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    Carmelics

    A reasoning platform. Break down any belief into clear reasons, explore both sides, and weigh the evidence honestly.

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Perspectives
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    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that A live object has a distinctive sort of control over whether things come to be, or cease to be, part of it.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Crystals, fire, and rivers maintain and extend their own composition through internal physical processes without external direction.
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    • 2.If self-directed compositional change is sufficient for 'distinctive control,' then paradigmatically non-living systems satisfy the criterion.
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    • 3.The claim therefore fails to demarcate life from non-life unless an independent criterion distinguishes biological self-organization from physical self-organization.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Kant and later Maturana & Varela argue that living systems are distinguished by autopoiesis—recursive self-production of the very processes that produce the system.
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    • 2.The claim locates the distinctive feature of life in compositional control, but this conflates the causal mechanism (what does the controlling) with the organizational closure that defines life.
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    • 3.A philosophical account that cannot distinguish the controlling activity of a prion replicating proteins from genuine organismal agency has misidentified the relevant property.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.The control in question is made possible by activities its constituents themselves are capable of.
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    • 2.Non-living objects like automobiles have their composition settled passively by external forces (mechanics, accidents, etc.).
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    • 3.If a car's parts were somehow capable of replacing some of themselves with fresh parts without outside assistance, so that the activities of its current parts were responsible for its future composition, that would make it quite lifelike.
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