead of the previous one (Dorothy). Terrific!

Engels argues against "the old abstract standpoint of formal identity, that an organic being is to be treated as something simply identical with itself, as something constant". This is A=A. Engels want to replace this with an identity that includes change. And the changes he has in mind, is first and foremost internal changes. Relocation can sometimes be part of an identity, but normally it is not. Internal changes, however, is always present.
These changes are inherent to identity, but does not lead to an immediate change of identity. Given time, however, the identity will change. A simple example: The small, almost unobservable changes in an egg will finally lead to a chicken.

Now, back to altonhare. He is actually arguing for a third theory: Change immediatelylead to new identity. In his desperate eager to save his mantra, he ends up disproving it!
OMG, he just won the million dollars!!!

Except maybe for the obvious flaw in his theory: Dorothy's body was dorothy's body and dorothy's head was dorothy's head even before she was beheaded.

Maybe the money should go here: http://www.thunderbolts.info/donate.htm

[junglelord]

Its quite the word chess game you all got going on.


Its all chinese to me, but I think Alton got checkmated.

[niin]

Hi guys, Just wanted to give my opinion on free will and determinism.

If everything acts in accord with a single identity, and every object in the universe has such an identity, then I don't see a way around determinism as Web has laid out.

For the determinist, everything is a function of collisions of particles, there is no free-will, there is no purpose, no design. Any sense of design is an illusion based on probabilities and averages. Patterns exist only in the mind of the beholder, which is meaningless, because the mind and the beholder are also functions of collisions of particles.

In philosophy the form of the argument is included in a proposition. If the form of the argument contradicts the argument, then the argument fails automatically.
When you argue that free will doesn’t exist, you already assume that people can change their minds. Therefore, your argument fails automatically.
Let us look at the definition for free will.
Free will: The ability to choose between two or more options.
If people have ever chosen anything then free will “exists” by definition. So have you ever chosen something?

Life exists to perpetuate life, by definition, or there would be no life.

There is no objective meaning to life. The function of something does not give it meaning. Meaning is a concept and as such can only “exist” in the human mind. Meaning is subjective.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Niin and welcome aboard,
You wrote:

When you argue that free will doesn’t exist, you already assume that people can change their minds.

Non sequitur. Free will and changing ones mind are not the same thing.
If I hold a gun to your head in order to make you change your mind, have you exercised your free will? If you refuse to change your mind even unto death, then you have exercised your will (free or otherwise) yet you have not changed your mind.

You wrote:

Let us look at the definition for free will.
Free will: The ability to choose between two or more options.

The ability to choose is the domain of reason. The actual or particular choice is the domain of will. The problem lies in the the word 'free': Free from what, or in what way free? And how do you know you are free?

You wrote:

There is no objective meaning to life. The function of something does not give it meaning. Meaning is a concept and as such can only “exist” in the human mind. Meaning is subjective.

How do you know that there is no objective meaning to life? Do you know what 'life' is?
I would argue that the function of a thing is precisely what gives it meaning.
Are you using the word 'mind' as synonymous with 'brain'?
Are you suggesting that animals have no concept of danger, hunger, thirst, etc?
Again, how do you know that meaning is subjective?

[Grey Cloud]

Alton,
I'm concerned about your fairly narrow definiton of "life" as essentially "unpredictable locomotion". What about the component of intelligence, ie DNA code?

Hi Webolife,
Just wondering how you equate intelligence with DNA?

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Klypp,
You quoted:

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_demon

Interesting passage. It is essentially a nice summation of the ancient concept of 'The All', or Atman, or Universal Mind.

[niin]

If I hold a gun to your head in order to make you change your mind, have you exercised your free will?

yes, i have. The free in "free will" can confuse, but it has nothing to do with freedom. Freedom is when you are free to choose without the threat of violence. If you go with the definition that i gave earlier, then i have free will whenever i can choose more than one option.
In a more general sense, I think you can argue that, one does not need to exercise free will continually, to have free will. If one has the capability of choice, then one has free will. Hmmm maybe i should have included that in my definition.

How do you know that there is no objective meaning to life? Do you know what 'life' is?

There is no evidence for an objective meaning to life and there is evidence against it. People only need meaning when they are unhappy. Do you worry about meaning when you are happy? If there was no humans in the universe, would there still be meaning to life? who would it be meaningfull to?

