> > > This is irrelevant to the question of what constitutes organism
> > > death. The fact that collections of cells display emergent
> > > properties that are not possessed by individual cells does not
> > > invalidate the conclusion that the collection of cells does not
> > > die until the cells themselves die.
> >
> > And your conclusion is quite different from the claim that
> > "animal/human death is nothing more than cellular death". You
> > are knocking down a straw man.
>
> On the contrary, the conclusion that the collection of cells does
> not die until the cells themselves die is another way of saying that
> aninal/human death is nothing more than cellular death.
> Fundamentally speaking, humans and animals are collections of cells;
> as such, the human/animal dies when its cells die.
It is true that animal/human death __results__ from all the cells of
the human/animal dying. But this is different from saying that the
concept of animal/human dying is nothing more than the concept of a
cell dying. For starters, the concept of a cell dying, in itself,
says nothing about the concept of massive cellular death within an
organism. Secondly, human/animal death involves conceptually the
death of a being, including (at least in the case of a human) concepts
of mind, will, hopes, character, personality, soul.
You were were apparently arguing against me, ending with the
conclusion that "the collection of cells does not die until the cells
themselves die". But I do not disagree with this. This was not my
claim. As such you were knocking down a straw man.
> It seems to me that you are the one creating a strawman. The only
> "evidence" you can provide that might establish a separation between
> cellular death and organism death are subjective claims about "hope
> and dreams". These are simply irrelevant to the simple biological
> question of whether organism death is independent of cellular death.
Again, you are creating a straw man! Look back through our
correspondence and you will see that I have made it clear many times
that I view organism death and cellular death as being strongly
related, in that organism death results from massive cellular death.
That is, I have never viewed the two as independent. The concepts are
distinct, ie are not the same in every way, but there is certainly a
strong relationship between them.
As for me creating a straw man, where have I presented your position
as being different from what it really is? Certainly your paragraph
above doesn't demonstrate where I have done so.
As for my evidence supporting a distinction between concepts of
cellular death and organism death, my fundamental evidence is as
follows. Cellular death occurs all the time without the organism
dying, so to say that "an organism just died" is saying more than just
that "some cells just died". My comments about "hopes and dreams"
were to distinguish cellular death from animal/human death. You could
if you like, distinguish three tiers of death concepts. At the lowest
level, there is cellular death, where cells die as individual
entities. At the next level there is organism death, which we would
define as "massive cellular death within an organism". At the third
and highest level we would describe animal/human death, which is the
death of a being, with mind, etc. This definitional distinction would
be preferable if you wish to keep "organism" as a purely biological
description. If on the other hand you were willing to allow talk of
organisms having mind, will, hopes, dreams, a soul, etc, then there
would be less need for the distinction between "organism" and
animal/human.
> > But the emergent property is usually not conceptually equivalent
> > to a cellular property. For starters the emergent property is
> > "emergent" whereas the cellular property won't be (or at least,
> > not emergent in the same way) --- this is a conceptual
> > difference. There may well be strong relationships between the
> > two properties, but this is different to equivalence.
>
> Again, you are making a philosophical distinction, not a biological
> one. In biology the "emergent" property and the cellular property
> that creates the "emergent" property ARE conceptually equivolent; if
> they were not, the latter could not cause the former.
The term "conceptually equivalent" is a philosophical term, so of
course I am making a philosophical distinction. It is a philosophical
distinction within the field of biology. If you have one property,
and another property that emerges from it, then you have in your
conception, __two__ properties, the latter causing the former. They
are __distinct__ as concepts in that one is emergent, the other one
isn't. They are therefore conceptually distinct. They are therefore
not conceptually equivalent.
> > > The heart as an organ acts as a pump because the individual
> > > cardiac cells are able to contract on their own; muscles are
> > > able to move limbs because each cell possesses the molecular
> > > machinery needed to perform mechanical work; the liver as an
> > > organ is able to regulate and participate in digestion because
> > > each of its cells are tiny chemical factories; the brain as a
> > > whole can think because each cell possesses the electrochemical
> > > capabilities that make thought possible. The individual cells
> > > may not possess the properties exhibited by the whole organ,
> > > but they must have properties that are conceptually equivolent,
> > > otherwise the organ would not have its unique emergent
> > > properties.
