Vitalism as Instinct

[foodchain]

Is the experience of vitalism as such is in philosophy a possibly evolutionary advantage?

 

Being homo sapien is a generalist would not the ability to easily define living from non living elements of an environment become very favorable?

 

What I mean basically is asking if vitalism as its currently understood a probable manifestation of certain organisms or species of life being able to understand life from non life as is currently understood? Such as language is a trait of some species with many possible forms such as the hundreds of dialects one can find in humanity.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism

 

"This article is about the non-mechanist philosophy. For other uses, see vital.

Vitalism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary,[1] is

 

a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from physicochemical forces

a doctrine that the processes of life are not explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone and that life is in some part self-determining

Where vitalism explicitly invokes a vital principle, that element is often referred to as the "vital spark," "energy" or "élan vital," which some equate with the "soul."

 

Vitalism has a long history in medical philosophies: most traditional healing practices posited that disease was the result of some imbalance in the vital energies which distinguish living from non-living matter. In the Western tradition, associated with Hippocrates, these vital forces were identified as the humours; Eastern traditions posited similar forces such as qi and prana. More recently, vitalistic thinking has been identified in the naive biological theories of children."[2]

[vampares]

As a quantum entity, I think vitalism, et al., is a theory (philosophical concept really) that has not progressed with the rest of science. The "humors" have not yielded any evidence of a source of life or vital essence (like green slime and the toaster in ghostbusters).

 

Science eventually branched off into schools of Chemistry and Biology. "Organic Chemistry" and "Biochemistry" being one with respect to the other.

 

The whole idea is really just expanded into what we know as biology. The biological process as we know it is distinct from other all other systems, and this because of the "vitalism" we attribute to it.

 

"Medicine", however, remains the same. We do not employ religious or spiritual practices in medicine. Perhaps the extraction of ethereal vitalism is found in crystallology and the like. But, the scientific introspection is an entirely logical construct, philosophical, in regards to "vitalism".

 

The Degenerate Biologist and the Perverted Physician are probably most inclined to vitalism by virtue of the Fiddle-Diddle Instinct. As a religious or philosophical construct there is little more than vantage point to be gained.

[foodchain]

As a quantum entity, I think vitalism, et al., is a theory (philosophical concept really) that has not progressed with the rest of science. The "humors" have not yielded any evidence of a source of life or vital essence (like green slime and the toaster in ghostbusters).

 

Science eventually branched off into schools of Chemistry and Biology. "Organic Chemistry" and "Biochemistry" being one with respect to the other.

 

The whole idea is really just expanded into what we know as biology. The biological process as we know it is distinct from other all other systems, and this because of the "vitalism" we attribute to it.

 

"Medicine", however, remains the same. We do not employ religious or spiritual practices in medicine. Perhaps the extraction of ethereal vitalism is found in crystallology and the like. But, the scientific introspection is an entirely logical construct, philosophical, in regards to "vitalism".

 

The Degenerate Biologist and the Perverted Physician are probably most inclined to vitalism by virtue of the Fiddle-Diddle Instinct. As a religious or philosophical construct there is little more than vantage point to be gained.

 

When you say quantum I am left to think stability over probability in regards to evolutionary reasons. Natural selection being what it is the concept of einselection becomes a somewhat playful idea but I don’t know really enough to talk about it at any serious lengths. I do however view QM as purely physical or not in some sense as of being guided by the super natural.

 

Which I guess comes to the split in which some view the world and all of reality down to the second on the watch as some determined future and those that don’t, I don’t view the world that way and I can only see QM as supporting such also really. The mere physical reality to organic evolution I think simply shows reality to have a dynamic and not fully deterministic reality to the simple point of looking at the variance of gravel or snow.

 

I mean if energy is quanta, energy cannot be destroyed and or created, energy can only change form. I think the rest pretty much sums itself up. Then I guess the opposite is to say quanta is not energy, though I don’t think that’s lawful really or correct.

 

As far as I know conservation of energy holds for QM though I think there is violation somewhere in some symmetry but someone more educated on the matter would have to step in on that to make the final call, I don’t really think I can.

 

In regards to my question I am basically asking if being able to experience stimuli in a fashion in which an organism can tell living from non living matter would be advantageous thus remain in existence biologically. Such as with generalist human behavior I would see such as a plus. Environmental change occurs faster then biological change. In fact adaptation to variance in the environment basically explains evolution. That being said again such instinct would show in human behavior, like fear or the use of language. I am trying to phrase vitalism as just such a reality. That vitalism as understood in say a culture is really the instinctual manifestation of simply determining life from non life. As if to match say the reality of phenotype plasticity or growth and development. Language exists but has no clear bounds as to what exactly it cant or can be.

[immortal]

As far as I know conservation of energy holds for QM though I think there is violation somewhere in some symmetry but someone more educated on the matter would have to step in on that to make the final call, I don’t really think I can.

 

In regards to my question I am basically asking if being able to experience stimuli in a fashion in which an organism can tell living from non living matter would be advantageous thus remain in existence biologically. Such as with generalist human behavior I would see such as a plus. Environmental change occurs faster then biological change. In fact adaptation to variance in the environment basically explains evolution. That being said again such instinct would show in human behavior, like fear or the use of language. I am trying to phrase vitalism as just such a reality. That vitalism as understood in say a culture is really the instinctual manifestation of simply determining life from non life. As if to match say the reality of phenotype plasticity or growth and development. Language exists but has no clear bounds as to what exactly it cant or can be.

 

Well I am not so educated in quantum mechanics but this is what I know and I think Conservation of energy does not hold good for QM for short intervals of time. There are particles called 'virtual photons' and its quite hard to determine their mass. For an electron the mass of the electron along with the mass of virtual photons determine their complete mass and sometimes the virtual photons reduce the mass of the electron as if they did not existed and this leads to absorption of photons and the electron jumps up to next higher orbit.

 

As far has your question is concerned it would'nt be an advantage to know whether something has life or non life. Just gaining information from the surroundings is enough to adapt. Whether a Virus has life or not it is going to cause diseases and designing mechanisms to prevent this disease is sufficient to adapt. We don't know how life arosed on our planet because life is very complex and we does'nt have enough information to describe an event which occured 3.5 billion years ago. Its not about the time actually its about how complex the event is. Information theory and molecular biology along with some complicated chemistry and physical forces should be able to replicate that event.

 

Infact there are certain points in the universe where things start to happen.

All stars can not have planets because it has to have the right metallic character to produce planets. Stars which have a high amount of ferrous magnesuim silicates have a greater chance to produce planets and they emit them in the form of chondrules and these chondrules combine to form planets. It also depends on the nieghbouring stars because these stars evaporate the clouds around a young star preventing the star to produce planets as though there is competion among them. So when there is a hostile environment you can see life originating out. As this is a cyclic process entropy of the system will be zero and we will again end up as clouds of dust and gas.