Defining life: reductionist physics does not work (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, October 25, 2020, 13:21 (1490 days ago) @ David Turell

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 who is the designer?

dhw: 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 bbb“An unknown, unknowable mind which has no source but has been superintelligent for ever and ever did it”bb, as if that explained where it came from and how it really works.

DAVID: The logic is encapsulated in the presentations of ID, which I assume you have assiduously avoided. The design is so complex it requires a designing mind. They never refer to it as God.

I didn’t either, in this instance. I described what sort of mind I think you understand as the designer. Does this explain where life came from and how it really works? Of course it doesn’t. Give that mind any name you like, it is still a nebulous concept just as mysterious as the source of life and how it 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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Ecosystems and food supply explain why the bush of life is so big.

Any ecosystem and food supply is as big as the creatures that are part of it. Millions of ecosystems have come and gone, so what bush of life are you talking about? The whole history of life? Yes, the fact that there were millions of ecosystems that came and went explains why the whole bush of life past and present was/is so big. Or do you mean the current bush? Yes, the current bush is big, but as you have so rightly said, “extinct life plays no role in current time”.