> >
> > The concept of cardiac cell contraction is _related_ to the
> > concept of heart pumping, but the concepts are _different_. It
> > is not enough for a biology student to read about cardiac cell
> > contraction if they want to understand the heart. No, they will
> > also read about other concepts which are exhibited by the heart
> > as a whole. The relatedness of concepts is different from
> > equivalence.
>
> Again, you are ignoring the simple biological fact that, without
> cells that can contract, the heart cannot act as a pump, regardless
> of what other "concepts" you may invoke. As such, biologically
> speaking, heart pumping and cardiac cell contraction must be
> conceptually equivolent.
I am not ignoring the biological fact that "without cells that can
contract, the heart cannot act as a pump". By saying that the
concepts are _related_, by acknowledging that heart pumping _results_
from cellular contraction, I acknowledge this biological fact. What I
do not acknowledge, is that the two concepts are equivalent.
You seem to be saying to me (my paraphrase) "No matter how much you
want to philosophise to me about concepts and the like, the scientific
reality of the situation remains". If my paraphrase is accurate in
summarizing your point, then I would say the following. I do accept
that what happens in the real world, happens regardless of how much
philosophising we do. However, in order for humans to grasp what is
happening, we have to deal in concepts and interaction between
concepts. We have no choice, for this is what understanding is all
about. Philosophy is the most fundamental form of seeking after such
knowledge and understanding. If we do not engage in philosophy,
implicitly or explicitly, we cannot know of the scientific realities
of any situation.
> I realize that you are not used to thinking in this way, but your
> philosophical conceptualization is inappropriate in this case, and
> until you recognize that, there can be no progress in our
> discussion.
And from my side, it would seem that you are not used to thinking
philosophically, something which I feel you would benefit from. My
philosophical conceptualization is appropriate, but for some reason
you fail to recognize it. We could continue to debate the point until
one of us changes our position. But unless this happens, I agree that
progress in our discussion will be difficult.
> > > As I explained above, for an organism to have the emergent
> > > property you wish to define as organism death, its parts must
> > > have a conceptually equivolent property, in this case cellular
> > > death. The concepts cannot be distinct, otherwise massive
> > > cellular death would have no affect on organism death.
> >
> > You are misunderstanding my usage of the word "distinct". I am
> > not using it in the sense of "totally separate in every way". I
> > am using it in the sense of "able to be distinguished from", that
> > is, the concepts are not the same in all respects, there are
> > differences. I would have hoped that my observation that the
> > "concepts are related" made my usage of the word clear. Of
> > course massive cellular death has an affect on organism death, as
> > I have stated many times.
>
> In point of fact, I did not misunderstand your use of the term
> "distinct"; I am simply using it in the most appropriate fashion for
> this discussion.
If you are not happy with my use of the word "distinct", then please
address this point directly. Otherwise you are in danger of using
"straw men" again, because you are refuting a different definition of
"distinct" from the one I was using.
> Your basic argument is that there is a (philosophical) difference
> between organism death and cellular death. I am trying to explain
> that in fact there is no **biological** difference between organism
> death and cellular death, and that your attempts to introduce
> inappropriate philosophical differences creates contradictions with
> known fact, such as the implication that an organism could suffer
> massive cellular without itself dying. You may not intend that
> implication, but it is a logical exptrapolation from your argument.
The differences I am arguing for do not contradict known fact. If we
restrict the definition of organism death, to "massive cellular death
within an organism", as I talked about above, then of course an
organism will die after suffering massive cellular death. And if we
broaden the definition of organism death to include concepts of mind,
will etc, the concept still retains massive cellular death as part of
the concept.
> Even the way you phrase it -- "massive cellular death has an affect
> on organism death" -- is misleading and reinforces the implied
> conclusion. The simple biological fact is that massive cellular
> death does not have merely an affect on organism death, it is the
> direct cause of organism death.
