It’s more that he thinks that what passes for philosophy in modern culture is superficial. — Wayfarer

Well neither he nor you are likely to gain more than a superficial understanding of modern philosophy if you are disinclined to study it adequately on account of a pre-judgement that it is superficial. This is a really good example of putting the cart before the horse.

Yes, well, you haven’t addressed a single one of my three questions to you. — javra

My bad. Let me go back and get them.

Since it’s the capacity to sense—regardless of what and of means—which defines a sentient being as such, are you arguing that trees cannot sense either gravity or sunlight? — javra

If by sentient you mean "can sense," then yes. Some definitions of sentience go beyond that. Beyond sensing, I'm agnostic. More accurately, skeptic. I doubt, but I hold judgment in reserve. The problem is that the areas beyond sensing are not here well-defined for our purposes, and not anywhere well-defined, that I can find. It seems to imply human-like consciousness. If there's such a thing as plant consciousness, I'd like to know about it.

Addressed differently, what set of processes differentiates trees from rocks if not awareness conjoined with goal-striving being found in the former but not the latter? And if trees are to be indistinguishable from rocks in being solely governed by entropy, then on what grounds does one argue that trees are lifeforms rather than inanimate matter? — javra

Two things I can think of that are minimal life functions are using fuel to create energy, and reproducing. Which is not the same thing as holding that they establish life. It always seems that life is hard to define with respect to minimal criteria. Beer-loving, watches football games, that's easier.

Rather, I’m attempting to rationally argue that trees are sentient beings by virtue of being living things. Or at least attempting to figure out how it could rationally be supported that trees are not sentient. — javra

Start with your understanding of sentience. It's neither argument nor instructive if you beg the question with a fortuitous definition.

Then we see that living things grow, multiply, and carry out activities in the world, so the concept of "homeostasis" does not properly represent what the living system is doing. — Metaphysician Undercover

It’s only a marker for the key difference between living systems and minerals. Homeostasis is a chraracteristic of even the simplest organic forms but is absent from the most complex inorganic forms.

—

I know that one of the books Apokrisis mentions from time to time on the question of the nature of life is a book by the name of ‘Life Itself’ by Robert Rosen which I understand is a well-regarded book. As it is rather a specialised biology text, I am not intending to read it, but it might be of interest to others here. There’s a pretty detailed review here which list some of Rosen’s philosophical premisses, a key one being his resistance to mechanistic reductionism.

Well neither [Maritain] nor you are likely to gain more than a superficial understanding of modern philosophy if you are disinclined to study it adequately on account of a pre-judgement that it is superficial. This is a really good example of putting the cart before the horse. — Janus

Maritain’s understanding of modern philosophy is not at all superficial. He was very highly regarded in both the Continental and American academies and there are still active Maritain centres in many countries. There are many aspects of his style that I don’t care for [and I’m emphatically not a Catholic], but the reason I cite him in respect of the question of ‘the limits of reason’ is because of his thorough grasp of the relationship between reason, science, faith, philosophy, and religion. I’m working my way through his book The Degrees of Knowledge, which is a challenging text, but one of the only current books that retains the idea of an ‘hierarchy of understanding’. [Actually the modern Catholic intellectuals, which include him, Pierre Duhem, Stanley Jaki and Stephen M. Barr, have a philosophically profound understanding of such questions, in my view, because they’re not tied to Biblical literalism of American Protestantism and can therefore evaluate the science purely in its own terms, and also because of the heritage of Thomism.]

I find that empirical presuppositions have so totally soaked into the cultural atmosphere that most people reflect them without even being aware that this is what they’re doing; they’re the air we breathe. That is why the particular lecture I mentioned, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism is worth a read. I know you’re most likely not to agree with it, but it provides a concise statement of the shortcomings of empiricism as philosophy.

I have read Maritain's Introduction to Philosophy and I have had The Degrees of Knowledge on my shelves for many years, but have only dipped into it on account of being put off by what I see as a simplistic adherence to a notion of intellectual intuition that he uses as a foundation to support his arguments against the Moderns (including Kant, who famously denied intellectual intuition).

