> It seems to me rather problematic to provide any definition of
> life which is not vitalistic in the second sense above. For example
> in the above you say that vitalism would be the opposite of
> biological mechanism, but "biological mechanism" is a loaded
> term. Why do you say biological mechanism and not just physical
> mechanism unless there were indeed some physical mechanisms
> unique to living things?
I suppose a vitalist would agree that 'biological' implies a
recognition of life as something distinct, yet it implies no
definition, so it's pointless to say the biological is only
physical. But the mechanist might say that by any definition
the biological is a subset of the physical, that is his only
point; that the burden of clarification is on the vitalist,
as he's the one making the special claim for the phenomenon
of life.
-- Cliff Lundberg ~ San Francisco ~ cliff@noevalley.com