What makes life vital (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, March 03, 2015, 18:00 (3552 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I see the difference in our thinking. I understand living beings as living machines. All of the processes in a living being are automatic, i.e., the kidney controlling the blood by changing urine concentrations. What is not automatic is consciousness because we control what we wish to think and our brain controls the responses necessary to accommodate us. Bacteria are not conscious. My view is a process of reductionism, as I understand the biochemistry of the automatic reactions. -There is no difference in our thinking until you make the claim that bacteria are not conscious. Yes, we are all living machines as far as our bodily functions go. But you insist that bacteria are nothing more, whereas my “favourite scientists” again and again tell us that bacteria are conscious, sentient BEINGS (not automata). Tony wrote: "Ever since the rise of naturalism and reductionism our outlook has been that of looking at everything mechanically. The problem is not our language, it is our worldview." You take the same reductionist view of organisms other than humans, though you agree that certain “higher” forms of organism have a degree of consciousness. That is the sticking point between you and me and all the scientists whose findings you disagree with. (As a layman, I am in no position to insist that they are right or wrong, but nor are you.)-Dhw: My “favourite scientists” describe them as sentient, conscious, intelligent etc. beings - terms which could easily be avoided if they were to be taken metaphorically and not literally.
DAVID: I agree with Tony and I accept your comment to accept the terms as metaphors, recognizing the limitation of the use of metaphors to get around a language problem.-Perhaps what I wrote was not clear. In my view these terms are NOT metaphors. There is absolutely no need for scientists to describe bacteria as conscious, sentient etc. if that is not what they mean. The difficulty does not lie in language, but in the fact that some humans seem to be incapable of recognizing that other forms of life might have other forms of consciousness. It is the curse of anthropocentrism.When asked why the concept of bacterial cognition was controversial, James Shapiro replied: “Large organisms chauvinism, so we like to think that only we can do things in a cognitive way.” Do you really think that is a metaphor?
 
DAVID: Material processes can't create the information that guides life. Mentation does. Do you realize your pan-psychism theory feeds off of that statement? My case is rested for now.-Yes, my panpsychism hypothesis entails mental activity in all things. It is a kind of third way which I certainly find believable when applied to living organisms, but considerably less believable in relation to inorganic materials.
 
To sum up, the disagreement between us lies in your dogmatism over the possible intelligence, consciousness, sentience etc. of all living organisms, and not over the automatism of bodily functions. It is this intelligence, on which so many scientists insist, that lies at the heart of my hypothesis concerning an inventive mechanism of unknown origin that enables organisms themselves to drive evolution forward - as opposed to random mutations, and divine preprogramming or dabbling.