This idea that is foundational in Maritain, that the intellectual intuition of being is a direct seeing that is superior to any discursive reasoning is an assumption that cannot cogently be argued for, and can be, in the last analysis, nothing more than purely a matter of faith. I don't believe that good philosophy can rightly be founded on a such a simplistic faith (if anywhere, it is perhaps more appropriate to theology).

Maritain's rejections of modern philosophy are based on this simplistic faith in intellectual intuition as far as I can see: he simply thinks that Kant, Hegel, Bergson, Heidegger and so on, just didn't really get it. If you want to read a much more profound Catholic thinker who incorporates modern philosophy and phenomenology into his own systematic thought, try Bernard Lonergan's Insight.(The Degrees of Knowledge appears to be somewhat meandering to me, so I wouldn't waste my time).

As you probably know, I am no materialist, at least in any 'naive' sense, since I think the whole matter/ mind problem is misconceived. I have the intuition that it may take centuries of deep, complex philosophical thought with the help of good science (if humanity lasts long enough) to untangle the knots of common-sense human confusion around this issue.

It’s only a marker for the key difference between living systems and minerals. Homeostasis is a chraracteristic of even the simplest organic forms but is absent from the most complex inorganic forms. — Wayfarer

My opinion, as I stated, is that "homeostasis" is a false representation of what these living systems are doing. Homeostasis implies equilibrium, but the living systems are growing and reproducing. Growing and reproducing, which is what living beings do, cannot be represented as homeostasis which is a form of equilibrium.

I know that one of the books Apokrisis mentions from time to time on the question of the nature of life is a book by the name of ‘Life Itself’ by Robert Rosen which I understand is a well-regarded book. As it is rather a specialised biology text, I am not intending to read it, but it might be of interest to others here. There’s a pretty detailed review here which list some of Rosen’s philosophical premisses, a key one being his resistance to mechanistic reductionism. — Wayfarer

I do not know Rosen very well at all, but I know that apokrisis argues to dissolve the distinction between living and non-living systems. From what I've read, Rosen argues to maintain a distinction between living systems (as anticipatory systems) and inanimate systems, by describing living systems according to function rather than by describing them as material activity. So although apokrisis may mention Rosen, I don't think that apokrisis has respect for Rosen's principles.

try Bernard Lonergan's Insight — Janus

I am aware of Lonergan but he's another philosopher who would take a great deal of time to study. (And Lonergan and Maritain are both categorised under the same heading in Wikipedia.) But I visit the Lonergan.org site from time to time and read some of the posts. Again, I notice that Catholic philosophers distinguish between reality/being/existence which is central to my interests (e.g. here.)

This idea that is foundational in Maritain, that the intellectual intuition of being is a direct seeing that is superior to any discursive reasoning is an assumption that cannot cogently be argued for, and can be, in the last analysis, nothing more than purely a matter of faith — Janus

I don't agree at all. I think 'the intuition of being' is understood as a genuine understanding or form of knowledge. (I discovered Maritain through a book I got at Adyar ages ago, God, Zen and the Intuition of Being, James Arraj, which compares the 'intuition of being' to satori in Zen Buddhism.) So, in the absence of having such an insight, it might be a matter of faith that there are such insights. But it certainly isn't fideistic.

I have the intuition that it may take centuries of deep, complex philosophical thought — Janus

Having dispensed with all the centuries of deep, complex philosophical thought that preceded us, it probably will - although, what with climate change and over-population, we're probably not going to have it.

As you probably know, I am no materialist — Janus

So you keep saying, but you invariably take issue with every counter-materialist argument I try and come up with.

I don't agree at all. I think 'the intuition of being' is understood as a genuine understanding or form of knowledge. — Wayfarer

Yes, of course it is so understood by Maritain and possibly by Zen adherents, but the point is that the belief that what is experienced in such states yields actual knowledge about the metaphysical nature of reality must still, in the final analysis, be just that; a belief, a matter of faith. And i am not saying there is anything wrong with that, but it has no place in philosophy, since it is subjective or at best intersubjective as culturally mediated, and hence not truly universal in its scope.

