Your thoughts on my definition of "life"?

Questions about Objectivism
21

I realise that. I was asking a question relating to the structure of his definition. When analysing a definition, is it always the case that adjectives placed in front of the genus are included in that genus? You seemed to look at that definition and choose ‘profoundly experiential relationship’ as the genus. I looked at that definition and chose ‘relationship’ as the genus, identifying ‘profoundly experiential’ as differentia.

Following the steps you outlined:

  1. What am I defining? (Life)

  2. What am I differentiating it from? (Relationships)

  3. How is it different from other similar objects? (Profoundly Experiential, Man & Existence)

Actually, he was trying to differentiate life from profoundly experiential relationships (whatever that is). That would suggest that there are relationships which are profoundly experiantial and they have sometime, somewhere been defined. And now, he has found that life is a certain kind of a profoundly experiential relationship, which needs to be separately defined, meaning, of course, there are other kinds of profoundly experiential relationships.

Anyway, I’m getting a little dizzy from this weird classification of life as ANY kind of relationship, so I’m saying once again: his definition is incorrect.

22

The goal directed part is the essential thing we are looking for, and I’m pretty sure Miss Rand used it herself now that I think about it. I’ll have to look it up. Remember stars die too, so, that wouldn’t be any type of differentia.

23

Actually, he was trying to differentiate life from profoundly experiential relationships (whatever that is). That would suggest that there are relationships which are profoundly experiantial and they have sometime, somewhere been defined. And now, he has found that life is a certain kind of a profoundly experiential relationship, which needs to be separately defined, meaning, of course, there are other kinds of profoundly experiential relationships.

Anyway, I’m getting a little dizzy from this weird classification of life as ANY kind of relationship, so I’m saying once again: his definition is incorrect.

Yeah, we are trying to find the correct definition now though.

24

No, because a definition, while explicitly naming the ESSENTIAL characteristics, still subsumes all the OTHER characteristics.  A concept does not refer to the definition, but the referents that are subsumed under it, namely, things that are alive.

Man is the “rational animal” but that does not mean that man=“rational” + “animal”.

Actually, when you see a definition such as “man is a rational animal,” you don’t know anything about man, except that he is rational. The definition subsumes nothing. What you have to do after you’ve read a definition is - look at reality, and determine - of all the animals, which ones are rational? Within the current scope of knowledge available to man, the only rational animal is man (hence the definition, of course). When looking at REALITY (NOT the definition), you will find that that animal happens to be a biped, it’s got a head, two arms, a belly-button, two eyes which vary in color from individual to individual, etc. The definition omits these, because having eyes or a head does not differentiate man from everything else.

Also, there is a definition of man which says that man is an animal that laughs. This, although a characteristic that can differentiate man from other animals, is a non-essential characteristic of man, therefore, this definition should be rejected.

25

If ‘self-generated, self-sustaining action’ is a sufficient definition of life, are stars alive?

The processes on a star aren’t actions. Therefore, stars are not alive.

26

Yeah, we are trying to find the correct definition now though.

Then we are done. Ayn Rand’s definition is good.

27

Would a machien that is capable of original, rational thought and independnet action be alive even though it is not biological in origin?

Many science fiction authors have been dealing with this question, in one form or another, for over sixty years. And the concept of “man-made” life goes even father back, to Mary Shelley and to the legends surrounding golems.

28

Would a machien that is capable of original, rational thought and independnet action be alive even though it is not biological in origin?

Many science fiction authors have been dealing with this question, in one form or another, for over sixty years. And the concept of “man-made” life goes even father back, to Mary Shelley and to the legends surrounding golems.

I think that once it is conscious then it should be given autonomy, yes.

An even better question is: is man capable of building a machine capable of original, rational thought? There’s no way to know, with our current context of knowledge, if its even possible – so to posulate the status of such a device as “alive” is rather arbitrary. Let’s see how wide the river is before we start planning the bridge, eh?

29

Actually, when you see a definition such as “man is a rational animal,” you don’t know anything about man, except that he is rational. The definition subsumes nothing. What you have to do after you’ve read a definition is - look at reality, and determine - of all the animals, which ones are rational? Within the current scope of knowledge available to man, the only rational animal is man (hence the definition, of course). When looking at REALITY (NOT the definition), you will find that that animal happens to be a biped, it’s got a head, two arms, a belly-button, two eyes which vary in color from individual to individual, etc. The definition omits these, because having eyes or a head does not differentiate man from everything else.

Also, there is a definition of man which says that man is an animal that laughs. This, although a characteristic that can differentiate man from other animals, is a non-essential characteristic of man, therefore, this definition should be rejected.

