"Two comments. Your use of the term 'philosophical quagmire' appears to be a
pejorative. Maybe you don't mean it that way though. Do you eschew all
philosophical discussions?"
No of course not. But philosphy excells when it deals with subjects that
have no basis in physical reality. Remember the "pink elephant" syllogism?
It goes:
All elephants are pink;
Nellie is an elephant,
Therefore Nellie is pink.
If you tell this to a philosopher, he would ask you to defend your premise
that all elephants are pink. If you can do that, then he will accept it,
even though there is no such thing as pink elephants. If, however, if you
tell this to a scientist, he would ask you to provide evidence that pink
elephants exist. If you can't, he won't accept it no matter how flawlessly
logical your argument is; if you try to use philosophical arguments he will
reject them. The reason is very simple: pink elephants do not exist in
reality. Science can only deal with what can be tested against physical,
whereas philosophy routinely deals with what cannot be tested against
physical reality. As such, whenever philosophy tries to describe physical
reality the results are often more comical then enlightening. The pink
elephant syllogism is one example of this; so is Hegel's essay on planets.
In 1800, Hegel published a thesis that proved, in essence, that while the
definition of planets has changed since ancient times, there still could
only be philosophically seven planets. As Jacob Bronowski observed in his
lecture "Knowledge or Certainty", Gauss (who detested Hegel) answered him in
the same way that Shakespeare had a couple of hundred years before. In
"King Lear", the Fool asks the King why there are only sevens planets. The
King answers, "Because they are not eight." To which the Fool replied,
"Yes, indeed, thou woulds't make a good fool." And so did Hegel, because
January 1st, 1801, the discovery of Ceres as the eighth planet was
announced. Of course, we now know that Ceres is an asteroid, but the later
discovdery of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto would have shown Hegel to be a fool
just as effectively.
As Bronowski pointed out, however, (he happily admitted sharing Gauss'
loathing for Hegel) the real problem is philosophers who believe (like
Hegel) that they have a road to knowledge more perfect than that of
observation. Most philosophers realize the sheer arrogance of this as well
and stick to topics that do not require a test in physical reality. But
there are still those who believe that there is way to acquire perfect
knowledge that bypasses science. This current discussion about abiogenesis
reminds me of that attitude. Abiogenesis is a scientific concept, not a
philosophical one. It is testable against physical reality. Therefore both
historical abiogenesis (what you call abiogenesis(1)) and abiogenetic
mechanisms (what you call abiogenesis(2)) will be verified or refuted by
science, not philosophy. Your attempts to force this issue into a
philosophical mold, while understandable (at least you had the courage to
admit the truth) will succeed no better than Hegel's.
"That is interesting. Do I understand, then, that a 'biological chemical' is
of absolutely no use in a non-biological environment?"
That is basically correct; otherwise we would see biomolecules being used
routinely by non-biological systems, which we do not.
"Or (more likely) that they are never found outside of a biological
environment? Assuming the latter -- is this an absolute statement? (Just
curious)."
Only during abiogenetic events or as leftovers from feces or urine or dead
animals; in other words, decay. Otherwise, they are never found outside of
a biological organism.
"Of course they do. And if we define the word abiogenesis differently, using
it to refer to, explicitly, the assumed process which operated to develop
life from non life, then the two experiments may, or may not, have anything
to do with it."
And as I have already pointed numerous times, this is not a valid scientific
definition of abiogenesis.
"Again, is this a pejorative?"
Not if you are biased towards a definition of life that assumes more than
the metabolic processes that make life possible.
"It certainly seems like one. If I claim the label 'vitalist,' it is OK to
call me one. Otherwise it is not appropriate. I neither claim, nor disclaim,
the term, BTW; I have insufficient data to do either and insufficient
interest to gather said data."
Whether you accept the label or not, if you believe that life cannot be
explained in material terems alone (_The Oxford Companion to Philosophy_)
then you are a vitalist. And you have made that belief abundantly clear.
Kevin L. O'Brien