I know very well those states, having experienced them myself, both during my 18 year period of daily meditation practice and through the use of hallucinogens. I have known that sense of direct knowing, but the question always remains as to what it means, what is its philosophical significance. Think of the differences between Gautama's and Jesus' insights into the nature of reality, of God, of the afterlife, and so on.

Having dispensed with all the centuries of deep, complex philosophical thought that preceded us, it probably will - although, what with climate change and over-population, we're probably not going to have it. — Wayfarer

Contrary to your viewpoint here, Lonergan embraced modernity, and saw the inadequacy in ancient philosophy, a fact to which this quote from the SEP entry on Lonergan attests:

Lonergan aimed to clarify what occurs in any discipline - science, math, historiography, art, literature, philosophy, theology, or ethics. The need for clarification about methods has been growing over the last few centuries as the world has turned from static mentalities and routines to the ongoing management of change. Modern languages, modern architecture, modern art, modern science, modern education, modern medicine, modern law, modern economics, the modern idea of history and the modern idea of philosophy all are based on the notion of ongoing creativity. Where older philosophies sought to understand unchanging essentials, logic and law were the rule. With the emergence of modernity, philosophies have turned to understanding the innate methods of mind by which scientists and scholars discover what they do not yet know and create what does not yet exist.

For Lonergan metaphysics must be based upon phenomenology and epistemology; whereas for Maritain phenomenology and epistemology shall be judged through the lens of a purely presumptive absolutist metaphysics. This is backward looking. All those "centuries of deep, complex philosophical thought that preceded us" were practised in the absence of modern scientific knowledge; so we are in a totally different position than the ancients were: we cannot afford to ignore science, even though it obviously cannot subsume philosophy and the humanities and supply all the answers.

So you keep saying, but you invariably take issue with every counter-materialist argument I try and come up with. — Wayfarer

That's because I think your "counter materialist arguments" are mostly based on the very misconceptions and common-sense confusions I referred to earlier. And that, along with a deeply held preferential bias.

Homeostasis implies equilibrium, but the living systems are growing and reproducing. Growing and reproducing, which is what living beings do, cannot be represented as homeostasis which is a form of equilibrium. — Metaphysician Undercover

Life is managed instability. So homeostasis is central to that. The central problem is not about how to grow or how to fragment. It is about how to hold together in controlled fashion.

From what I've read, Rosen argues to maintain a distinction between living systems (as anticipatory systems) and inanimate systems, by describing living systems according to function rather than by describing them as material activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course I make the same semiotic distinction. And note how it is functionality that is then the basis of any deeper underlying continuity. The telos they have in common is entropy dissipation.

[Post removed by author as it is a pointless digression.]

Life is managed instability. So homeostasis is central to that. — apokrisis

What is central to homeostasis is stability. So if life is instability, whether that instability is managed or not, this excludes homeostasis, as instability excludes stability. That's the problem with "homeostasis", it really doesn't describe life.

this excludes homeostasis, as instability excludes stability. — Metaphysician Undercover

LOL. It is homeostasis that is the process "excluding" instability and thus creating - dynamical - stability.

If by sentient you mean "can sense," then yes. Some definitions of sentience go beyond that. Beyond sensing, I'm agnostic. More accurately, skeptic. I doubt, but I hold judgment in reserve. The problem is that the areas beyond sensing are not here well-defined for our purposes, and not anywhere well-defined, that I can find. It seems to imply human-like consciousness. If there's such a thing as plant consciousness, I'd like to know about it. — tim wood

Unfortunately, I’m not clear on what the “yes” answers when taken in context of the paragraph. “Yes” that trees cannot sense gravity and sunlight? From the paragraph in total it might be a “yes” that trees can sense these things.

