On Aug 17, 7:57 am, "Stephen P. King" <[email protected]> wrote: > On 8/17/2011 7:01 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:> On Aug 17, 2:16 am, > meekerdb<[email protected]> wrote: > > >> On 8/16/2011 10:51 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: > >>> Molecules in a live brain behave differently > >>> than those in a dead brain. What is this force? Cumulative > >>> entanglement. Significance. Negentropy. Sense. > >> It already has had a name for a long time: elan vital. > > Elan vital is an imaginary substance. Sense is an ordinary principle > > that can be observed on every level of perception. > > > Elan vital is what you get when you try to shoehorn experiential > > private qualitative phenomena in time into observable public > > quantitative phenomena in space. If you turn it upside down it looks > > just like a photon. > > Hi, > > Could it be that there is a bit of a category error in the idea of > elan vital in that emergent behavior is being considered as a 'separate > and independent' substance? This kind of error, prevanent in many > philosophers ideas (highlighted by Descartes), seems to still haunt us. > I think that we seriously need to reconsider the entire idea of > "substance". Bruno's point about substance is very valid, IMHO.
Yes, Elan Vital is a category error (as are photons, IMHO) I agree that substance is not what it appears to be, but neither is it a purely arithmetic simulation. It is a category consequence. Craig -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
