The difference between plants and stars?

[brian0918]

I have been PMing Grames regarding this, but am interested in responses from others. What is wrong with the following comparison:

A plant is said to be a living thing because it has the capacity for self-generated, goal-directed action. The goal for plants, as with all living things, is its continued existence as a plant. A plant performs this through the process of photosynthesis - using energy from photons, which interact with certain combinations of atoms, to produce a viable energy source for its maintenance. If it dies, its matter still exists, but it is no longer a plant because all those self-generated actions have ceased.

A star can be said to be a living thing because it has the capacity for self-generated, goal-directed action. The goal for a star is its continued existence as a star. A star performs this through the process of nucleosynthesis - using certain combinations of atoms to produce a viable energy source for its maintenance. If it dies, its matter still exists, but it is no longer a star because all those self-generated actions have ceased.

I think the fundamental question is, if someone asserts a specific "goal", or a "self-generated" action, for a non-living thing, how do you show that those are not in fact goals or self-generated actions?

Edited January 14, 2009 by brian0918

[Ordr]

I have been PMing Grames regarding this, but am interested in responses from others. What is wrong with the following comparison:

I think the fundamental question is, if someone asserts a specific "goal", or a "self-generated" action, for a non-living thing, how do you show that those are not in fact goals or self-generated actions?

Doesn't a goal imply volition?

[D'kian]

I have been PMing Grames regarding this, but am interested in responses from others. What is wrong with the following comparison:

The goal of a plant is to reproduce, not merely to exist. All living things have the ability to reproduce, non-living things do not.

Other than that living things posses organic structures, non-living things do not. Compared to a plant, the Sun is a simple object.

[brian0918]

Doesn't a goal imply volition?

Yes. How do you show that a star does not have a will? It is constantly using its mass to produce heavier elements in order to get more energy to counteract gravity and sustain its existence as a star. If any of the steps in this chain of self-generated action ceased - which they eventually will - it would cease being a star, and collapse.

[Greebo]

Yes. How do you show that a star does not have a will? It is constantly using its mass to produce heavier elements in order to get more energy to counteract gravity and sustain its existence as a star. If any of the steps in this chain of self-generated action ceased - which they eventually will - it would cease being a star, and collapse.

How do you propose to show that a star *does* have a will?

[brian0918]

The goal of a plant is to reproduce, not merely to exist. All living things have the ability to reproduce, non-living things do not.

What I'm getting at, though, does not require reproduction in order to be relevant. Rand derives ethics from values from will from goal-directed action. Whether or not you can call a star a living thing (because it doesn't reproduce) is not as important as whether or not you can say it has no self-generated, goal-directed action. Showing that difference is the important thing here.

Compared to a plant, the Sun is a simple object.

In fact stars are quite complex. They are onion-like in their structure, and different reactions occur at the various boundaries between layers of the "onion". Their structures are further complicated by rotation and the magnetic field they generate. Also, with regard to the light produce from the sun - it takes a given photon of light an average of a million years to get from the center of the Sun to its surface, from which it flies to Earth in 8 minutes.

How do you propose to show that a star *does* have a will?

I would ask the same question of a plant.

Edited January 14, 2009 by brian0918

[Ordr]

Yes. How do you show that a star does not have a will? It is constantly using its mass to produce heavier elements in order to get more energy to counteract gravity and sustain its existence as a star. If any of the steps in this chain of self-generated action ceased - which they eventually will - it would cease being a star, and collapse.

It isn't choosing to perform these actions. The actions are simply the result of physical, natural laws; ie: the Laws of Thermodynamics.

[Greebo]

Doesn't a goal imply volition?

No, I don't believe so.

Living organisms strive to survive and reproduce. Primitive life forms have no conscious choice in this matter. They expend effort by their nature.

More complex organisms show the ability to choose actions. My dog, for example, sometimes chooses to come when I call her, and sometimes chooses to express a desire for me to come to her instead so we can play. Instinctively, she is driven to survival, but can be trained to act in manners contrary to instinct, while a plant cannot, because it doesn't even have instinct. It just has responses.

Here is why I think the comparison is invalid.

Let us assume we had the technology to dissect a star, as we can dissect a plant.

Take the star apart and distribute its constituent parts so that they are evenly distributed into 1 pound masses separated by 1 foot of distance from each. Do the same to a tree.

Now put the tree back together. Put the star back together.

The star will reignite. The tree will not grow. The tree will be dead. The star will be a star again.

I would ask the same question of a plant.

Put a plant in a pan with water on one end and dry heat on the other. The plant's roots will grow towards the water.

Put a star halfway between a massive source of hydrogen and a giant lump of lead (which would not, I believe, serve as fuel for the star's reaction). The star will ... attract both due to its gravitational density without discrimination.