Two things I can think of that are minimal life functions are using fuel to create energy, and reproducing. — tim wood

Despite teleology being deemed erroneous by the prevailing materialist metaphysics of the day, you’ll notice that in our mode of thinking teleology will be intrinsic to both aspects you address: something being done for the purpose of some given X; e.g. “using fuel” for the purpose of (i.e., because of the need of) “creating energy”, or “reproducing” for the purpose of (as one example) “preserving one’s own identity”. In both examples, the latter is the telos to the former activity.

This cannot be said of entropic givens governed by efficient causation; e.g. the billiard ball moved left when hit on the right by the cue for the purpose of [?] … It doesn’t work. Well, with the one single exception of “for the purpose of following paths of least resistance toward absolute entropy”—but this purpose would be universal to all entropic givens, and so can be easily ignored in favor of the efficient causation which is specific to givens (e.g., the billiard ball moved the way it did because it was hit by the cue).

Start with your understanding of sentience. It's neither argument nor instructive if you beg the question with a fortuitous definition. — tim wood

By sentience I merely mean “the capacity to sense things” or, as is stated in the first part of Wiktionary’s first definition, “experiencing sensations”. There is no other word for this property—and, although the word can be anthropocentrically addressed, we already hold the word “sapience” for humans … as it is indirectly used in “Homo Sapiens”.

Sensations, or the experience of things sensed, will hold a valence that is either positive, negative, or else is an ambivalence (as here used, neither positive nor negative but somewhere in-between; e.g., indifference or uncertainty). It is valence that propels actions and reactions in relation to stimuli. Roots, for example, hold a positive valence toward gravity—gravity being something that the tree senses (that stimulates it and is therefore a stimuli for the tree).

How much of this do we agree upon? While there can be more to say, if there is little agreement so far the rest will likely not be meaningful.

It is homeostasis that is the process "excluding" instability and thus creating - dynamical - stability. — apokrisis

You said "life is managed instability". If homeostasis excludes instability, then it excludes life if life is managed instability. Either life is not managed instability, or it is not homeostatic. Which do you believe?

You said "life is managed instability". If homeostasis excludes instability, then it excludes life if life is managed instability. Either life is not managed instability, or it is not homeostatic. Which do you believe? — Metaphysician Undercover

I love your difficulty with simple sentences.

It's blatant contradiction that I have difficulty with. You would too if you were a disciplined philosopher. Instead, you make contradictory statements, and then rather than trying to explain yourself you pretend to be bewildered at how it could be difficult for me to understand such contradictions.

I see that you have removed your comment that it might be possible that they see something I don't. Perhaps they may, perhaps they may not, but in any case if they do think they see something I do not, and they purport to be doing philosophy, then they should be able to say what that "something" is, otherwise if they were to claim that without backing it up, it is not philosophy they are practising, but pointless, and indeed empty, one-upmanship.

It's blatant contradiction that I have difficulty with. — Metaphysician Undercover

But you construct your own confusions.

Ever ridden a bike? Is there no homeostatic balance involved in managing its instability?

(Already wrote this darn thing. So I'll post it despite Apo having already answered.)

Hey, for my part, the philosophical problem with homeostasis you address is the same problem we hold for the continuity of an ever changing self. There is some organic structure which remains relatively stable over time—be it organism, somatic cell, or something else—by means of self-regulating an internal equilibrium of things (such as temperature in the case of mammals—but the list can be very long) despite in some ways always changing both internally and as an overall organic structure—and this in relation to an ever changing environment it is situated within and to which it acclimates. This philosophical topic of homeostasis can get into the metaphysics of identity given a world of change, can be addressed by top-down and bottom-up causal processes, and—considering the self-regulation involved—is an unique attribute of living things (to me, an inherent part of the thread's theme regarding reason and life).

It always seems that life is hard to define with respect to minimal criteria. — tim wood

We've been through this before in the "What is life?" thread.

Life: The condition extending from cell division to death, characterised by the ability to metabolise nutrients.

