Which one(s) is(are) living and why? In other words, which of these “things” contain your concept of [life]? Explain yourself in detail!
Let me reiterate what I’m after here: why, why, why??? If you hold any thoughts of your own, then I want you to engage in dialogue.
I want some “real” philosophy here. What is alive? What is dead? What is living? What is dying? What is life? What is death?
The paradox: If you assume that life is based on the causal reality of animation within any given body, then all bodies of “mass” are “living” under hypothetical contexts of extension (of spirit). This implies that my fingertip is part of my essence and life, because it is an extension of my “self”. If it is cut off from my body, disconnected from “me”, then normally other people presume that the fingertip is no longer “living”. I am stating that this “disconnect” is ambiguous. I want to qualify the meaning of life in terms of this connection / disconnection…
Furthermore, disregarding the scientific principle of finitely quantified physical units, a “mass” has no mass beyond its metaphor or conceptual understanding. A mass is a “thing”, but that actually doesn’t mean anything in terms of philosophical inquiry. I want to know what a mass really is, so let’s think about it. When I press my hand against a wall, what am I feeling exactly? Confined to pragmatic language, I am feeling “the wall”. This wall is the “mass” or “thing”. Is it living? If I press my hand against a person and feel the person’s “mass”, then is that person living?
What’s the difference?
I assume that there isn’t one! Prove the contrary to me, because I am apparently ignorant of that proof!!!
If you’re asking, ‘what’s the difference between a mass that is living and one that isn’t?’ then this is an answer: A mass that is living (in some acceptable sense of that term, such as having the capacity for rationality, choice, self-motivation) is a soul (not has a soul), whereas a mass that is non-living lacks a soul and is nothing other than an idea. For example, you (as a perceiver) are a soul and a mountain, a river or a house is an idea in your mind. And, of course, for ‘mind’ read ‘soul’.
Perfectly straightforward matter, you see. Thank you.
My question to you then, is, what is the “soul” of the comatose patient compared to the “no soul” of the rock or tree? See, my definition of “soul” is mainly a “spirit of animation” that may or may not reveal itself pending real-world circumstances. A rock can animate itself if it rolls down an eroding hill. That is animation. A tree may grow in health or shrink in decay, moving. A comatose patient may twitch as a neural reflex. Those are all animations of sorts. So, what more can I differentiate between the life of them?
So do you believe that living things rely on “selfs” in order to be considered living? Can a monkey live if it cannot describe its self?
Because to me, non-human animals cannot describe themselves through language in the manner that humans go about it – this is not a big difference.
How do you know that I’m a soul? You are not my self; only I am my self. I want to know how you are getting past the implied judgment.
If I am a soul, then may I judge that everything outside of myself are mere “ideas”, such as other people and places? May I imagine them away?
I would enjoy for that to be true, but for me, it is not as straight-forward as it is for you.
Whatever is a soul (spirit, incorporeal substance, etc.) ‘lives’ according to my definition of ‘what it is to have life’. The only life is human life, everything else (plants, animals, rivers, mountains, bacteria, viruses, etc.) is ideal (i.e., exists as ideas in our minds). Oh, the ‘material’ bodies we perceive one another to ‘have’ are ideas in our minds (i.e., souls) also, of course.
If you want my concept of life, then I say all three. I believe life exists in everything.
Do I really have to explain why? That can be long and tedious.
I do have a more common sense answer though:
Let’s say 2) and 3) are alive and 1) is not. The common sense thread weaving 2) and 3) together are that these two things are organic phenomena, and so long as their biological processes are functioning normally, that’s what we typically call “being alive” (that’s the scientific view anyway).
There’s also the view that to be alive means to be consciously aware, in which case none of the above are alive (this is still contingent on the common sense thread). Of course, the comatose patient might still have some mental stirrings however vegetated he/she appears to be from the outside. Although this wouldn’t necessarily pass as “conscious awareness”, it could pass as “conscious experience” of some kind, and if that means he/she’s alive by this construal, then I guess 3) is the only “living” thing among the 3.
This is a bit like ‘What’s My Line?’ or ’20 Questions’, ain’t it? Yes, the thoughts expressed in my threads are idealistic; that is, only souls and their ideas exist.
As you rightly mention, I might be questioned about being solipsistic on this account. Well, who knows? The best I can hope for is that other souls exist too (such as yours, for instance) but maybe they don’t. That doesn’t affect me at all, though, because whatever is the case, I believe that other souls exist and that is enough for me to at least keep posting threads in the hope that some other soul will respond. This other soul could actually be another soul, or it could be just an idea in my mind. Either way, what’s the difference to me? The prevailing state of affairs is such as to allow me to believe (even falsely) that other souls exist, and that is sufficient to keep me from feeling alone.
Panpsychism is the view that everything has a soul, or a mind of whatever rudimentary or sophisticated nature. Spinoza thought this, since he believed that thought and extension were both properties of substance, of which created things are modifications.
For my part, dogs and cats have souls no more than rocks and rivers.
If you authentically believe that all three are living, then I want to know what kind of qualification you are using. As you already stated science says one thing, philosophy another, religion another, etc. etc. etc. The most “common” view of life that I can imagine would probably come from a biological standpoint. The rock isn’t living, because it’s not an “organism”.
The problem with this is the mass of the rock, versus the mass of the organism, versus the mass of anything. If physics is going to throw in the towel one of these days and concede to philosophy, then perhaps we should be a little forewarned that organisms are based on empirical “matter” just like everything else. Thus, what’s the difference?
I don’t want people to skip away from this problem of mine. People get to prance around without proving themselves too often anymore.
The problem is one of your own making, IMO. This is because you are searching for a particular property (namely, ‘life’) of a particular thing (namely, ‘mass’ or ‘matter’) that simply does not exist. It’s a bit like asking what properties distinguish Bigfoot from humans, when there is no such thing as Bigfoot. (Actually, that’s not too good an example, but it might make the point).
Yeah man. Things don’t have properties, they share in them. Or something like that. Like every donkey in this world shares in the property of being a donkey, even with otherworldly donkeys which aren’t even actual.
I guess Life is simply a phenomena that doesn’t even exist then…??? Are you guys serious?
Fuck it, I see that this might be too hard for people here…
I want some real opinions, some real assumptions on “the matter” at hand. I am not asking: “what is Bigfoot”? I am asking: “what is life or living”?
I don’t want semantics & rhetorics. We can play that game another day … like every other day than this one at ILP. Can we not put down our dicks for a brief period, a second maybe, quit stroking ourselves in mental masterbation, and start mind-fucking each other for real, just once perhaps? What the fuck is life? Tell me. Or, philosophy is truly a topic for children.
What differs a storm or a camp fire from a human? I geuss you could say we are capable of thinking, but then anything thinking would be alive, including a comatose patient. Or we could go on to saying that anything that is capable of thinking about themselves is alive. Then we would be suggesting that all animals that are incapable of thinking about themselves are in fact dead.
How about anything incapable of performing any action is dead? When a firework doesnt go off for instance, we could say that one is dead. Just like a human when we die, we are incapable of performing actions.
Otherworldly donkeys exists. And so do thier relations and properties. Just because they’re not actual doesn’t mean they don’t exist. They have to exist. They’re objects.
