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    If organisms exist only because their parts collectively ... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→Organisms (living composite objects) do exist.

    If organisms exist only because their parts collectively instantiate 'life', then the organism adds no causal work beyond what its simples already accomplish, satisfying no parsimony-respecting criterion for existence.

    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Causal exclusion: if particle interactions fully determine outcomes, organism-level causes are redundant and violate parsimony.
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    • 2.Composition as identity: if organisms just ARE their parts arranged, organism causation reduces to mereological facts, adding nothing novel.
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    • 3.Ontological economy: we should not posit entities whose causal work is exhausted by their constituents' work without justification.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Levels of description are causally real: organism-level properties (metabolism, adaptation) cause effects unavailable to individual particle descriptions.
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    • 2.Emergence: 'life' instantiation creates novel causal powers not possessed by simples in isolation; organization itself does causal work.
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    • 3.Parsimony targets explanatory vocabulary, not ontology; we can accept organisms without multiplying entities if they unify our causal narratives.
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    Key Terms

    Mereology
    The study of the relations between parts and wholes
    causal work(describing what an organism does beyond its parts)
    The ability to cause things to happen or make a difference in how the world operates.
    criterion for existence(used to justify whether something like an organism deserves to be considered real)
    A rule or standard that helps us decide what counts as real or important enough to be true.
    instantiate(as used in metaphysics)
    To be a concrete example of something, or to have and display a particular property or category.
    organisms(the main subject being discussed)
    Living things like plants, animals, or humans that are made up of smaller parts working together.
    parsimony(Used by both Tomasello & Call and Povinelli & Vonk to justify mutually incompatible conclusions)
    A criterion of explanatory simplicity favoring hypotheses that posit fewer entities, capacities, or rules to account for the same data.
    simples(Used in the context of mereology and spatial location theory)
    Entities that do not overlap with one another

    Connections

    2 topics

    Modality & Possibility1 linkedPersonal Identity1 linked

    Related

    Causal exclusion: if particle interactions fully determine outcomes, organism-le...Composition as identity: if organisms just ARE their parts arranged, organism ca...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    Emergence: 'life' instantiation creates novel causal powers not possessed by sim...
    Levels of description are causally real: organism-level properties (metabolism, ...
    +3 moreShow less
    Ontological economy: we should not posit entities whose causal work is exhausted...Organisms (living composite objects) do exist.Parsimony targets explanatory vocabulary, not ontology; we can accept organisms ...