Artificial Life: The artificial condition extending from cell division to death, characterised by the ability to metabolise nutrients.

Natural Life: The natural condition extending from cell division to death, characterised by the ability to metabolise nutrients, respond to stimuli, mature, and adapt to the environment.

Human Life: The natural condition extending from fertilisation to death, characterised by the ability to metabolise nutrients, sense and respond to stimuli, be aware, mature physically and mentally, reproduce, and adapt to the environment.

Ever ridden a bike? Is there no homeostatic balance involved in managing its instability? — apokrisis

If stability is the goal, and it is achieved, then instability has been removed. If it is a case of managing instability, then stability is never achieved, nor is stability intended, because instability is required for the desired movements.

In living systems, is it the case that instability is managed, and therefore utilized toward achieving various goals, or is it the case that stability is the goal? Teleologically there is big difference between describing life in terms of stability (homeostasis), and in terms of managed stability. Homeostasis assumes that stability is the goal, the end, whereas "managed instability" leaves the goal, or end, as undetermined. With "managed instability" we remove the implied goal of "stability", to describe life in a more realistic way. But then we leave unanswered the question of the goal "instability is managed toward what end?". To determine this intent we must ask, what is doing the managing, because this is how we proceed toward determining intent, by identifying and understanding the agent.

Homeostasis assumes that stability is the goal — Metaphysician Undercover

Adult male cow manure. It refers to a stable balance. The balance is the goal that the system recovers to after perturbations or excursions.

Right, that's what I said, in homeostasis stability is the goal. There's no adult male cow manure here. Now, let's proceed to discuss "managing instability". Stability is not the goal here, because instability is required as the thing to be managed. Do you agree? If stability is achieved then there is no more instability to be managed. Do you agree?

Unfortunately, I’m not clear on what the “yes” answers — javra

"Yes" means that the tree is responsive to some stimuli, like gravity and sunlight. To say the tree experiences them, or senses them, implies something that experiences or senses. I don't think the tree has that.

you’ll notice that in our mode of thinking teleology will be intrinsic to both aspects you address: something being done for the purpose of some given X — javra

and so can be easily ignored in favor of the efficient causation which is specific to [the] given. — javra

When the exact immediate proximate cause is given for a specific effect, then there's no more to be said. If anyone mentions purpose, motive, telos, or anything of the kind, they have either added something to the description not part of the proximate cause, or they have added nothing to the description. Motive, purpose, telos, to my way of thinking, are all non-proximate causes that are sometimes appropriate to include in the descriptions of events involving thinking beings. I do not think the usage is appropriate or correct when applied to plants. I was going to add not useful, but as an idea it may be useful, even if wrong.

Language does indeed default to teleology; doesn't mean it's accurate or correct. We can note here that language can be extremely misleading and deceptive, even when clarity and accuracy are the goal.

I think you want to attribute something like motive, purpose, or telos to a tree. I can see where it might be of some use to think in those terms, but I do not think they have anything to do with the tree or anything the tree does. For example, you might think that trees seek out water. If you're planning a garden of sorts, that kind of thinking can be useful in helping you to plan for ponds or streams (I am not a gardener). But I do not think the tree seeks anything - it doesn't seek.

But trees are alive and they're in the world. It's a fair question as to what or how their being in the world is. I'd argue that it's confined to the level of chemical reaction. Or, something happens here; that makes something happen adjacent, maybe quickly, maybe not, that adjacency spreads. Depending on the something, maybe the spread of the adjacency touches something that makes something else happen. And so forth. Not much of a description, but I think that for the tree itself, that's it.

What I read in your post is a statement of your beliefs sans justification for them. It bares notice that the same argument for “chemical interactions via efficient causation devoid of something experiencing” can just as easily be applied to all life, humans included. It’s the basic stance of many physicalists, including Dennett, replete with an illusion of human consciousness. This is where the heavy-duty metaphysical arguments are needed, or so I’ve always thought. But that’s not what this thread is about.

Still, if it is as you believe, then there is nothing regarding life that is not thoroughly within the realm of a strictly efficient-causation-grounded reasoning.