I would argue that the function of a thing is precisely what gives it meaning.

please do. Maybe I have missed something. I would be happy to learn something new.
Would you say that a bug has meaning? why? why not? What about individual cells? do they have meaning?
I suspect we are again in a situation where it is the definition of meaning that decide who is right.

Are you using the word 'mind' as synonymous with 'brain'?
Are you suggesting that animals have no concept of danger, hunger, thirst, etc?

The mind is in the brain or is the brain, so yeah i guess i am.
yes, Animals can't understand concepts, only humans can do that.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Niin,
You wrote:

The free in "free will" can confuse, but it has nothing to do with freedom.

I think that you are in the minority with that one. The subject of free will has exercised the world's greatest minds for several thousand years (at least).
A slighly more sophisticated definition than yours:

The question of free will is whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions and decisions. Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally
deterministic. The various philosophical positions taken differ on whether all events are determined or not — determinism versus indeterminism — and also on whether freedom can coexist with determinism or not — compatibilism versus incompatibilism. So, for instance, 'hard determinists' argue that the universe is deterministic, and that this makes free will impossible.
The principle of free will has religious, ethical, and scientific implications. For example, in the religious realm, free will may imply that an omnipotent divinity does not assert its power over individual will and choices. In ethics, it may imply that individuals can be held
morally accountable for their actions. In the scientific realm, it may imply that the actions of the body, including the brain and the mind, are not wholly determined by physical causality. The question of free will has been a central issue since the beginning of philosophical
thought.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

You wrote:

There is no evidence for an objective meaning to life and there is evidence against it.

What, non-subjective, evidence do you have?

People only need meaning when they are unhappy. Do you worry about meaning when you are happy? If there was no humans in the universe, would there still be meaning to life? who would it be meaningfull to?

I don't 'worry' about meaning. I do however contemplate upon the subject frequently. In answer to the last part, I would imagine that
life would still have meaning to the Universe itself at the very least.
You haven't defined what you mean by 'life'.

You wrote:

Would you say that a bug has meaning? why? why not? What about individual cells? do they have meaning?

To me, everything in the Universe has meaning. Whether I or any other human understand that meaning is another matter.

The mind is in the brain or is the brain,...

I disagree totally with this.

Animals can't understand concepts, only humans can do that.

Really? They can't understand danger, hunger, thirst, etc?

[webolife]

Alton,
I'm concerned about your fairly narrow definiton of "life" as essentially "unpredictable locomotion". What about the component of intelligence, ie DNA code?

Hi Webolife,
Just wondering how you equate intelligence with DNA?

Thanks for your question, GC.
I didn't mean to equate the two... should probably have used "eg" instead of "ie".
DNA is a matrix containing complex and very specified information. The "meanings" associated with given sequences of nucleotides materialize in the one-to-one correspondence between the DNA code and a respective protein, enzyme, or other organizational function of an organism, tissue or cell. Random alterations to the sequence (mutations) invariably result in an overall loss of information, function, and/or viability of the organism, or become recessive/unexpressed characteristics which may (and occasionally do) appear later in disease, dysfunction or uselessness. In addition, various sequences of the code for any organism are seen to be interdependent, coeval in function, and likewise resonant with the functionality of other organisms and stimulate/are stimulated by the chemical environment. The protein synthesis process directed by the DNA code is irreducibly complex, and depends upon the presence and action of the very proteins, enzymes and processes which it prescribes. This "specified" aspect of the informative DNA code suggests to me not only "meaning" but purpose, and I allow the term "design". This is what I'm referring to by the term "intelligence", and is why it seems to me that Alton's definiton for life is a gross underselling of its nature.

[Grey Cloud]

Hi Webolife,
I think I totally agree with this:

This "specified" aspect of the informative DNA code suggests to me not only "meaning" but purpose, and I allow the term "design". This is what I'm referring to by the term "intelligence", and is why it seems to me that Alton's definiton for life is a gross underselling of its nature.

Even before the discovery of DNA scientists were torturing proteins in an attempt to create 'life'. Since the discovery of DNA, it seems to me, that scientists have been putting the cart before the horse and making all sorts of claims about what DNA can do while ignoring what it is which enables DNA to do these things (your purpose). If science is correct about DNA then it seems to me that there is little or no point in a person striving to become more intelligent or a better person as it can all be undone in the flick of a DNA switch, totally independently of the human.
I have also yet to see a convincing explanation as to how DNA evolved in the Darwinian sense of the word.