On Wednesday, September 26, 2012 8:30:33 PM UTC-4, stathisp wrote: > > On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 2:10 AM, Craig Weinberg > <[email protected]<javascript:>> > wrote: > > >> Metabolism involves replacing parts of cells that break down with > >> inanimate matter from the environment. The cells may or may not have > >> experiences associated with them but apparently this process preserves > >> the experiences. A car may have experiences and replacing the worn out > >> car parts preserves the car's function and may also preserve the car's > >> experiences. In what way is maintenance of cells fundamentally > >> different to maintenance of cars? > > > > > > The difference is that cells only metabolize when they are alive. A car > was > > never alive so it has to be maintained externally and can't heal itself. > The > > car is also not really one thing but thousands of parts assembled to act > as > > if it were one thing. An organism is completely different in that it is > > really one cell which has grown and replicated through its own sense and > > motives into a body. The body isn't an assembly of cells acting like a > body, > > it is a single organism on one level and many organs and organisms on > other > > levels. Just because cells perform mechanical functions also doesn't > mean > > that they are machines. > > Craig, have you ever worked in a biology lab? Have you ever discussed > these ideas in person with a biology teacher at school or university? > It's not even that you're wrong, it's that you've completely missed > the point of the last two centuries years of biological science, which > essentially consists in treating living organisms as understandable > machines rather than mysterious spirits. > > The problem is the assumption that they can only be one thing if they aren't the other. This kind of dualism is a prejudice of a particular phase of scientific development that is overdue for reconciliation. By framing it as 'understandable vs mysterious' instead of public-spatial vs private-temporal, we close off all possibility for progress. Do you think that I don't know how effective the reductionist approach has been for Western Civilization? The Catholic Church was deemed equally effective during Galileo's time. You misunderstand my perspective and assume that I am talking about some new force outside of physics when what I am doing is showing a way of integrating the obvious conditions of our experience with physics.
I think that realizing that cells are also our sub-personal experiences will be the next two centuries of biological science. Craig > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/everything-list/-/iY0akvYNUp4J. 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.