[Ordr]

Here is why I think the comparison is invalid.

Let us assume we had the technology to dissect a star, as we can dissect a plant.

Take the star apart and distribute its constituent parts so that they are evenly distributed into 1 pound masses separated by 1 foot of distance from each. Do the same to a tree.

Now put the tree back together. Put the star back together.

The star will reignite. The tree will not grow. The tree will be dead. The star will be a star again.

I don't disagree that the tree will be dead.

However, the statement claiming that "the star will be a star again", while technically true, all depends on conditions. One can do the same with an ice-cube. Cut it into pieces and put it back together. Provided the conditions are right, as with the star, it will reform and continue it's ice-cubey life.

[brian0918]

It isn't choosing to perform these actions. The actions are simply the result of physical, natural laws; ie: the Laws of Thermodynamics.

Nor is a plant choosing to perform its actions. Light happens to hit its leafs, and that light necessarily interacts through natural laws with certain arrangements of atoms (molecules) to convert energy into another form.

Edited January 14, 2009 by brian0918

[brian0918]

Put a plant in a pan with water on one end and dry heat on the other. The plant's roots will grow towards the water.

But they necessarily had to. It is not magic. Water vapor from the wet side hits the plant's surface on that side, leading to chemical reactions in the plant that result in more chemical activity in the roots nearest the water.

Put a star halfway between a massive source of hydrogen and a giant lump of lead (which would not, I believe, serve as fuel for the star's reaction). The star will ... attract both due to its gravitational density without discrimination.

By absorbing the lead, the star would get that much more massive, thus increasing the pressure on atoms to fuse together. There are two sources of "fuel" in a star - the individual atoms to be fused, and the high pressure caused by its massive size. You have just given it both the things it needs to sustain itself, and it has likewise pulled both towards itself.

Edited January 14, 2009 by brian0918

[brian0918]

Take the star apart and distribute its constituent parts so that they are evenly distributed into 1 pound masses separated by 1 foot of distance from each. Do the same to a tree.

Now put the tree back together. Put the star back together.

The star will reignite. The tree will not grow. The tree will be dead. The star will be a star again.

By this same logic, it should be impossible for a person to ever create a living thing from non-living material. Do you believe this? Is a whole field of science inevitably doomed to fail? How did living things ever come about, then?

Edited January 14, 2009 by brian0918

[Greebo]

I don't disagree that the tree will be dead.

However, the statement claiming that "the star will be a star again", while technically true, all depends on conditions. One can do the same with an ice-cube. Cut it into pieces and put it back together. Provided the conditions are right, as with the star, it will reform and continue it's ice-cubey life.

Yep. And the tree will not. No matter what the conditions, the tree that was cut apart and put back together again will not be a tree again.

That's the difference between a star and a plant. Or an ice cube and a plant. Or any living thing and any non living thing. Break them apart, and then restore them to the original conditions, and the non living will be back to what it was, the living will be gone forever.

End of lesson.

[Grames]

I took my time constructing a PM reply, so wasn't paying attention to the forum and this new thread.

Anyway, in my last message I proposed that living entities such as plants can be distinguished from nonliving entities such as stars by their internal negative entropy.

Edited January 14, 2009 by Grames

[Greebo]

By this same logic, it should be impossible for a person to ever create a living thing from non-living material. Do you believe this? Is a whole field of science inevitably doomed to fail? How did living things ever come about, then?

Surely you are not trying to say that taking something apart and putting it together again is the same thing as the *process* by which living things developed?

Again - the same lesson - the process of life, once interrupted, cannot be resumed from where it left off. The process that a star goes through can.

You don't even need to think much to restart the star - separate all its components out and then put them all back in the same place and the heat and pressure will restart the nuclear fire as long as there is fuel to burn.

[brian0918]

Anyway, in my last message I proposed that living entities such as plants can be distinguished from nonliving entities such as stars by their internal negative entropy.

Thanks for the link. I'm currently reading this piece for more information on negative entropy. I am not sure we're staying on topic, though. My true purpose is to understand how Rand's only distinction between living and non-living - namely, self-generated, goal-directed action - is accurate. Simply finding a specific distinction between living and non-living things doesn't really address the issue. Even if you showed a difference between living and non-living based on negative entropy, you would also have to show how that prohibits non-living things from having self-generated, goal-directed action.

Edited January 14, 2009 by brian0918

[Greebo]

Thanks for the link. I'm currently reading this piece for more information on negative entropy. I am not sure we're staying on topic, though. My true purpose is to understand how Rand's only distinction between living and non-living - namely, self-generated, goal-directed action - is accurate. Simply finding a specific distinction between living and non-living things doesn't really address the issue. Even if you showed a difference between living and non-living based on negative entropy, you would also have to show how that prohibits non-living things from having self-generated, goal-directed action.