You form your own internal definition of a concept after you form the concept, you don’t go out and read the definition and then form the concept. Higher-level concepts are almost always formed in terms of concepts other concepts. Internally, definition comes after conceptualization.

30

I think that once it is conscious then it should be given autonomy, yes.

An even better question is: is man capable of building a machine capable of original, rational thought?  There’s no way to know, with our current context of knowledge, if its even possible – so to posulate the status of such a device as “alive” is rather arbitrary.  Let’s see how wide the river is before we start planning the bridge, eh?

I thought this was commonly referenced as “sex” and “pregnancy”. I guess men can’t do the second one, so no. :dough:

31

I think that once it is conscious then it should be given autonomy, yes.

An even better question is: is man capable of building a machine capable of original, rational thought?  There’s no way to know, with our current context of knowledge, if its even possible – so to posulate the status of such a device as “alive” is rather arbitrary.  Let’s see how wide the river is before we start planning the bridge, eh?

Even if we do not yet have that capacity (mainly because our understanding of the process that we call thought is still extremely limited), it is still fair to ask the question because fifty, a hundred or two hundred years from now the capacity might well exist.

When it does, we will have the prospect of a set of artifically-generated minds interacting with naturally-created human minds. Many science fiction writers (who are, in a sense, writing more about tehoetical philosphy than about science) have postulated concepts like “downloading” a mind from a biological from (a human brain) into a computer or computer network, transferring an intact human or other mind from one body to another, etc. An entire genre called “transhumanism” has emerged that deals with these issues, which is seen in RPGs like Transhuman Space and Ex Machina and in films like Ghost in the Shell and its sequels GITS 2: innocence and the Tv series GITS: Stand Alone Complex. Stories like this frequently find themsevles dealing with what the ability to transfer, preserve, and erase consciousness means to the concepts of life, idendity, and gender. (How does it change a mind to go from a male body to a female or neuter body?)

So even though we do not yet have that capacity, there is a lot of literature on the social and ethical implications that capacity would generate once it exists. It’s just like FTl and time travel; they don’t exist now, and the science we understand now indicates they never will, but there is a lot of speculations on what those technologies would mean to the humans and others that use them.

32

I thought this was commonly referenced as “sex” and “pregnancy”.  I guess men can’t do the second one, so no.  :smiley:

If you want to define a man as a “machine”, then you’re right. I thought about this definition while writing my reply and wondered if anyone else would think of it, too <_<

But to rebutt: a woman can’t exactly get pregnant without a man, now - can she? :stuck_out_tongue:

33

If you want to define a man as a “machine”, then you’re right.  I thought about this definition while writing my reply and wondered if anyone else would think of it, too <_<

But to rebutt: a woman can’t exactly get pregnant without a man, now - can she? :smiley:

Sort of. She can use artificial insemination to become pregannt without direct contact with a man. A man is still needed to supply the sperm, however.

if human cloning ever becomes reliable it opens up the possibility of completely asexual reporduction of the human species. And if ti becomes common or a norm, the role of the male in the world could be greatly reduced or even eliminated. (And, since clones are almost always female, the proportion of males in the population could also decline.)

34

Sort of. She can use artificial insemination to become pregannt without direct contact with a man. A man is still needed to supply the sperm, however.

if human cloning ever becomes reliable it opens up the possibility of completely asexual reporduction of the human species. And if ti becomes common or a norm, the role of the male in the world could be greatly reduced or even eliminated. (And, since clones are almost always female, the proportion of males in the population could also decline.)

What are you smoking? <_< You keep make all these arbitrary assertions and then argue for them as if they are fact.

35

What are you smoking?  <_<   You keep make all these arbitrary assertions and then argue for them as if they are fact.

Where am I making that assertion? Much of what we think about the social effects of things like human cloning and artifical minds are inherently speculative. I am merely basiing my speculations on two things: the currently knwon science as I understand it and the speculations of the writers and artists with whose work I am familiar. I am certainly open to an alternative explanation, but it would be nice if you could actually offer one rather than simply shooting down this one.

I merely mention ideas. Do with them what you will.

36

You form your own internal definition of a concept after you form the concept, you don’t go out and read the definition and then form the concept.  Higher-level concepts are almost always formed in terms of concepts other concepts.  Internally, definition comes after conceptualization.

That is true, but what I said was in the context of someone who just read the definition, without prior knowledge of what man is. Therefore (in this context), if you read a definition, you don’t know what it is that it defines. Then you read it and within the scope of your knowledge you can see what it is. If you don’t you can look at reality to see what it is.