Please do not misrepresent me by quoting me out of context. My use of
this phrasing was in response to your phrasing when you argued "The
concepts cannot be distinct, otherwise massive cellular death would
have no affect on organism death." So I was simply using
__your__own__phrasing__ in order to address your point with clarity.
As such, it should have been perfectly obvious that I was in no way
misleading or reinforcing an implication that "an organism could
suffer massive cellular without itself dying". And again, I
acknowledge that massive cellular death is the direct cause of
organism death. But this does not mean that cellular death and
organism death are conceptually equivalent, which is my point.
> > Again, conceptual distinction is not the same thing as total
> > conceptual independence. Just because life on this planet
> > requires biological processes --- ie there are relationships
> > between the concept of life and the concepts of biological
> > processes --- doesn't mean they are conceptually equal.
>
> In biology it does; in fact it must, otherwise biology makes no
> sense without adding in some form of vitalistic philosophy. That is
> the point you keep missing.
Now I am no expert on vitalistic philosophy, but my understanding is
that people used to believe in some extra "vital force or substance",
necessary for something to be alive. Well perhaps there is a sense in
which I do believe this in that I believe that God is the sustainer of
life, in fact of everything in the universe. But I don't think this
is the normal vitalist meaning.
I believe there is more to the concept of animal/human life, than just
a description of it in terms of biological processes, but these
"extras" are not mechanical extras. That is, it's not as if some kind
of "life substance" needs to be added to physics and chemistry to make
life work. Nor does some kind of "life force" (apart from those of
chemistry and physics) need to impinge upon an animal before it lives.
These "extras" are not "mechanical" extras, but rather, "ontological"
extras. They are emergent yes, but emerged they have.
Does this make me a vitalist? I think not, but I could be wrong.
> > > The evidence we have demonstrates that a different set of
> > > physiochemical laws ("machine language") would produce a
> > > different kind of life ("wordprocessor") from what we have now.
> > > What evidence do you have that contradicts this?
> >
> > Do you really have this evidence? Do you know how many possible
> > physiochemical laws there are? Do you know how many of them would
> > definately produce a different kind of life?
>
> You seem to indicate that, unless we understand everything about a
> phenomenon, we cannot make any general claims about it. That is
> simply not the case. The purpose of science is to establish general
> principles, then test the limits of those principles. Since no one
> can know all the possible limits of a principle at any given time,
> we must at some point decide we know enough to be confident that the
> principle is true in general. The possible existence of unknown
> limitations does not invalidate the principle, but it is the
> responsibility of those who believe these limitations exist to
> "prove" their existence; it is not the responsibility of those you
> accept the principle as generally valid to "disprove" their
> existence.
Well I'm a little unsure about the relevance of this point, but I'll
try to address it as best I can. In order for science to be useful,
certain assumptions need to be made. One of these is that the
fundamental laws of the universe do not change over time. So
fundamental physics experiments that are done today, would have
produced the same result 1000 years ago and will produce the same
result 1000 years into the future. Now it is possible to test this
assumption up to a point, but only up to a point. But what if we have
theological reasons for questioning the unchangingness of these laws?
Personally, I would need to see very strong theological evidence
before I did seriously question this assumption, but I know some do so
challenge it, and I accept their right to do so.
What if God did fundamentally change the laws of this universe at the
time of the fall? If we accept this possibility, then our assumption
of unchangingness of physio-chemical laws goes out the window and our
conclusions drawn from science no longer hold. What we can attempt to
do, is to speculate on what a pre-fall universe could look like
scientifically. We could speculate, as I did, that instead of
cellular tissues being given a death sentence, perhaps the tissues
would be programmed to regenerate indefinately. Now you refuted this
argument saying that the way cells are set up, it would be impossible
to do this. Now I have to take your word for it, because I don't know
enough about it, but your conclusions are based on today's biology.
Maybe in a pre-fall biology, getting cells to do this would be
possible. It's very hard to say, because we know so little about what
a pre-fall science would comprise.
