Defining life: reductionist physics does not work (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, October 24, 2020, 09:15 (1492 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE: Life is a grab bag of different pieces, some of whose physical properties are easier to predict mechanistically than others, and it is certainly the case that at least some of the factors that matter a great deal to how a living thing works will fall into the category of highly non-universal emergent properties that are impossible to derive from first principles.

DAVID: The author's point is simple. Life is a emergent event=, which cannot be explained by reductionism and that applies to all thought about the origin of life.

dhw: A very stimulating article. If I were a cynic, I might point out that you can hardly be more reductionist than to claim that all the complexities of life can be explained by the existence of a single immaterial conscious mind that came from nowhere and knows everything and simply did it. But I am not a great supporter of –isms, trapped though I am in my agnosticism!

DAVID: A gross misuse of the word reductionism which is used in this discussion as condemning the scientific approach of finding every part and how it works as if that explains where it came from and how it really works. All the approach shows in biochemistry is amazing complexity of design, raising the issue of how is the designer?

I assume you meant “who” is the designer. I sort of agree that I have misused the word, but the argument is the same. What have you done? You have analysed every part and how it works, and then you say “An unknown, unknowable mind which has no source but has been superintelligent for ever and ever did it”, as if that explained where it came from and how it really works.

DAVID: I love his approach!!! Note the emphasis on the energy supply which I constantly bring up as ecosystems. Available energy drives life.

dhw: That is simply another way of saying that living organisms need food. I can’t imagine that anyone on this planet would disagree.

DAVID: Of course not. I was really referring to the entire article against reductionism.

Sorry, I thought you were referring to the energy supply you keep bringing up as ecosystems, and to the fact that all life needs energy.