Actually I think you would have to prove that non-living things CAN have self-generated actions.

Stars actions aren't self-generated. They don't have a choice, or any drive to persist, or any ability to repair themselves.

Plants can repair themselves. They don't have a choice, but they DO have the ability to recover from damage.

(Not that I know how you would "damage" a star, but assuming you could...)

[D'kian]

What I'm getting at, though, does not require reproduction in order to be relevant. Rand derives ethics from values from will from goal-directed action. Whether or not you can call a star a living thing (because it doesn't reproduce) is not as important as whether or not you can say it has no self-generated, goal-directed action. Showing that difference is the important thing here.

Pk. A plant can respond to changing conditions, a star cannot. A plant has to gather nutrients from the soil and energy from the Sun, a star does not need nutrients and already contains all the energy it will ever expend.

In fact stars are quite complex.

Stars are not simple strucures, no. But compared to a plant they are less complex.

[brian0918]

Surely you are not trying to say that taking something apart and putting it together again is the same thing as the *process* by which living things developed?

I don't understand your question. I believe we are probably in agreement about abiogenesis as the origin of life, right? So originally, material that was "non-living" was reorganized to become material that was "living", possibly with the addition of energy. Are you suggesting this could never be reproduced by a person?

Again - the same lesson - the process of life, once interrupted, cannot be resumed from where it left off. The process that a star goes through can.

How does this relate to my true purpose in this thread, namely showing that Rand's only distinction between living and non-living things - self-generated, goal-directed action - is correct?

[Ordr]

(Not that I know how you would "damage" a star, but assuming you could...)

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sun_Crusher

[brian0918]

Plants can repair themselves. They don't have a choice, but they DO have the ability to recover from damage.

All you're saying is that plants can perform a wider variety of actions than stars. Why is this relevant, though, to the question of whether or not stars can do self-generated, goal-directed things?

What I see throughout this thread are countless attempts to differentiate stars from plants, in whatever way possible. While that does go toward answering the general question of the differences between stars and plants, it does nothing to answer the question of why plants are considered to have self-generated, goal-directed actions, but stars are not.

A better question might be whether or not viruses are alive. They have self-generated, goal-directed action (right?), but cannot reproduce.

Or, maybe the whole issue of definitively saying that non-living things do not have self-generated, goal-directed action is not critical to Rand's argument at all. She may have been wrong on that point, but it is not required for her reasoning to be true. So what if stars and viruses have self-generated, goal-directed action. Why would that bring down the Objectivist ethics?

Edited January 14, 2009 by brian0918

[Ordr]

All you're saying is that plants can perform a wider variety of actions than stars. Why is this relevant, though, to the question of whether or not stars can do self-generated, goal-directed things?

I have to come back to this: "goal-directed", at least in the context of your statements, implies volition. A volitional object, to set a goal, evaluates a situation and chooses a plan of action in order to arrive at a desired outcome. That process implies consciousness; something that neither a star nor a plant possesses.

Edited January 14, 2009 by Ordr

[D'kian]

A better question might be whether or not viruses are alive. They have self-generated, goal-directed action (right?), but cannot reproduce.

Viruses can reproduce. That's what makes them infectious. They reproduce by highjacking the reproductive machinery of cells, not by their own direct actions, but that's reproduction.

And that is all they can do. They can't move, they don't interact with other viruses, they don't eat and they don't excrete.

Are they alive? It's hard to say. I'm tempted to say it's a matter of opinion.

[Grames]

I have to come back to this: "goal-directed", at least in the context of your statements, implies volition. A volitional object, to set a goal, evaluates a situation and chooses a plan of action in order to arrive at a desired outcome. That process implies consciousness; something that neither a star nor a plant possesses.

No, "goal-directed" is part of Ayn Rand's definition of life. From the Lexicon: Goal-directed action

Only a living entity can have goals or can originate them. And it is only a living organism that has the capacity for self-generated, goal-directed action. On the physical level, the functions of all living organisms, from the simplest to the most complex—from the nutritive function in the single cell of an amoeba to the blood circulation in the body of a man—are actions generated by the organism itself and directed to a single goal: the maintenance of the organism’s life.

When applied to physical phenomena, such as the automatic functions of an organism, the term “goal-directed” is not to be taken to mean “purposive” (a concept applicable only to the actions of a consciousness) and is not to imply the existence of any teleological principle operating in insentient nature. I use the term “goal-directed,” in this context, to designate the fact that the automatic functions of living organisms are actions whose nature is such that they result in the preservation of an organism’s life.

[Ordr]

No, "goal-directed" is part of Ayn Rand's definition of life. From the Lexicon: Goal-directed action

I stand utterly corrected.

Thank you for the link.