Now I imagine you might argue against the above by saying that science
has proved its worth and has offered the world much of substance,
whereas in contrast I offer ill-defined speculative notions of some
kind of pre-fall science. You would then say that the burden of proof
is on me to prove that such a pre-fall science existed, and given that
I probably can't, my arguments are dismissed. Well I half agree with
this assessment, but only half. Certainly, to date, I have not been
persuaded on any grounds, be it theological or scientific, for
accepting a different pre-fall science. Indeed the evidence I do know
of, seems to agree with the assumption of an unchanging science. So I
would need some fairly strong evidence before I would be willing to
give up this assumption. But this being said, I do not hold this
position with absolute certainty. It is _possible_ that the truth
might be otherwise. Given that this is the case, I need to be open
minded to the possibility, even though I consider it unlikely. I need
especially to be open minded if theologically there are good reasons
for there to be no death before the fall. If we are truly seeking the
truth, then arguments about who has the "burden of proof" have little
value. It's a good debating technique to get the other person to
accept the "burden of proof", but has less value when looking
seriously at questions of truth.
> > When I say "I imagine" such a set of physiochemical laws could
> > exist, I am really saying that, I have yet to see evidence
> > demonstrating that such a set couldn't exist, or even that such a
> > set is unlikely to exist.
>
> Take for example this current discussion. The evidence we have
> establishes the general principle that different physiochemical laws
> will produce different forms of life. The fact that we have not yet
> tested every possible contingency does not invalidate the validity
> of this principle. Nor can you claim that, therefore, a set of
> different physiochemical laws that could create organism life
> "distinct" (as you mean the term) from cellular life must, or even
> could, exist. If you truly believe that such a set did exist, you
> must validate that belief with evidence, otherwise your belief is
> little more than wishful thinking.. To simply sit back and demand
> that other people must demonstrate that you are wrong is in turn
> refusing to follow the scientific method.
Just to put a little twist into the debate, let's do a thought
experiment with the notion of "irreducibly complex". Supposing Jack
comes up with some biological machine which he claims to be
irreducibly complex. Jack claims that it can't have evolved
gradually, because if you tinker with one bit, the whole machine
collapses. And this is the kind of thing some people use to argue
against evolution. Now in some of the examples these people put
forward, it is possible to refute them, by demonstrating that there is
a gradual mechanism which would work, but what if in Jack's case we
can't think of one? Does this mean that we really do have an
irreducibly complex biologically machine? I would answer probably
not. The problem is that usually there are so many different possible
routes to the final biological machine, that it is impossible to
examine them all to see if there is one which is evolutionarily
viable. So the fact that we haven't found an evolutionarily viable
route, could well mean exactly that --- ie that it does exist but we
haven't discovered it yet.
Now lets go back to the original point. You claim that the evidence
we have is that different physio-chemical laws will produce different
forms of life. Ie, we couldn't have laws which give roughly the same
kind of life we now have, but without death. The problem is that the
possibilities for different physio-chemical laws is so vast, that it
is very hard to say definitively that no such laws exist. Just as
it's hard to say with certainty that something is "irreducibly
complex", so too is it hard to say with certainty that we couldn't
have the required pre-fall science.
As for me sitting back and demanding that other people demonstrate
that I am wrong about there being a different pre-fall science, I
don't expect this. Indeed, I don't even believe it myself. I am not
asking you to believe in a different pre-fall science, rather, I am
asking to to accept that there is a chance, quite possibly an
extremely small one, that there was a different pre-fall science in
operation which allowed for no animal/human death before the fall. If
you allow this possibility, and if you can combine it with strong
theological arguments, then this small chance will be magnified.
> Since you are reluctant to accept known biological fact and theory
> as being valid in this case, I guess we will have to agree to
> disagree. You may have the last word if you wish. All I ask is
> that you consider the possibility that biology just might be more
> valid in this case than your philosophical speculations.
Well thank you for your views. If you believe that this discussion is
going nowhere and further debate would be futile, then feel free to
leave it here. I have endeavoured to approach this debate with an
open mind and to consider seriously your arguments. I cannot see that
it is a case of biology and philosophy competing, rather it seems to
me that they work together in striving for truth. I would ask that
you consider the possibility that philosophy has more to say than you
seem to give it credit for.
Mark.
[End of part 2]
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____/~~\_____/~~\__/~~\__________________________Mark_Phillips____________
____/~~\_____/~~\________________________________mark@ist.flinders.edu.au_
____/~~\HE___/~~\__/~~\APTAIN_____________________________________________
____/~~\______/~~~~~~\____________________________________________________
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"They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them!"