OK. It turns out that your beliefs conform to a causally deterministic physicalism. My own do not—and, as with the physicalist, I find a dualistic metaphysical divide between the processes of human life and those of lesser lifeforms untenable. Yet since this is a difference of metaphysical views concerning causal mechanisms—one which you don’t appear interested in arguing for via justifications—I personally don’t find anything to further debate in this thread.

What I read in your post is a statement of your beliefs sans justification for them. — javra

Before you commit yourself to this kind of exit from a discussion, let me review my claims that you think lack justification.

1. The tree is alive.
2. The tree has no capacity for thought of any kind - it doesn't have a "thinker." This is just a shorthand way of saying that whatever form of life we attribute the ability to think to, a tree does not have any of those features common to those, such as a brain, spinal chord, or central nervous system.
2a, Trees don't weigh options, consider alternatives, or make decisions.
2b. Trees don't formulate any ideas.
3. Being forms of life, trees do things. They respond to stimuli, and they act in accordance with their internal coding - DNA.
4. It can be convenient and useful to refer to trees as acting in accord with purpose, or motive, or telos, but these accounts are simply abstract fictions, there being nothing in the tree purpose or motive or telos occurs. Unless these are just abstract and general terms for reacting to stimuli, or acting per DNA.

What, here, do I have to justify? I think you want to expand this list into areas where, if you make a claim, it's you who have to justify it.

If stability is achieved then there is no more instability to be managed. — Metaphysician Undercover

You must be right! Clearly once you have achieved a steady balance on your bike, you could never subsequently wobble or fall off. Genius.

To say life is managed instability is to explain the nature of the connection between matter and symbol, or metabolism and replication.

The usual bottom-up view of causation presumes life needs stable material foundations. It builds itself up from concrete parts.

However the reason why the symbol part of the equation - the stuff like the genetic memory that can encode constraints - can actually work is that it acts to regulate the unstable. If the physics has rigid stability, how could information push it in any direction? But if the physics is balanced on an instability, a point of bifurcation, then it is like a switch that can be tipped by the barest nudge.

So that is how semiotic control can arise. That is how symbols can control states of matter. The matter has to be in a state that is inherently unstable and hence able to be nudged in a direction that is some higher level informational choice.

That is the trick of life. It is the combination of information and matter, a system able to be directed with a purpose because the matter is poised to be tipped and has the least amount of telos concerning its actual state as is possible.

Stable matter knows what it wants to be. It is deterministic. But instability is freedom just begging to be harnessed. It solves the mystery of how symbols could affect the actions of anything.

And how life goes is how mind goes. The same applies when it comes to closing the explanatory gap between matter and symbol there.

Without pattern no sign, without sign no pattern replication, without pattern replication no stability (regulated instability), without instability no change, without change no pattern.

A circle of inter-independent origination.

1. The tree is alive. — tim wood

Do you think that plant life is representative of all forms of life, or that there might be attributes and characteristics that animals and humans that trees don't.

The same applies when it comes to closing the explanatory gap between matter and symbol there. — apokrisis

I generally agree with your analysis, but the issue that I have is with the idea that mind is the output or consequence of fundamentally physical processes.

The mainstream neo-darwinian view is that life began in the apocryphal 'warm pond' by some as-yet undetermined process involving some combination of heat, pressure, and complex chemistry. It somehow reaches the threshold of being self-sustaining (which, I believe, is the subject of books such as Life's Ratchet.)

After this point, the Darwinian algorithm kicks in, and evolution proper begins. Over vast aeons of time, living forms evolve to the point of self-awareness and language use.

However, this still does seem a generally physicalist account, in that it seems to assume that the biochemical gives rise to, or is prior to, the symbolic - that the ability to speak and abstract is itself the product of biochemistry. So I don't see how here the distinction between information and matter is really maintained - the former is simply an outcome of the latter.

What have I got wrong here?

Breath-taking equivocation. Makes for good fiction.