Say you are familiar with what the genus of that definition is (you know exactly what it refers to), but you know nothing about the concept that is being defined. Then, according to what the definition says, you can observe which objects within the specified genus differentiate from other objects in the same genus in the way that the definition describes.

37

Non-sense.

So in your view, stars act to sustain themselves?

38

I’m going to suggest “irreducibly goal-directed, self-sustaining, self-generated action” as the definition of life. This eliminates such things as stars, while preserving all forms of biological life (including viruses and cells).

I would argue that this definition also eliminates computer programs and robots, since their actions are not irreducibly goal-directed; their ‘goal-directed action’ is simply our perception of the result of a long list of goal-independent instructions, simple coding and the like none of which are specifically goal-directed in themselves. Take a robot whose ‘goal’ is to keep a house clean. On casual inspection, we can see its action as goal-directed. Looking at its code, though, there is no ‘keep house clean’ action: There’s a long list of constituent actions, all intermixed, things like “turn left,” “drive forward until you hit a wall,” “deploy cleaning device,” etc, all of which can themselves be reduced to the fundamental ones-and-zeroes of data transmission and processing. When the reason behind any of these constituent ones-and-zeroes actions is investigated, we do not find a goal – we find “because the programming said to do it.”

Thus, the definition of life is a matter of context, as is all knowledge. What we identify as ‘goal-directed action’ is, itself, contextual on our understanding of the nature of that action. To provide another example, if we were able to examine in detail the ‘programming’ of a lower-level life form such as a virus, we could likely reduce a virus’ goal-directed action down to a list of constituent actions, none of which are, by themselves, specifically goal-directed (as with the cleaning robot above). In this sense, we have taken a higher-level perspective of goal-directed action and reduced it to a large list of goal-independent actions: Via a change in the context of our knowledge, we have reduced a living virus to a computer program.

Our context changed, our understanding of goal-directed action changed, and so our understanding of a virus as a ‘life form’ would also change.

In other words, something is alive as long as its actions are goal-directed. If we can reduce these goal-directed actions to a list of determined instructions that are no longer goal-directed actions, then, within the context of our knowledge, we have ‘reduced’ this thing such that it no longer satisfies the conditions for ‘life.’

Clearly, we all have an intuitive grasp of what ‘life’ is, and I think the above describes it most succinctly. Imagine our perspective of a cockroach now; we see it as ‘alive.’ But if we were able to print out the programming of its consciousness and see that it really only followed a long, long list of determined, goal-independent actions, that it was a glorified robot in a biological shell, I think a lot of us would intuitively reject applying the definition of ‘life’ to it: The mystery is gone, the magic has left it; all silly intuitive constructs behind which exists a rational truth – our definition of life is dependent on our identification of a life form’s actions as irreducibly goal-directed.

Is this an accurate definition of life? I don’t know; but I think it’s the definition we all implicity hold to when we claim that viruses, cockroaches and humans are alive, but computers, stars and robots are not: The actions of the former are irreducibly goal-directed, within the context of our knowledge.

39

I’m going to suggest “irreducibly goal-directed, self-sustaining, self-generated action” as the definition of life. This eliminates such things as stars, while preserving all forms of biological life (including viruses and cells).

Prime, “irreducibly goal-directed” is a redundancy. It is not necessary to say that, because it is already said with “self-sustaining,” i.e. the goal is sustaining the self.

Contrary to what has been said, stars do not perform any self-generated action required by their “survival.” While fusion and fission are self-sustaining (for a while), they are not self-generated. To be self-generated means to be its own cause, and that is what these processes are not. Note the difference between self-sustaining and self-generated.

Furthermore, these processes are natural processes which occur in (today more or less) predictable patterns and their goal is not self-sustaining - there is no possibility of a goal, because the term itself relies on concepts such as consciousness and intelligence.

Note that these in turn rely on the concept of life, thus introducing the concept “goal” into the definition of “life” generates a loophole, as you are using a higher-level concept to descibe a lower-level one.

As for artificial life (AI and similar), it must be said that, contrary to what many of you think, they don’t really execute commands. Their circuitry is simply put together in such a way as to react differently (yet in the way we originally wanted them to) to different stimulus. This stimulus is a change in voltage (normally zero and 5 volts). Depending on which circuit is “stimulated” you will get a different result. Computers or robots are no more alive or conscious than light-bulbs.

40

So in your view, stars act to sustain themselves?

Not in any conscious way if that’s what you mean. But they do continually convert H into He and so on releasing great amounts of energy that try to blow the star apart while being balanced by the force of gravity. It does this this entire life, it is self-sustaining.