What is life ?

Adder wrote:

Alexandre Orion wrote:
Adder, there is no "part" of the plant that cares, the plant in its wholeness does,

That question was in regards to being aware. The whole plant would not be aware its leaves are turning and indeed the leaves wouldn't be aware!? Because it might react to its own actions? Then what is the nature of that reaction.... by what mechanism are it's parts or whole aware! It depends on what is being meant by aware, hence the question. We can call it a plant and say its acting aware and I'm aware of that, saying otherwise seems to be deliberately sloppy semantics? And I'm not sure about caring either... but anthromorophising similar actions is a beneficial exercise to broaden one's perception and perspective on existence! Instinct are conscious like models deriving in the subconscious seemingly but if we're talking about life with consciousness then that is different from plants... unless their is a view or belief otherwise, hence the question. :dry:

Actually yes the entire plant is aware, from its roots to its leaves. The roots will seek out water, the leaves will seek out sunlight and the body shall process the raw elements to make food. When it gets cold out the plant will drop its leaves and go dormant until spring. sometimes the entire plant will dissapear except for the roots - only to have it reemerge in the spring. this is not a reaction to anything, it is a response. the sun comes up in the east, the plant senses this and turns its leaves in that direction. these are physical responses to changes in a physical environment. And no brain is needed if thats what you are implying. its a different form of life than animal life but no less alive. you will never see a rock respond the its environment like this. as well the levels of consciousness very. As humans we are self aware, that does not mean live requires self awareness to be alive. You have to far limited the scope of the definition if you believe that.

The plant is alive by biological definitions because it fulfills all of the necessary conditions set out in those definitions to qualify as such. Being "aware" of the water it sucks out of the ground is not one of those criteria. And if we say the plant has awareness for "seeking out" the water in the soil, do we also say of water that it is awareness because it "seeks out" lower pressure regions to flow towards?

What's the difference between a "reaction" and a "response" exactly? Do flames have awareness because they "seek out" oxygen to burn? Do rocks have awareness because they "seek out" the ground when left to their own devices? If yes, then how is it meaningful to speak of awareness, when we have no examples of something that has none? If no, where would we draw the line, and why?

Gisteron wrote: The plant is alive by biological definitions because it fulfills all of the necessary conditions set out in those definitions to qualify as such. Being "aware" of the water it sucks out of the ground is not one of those criteria. And if we say the plant has awareness for "seeking out" the water in the soil, do we also say of water that it is awareness because it "seeks out" lower pressure regions to flow towards?

What's the difference between a "reaction" and a "response" exactly? Do flames have awareness because they "seek out" oxygen to burn? Do rocks have awareness because they "seek out" the ground when left to their own devices? If yes, then how is it meaningful to speak of awareness, when we have no examples of something that has none? If no, where would we draw the line, and why?

Yea thats fine, Everyone has different defintions of life and what it requires. I have mine and that is simple awareness. I think that best suits the entire expanse of life no matter what form it takes. Water and fire and a rock are not aware of their enviornment. instead they are subject simply to the laws of physics and that is all they are following. they have no ability to affect their environment or interact with it or increase in complexity outside of those forces. A plant does have this ability.

A reaction is based in the moment and does not consider the future because it is visceral and survival oriented. a response is is slower and more measured and is based on collected information about the environment. The plant does not react to its environment as it has no self preservation capability but it does respond to information in its enviornment such as the sun coming up or it getting cold outside.

And we have a plethora of examples of things that have no awareness! that is how we can identify awareness, because we can compare it to un-awareness!

I would like to ask, because I am bit confused. If the plant hadn´t no self-preservation instinct
how would be possible to grow again if you cut off some of its parts.
What cause its recovery in this case?

The ability to self organize and increase in complexity does this as a function of its awareness that part of it was cut off. A rock that has a chunk chipped off will never do this because its not aware anything happened to it.

Fyxe wrote: Water and fire and a rock are not aware of their enviornment. instead they are subject simply to the laws of physics and that is all they are following. they have no ability to affect their environment or interact with it...

Maybe I'm a bit sensitive to subtle differences, but I find that an environment is different before it is hit by a fire than afterwards. I find that fire does have ability to interact with and affect its environment. Depending on what that environment is, it can even make it uninhabitable for itself, by, say, burning all the fuel available to it like a candle underneath a glass does. A rock that drops into mud even leaves an imprint of its shape in it. One might say it transmits information into a part of the environment that is able to store it for some time. But I can appreciate that there may be tighter definitions of environment-affecting, under which scorching an environment, or storing information in it do not count.

The plant does not react to its environment as it has no self preservation capability...

Homeostasis maintenance is very frequently a necessary condition to qualify as alive. It is also something plants do. It is a rudimentary form of self-preservation, nevertheless it is one.
Part of it for plants, for instance, is gas and water levels maintenance through stomata control. Plants open their stomata to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide with the surrounding air. They also evaporate water that way, so more can come up from the soil, fueling the plant's adenosine triphosphate production. That water also brings up nutrients from the soil that the plant needs to grow and especially to grow seeds. So growth and reproduction - two further criteria for life - are maintained this way. If the plant had no capability to control its stomata, it would either suffocate, or dry out, well before it would cease growing and reproducing. This gets particularly extreme with plants that live in very wet environments, like water lilies, and plants that live in very dry ones, like desert cacti, where stoma opening and closing can have so dramatic effects that controling it becomes a genuinely fine balancing act.
Again, maybe you mean something else by self preservation capability. When I hear that expression, I'm thinking of the capability to preserve one's own life. Stoma control to me qualifies as one manifestation of that capability.

... but it does respond to information in its enviornment such as the sun coming up or it getting cold outside.

Well, it responds pretty much the same if you do it with an artificial light of a vaguely similar spectral composition, and if it gets cold wherever the plant itself is, that's what it responds to. It cannot distinguish between a natural global season change and an artificial local environmental change. It responds to external stimuli, but that alone I find insufficient to argue that it processes information. An astronaut can synchronize their clock before launch and know whether it is night or day in their home land by consulting that clock later. They can maintain a sleeping schedule in accord with their home land's time of day eventhough to them the sun can rise and set well over ten times as frequently as it does to the people on the surface. A plant has no such luxuries. It responds only to what is most immediately affecting it at the time. It has no memory (i.e. information storage), and no foresight (i.e. information extrapolation). I for one have difficulty telling the difference between its "responses" vs the fire's "reactions" to fuel availability.

And we have a plethora of examples of things that have no awareness! that is how we can identify awareness, because we can compare it to un-awareness!

Maybe. I just don't understand what the criterion is by which we draw that line. If we say plants have awareness, what room remains there to say that rocks do not? Picture that we were shown some new kind of object that was completely alien to us, one we knew nothing whatsoever about in advance, but could only examine with our instruments and senses, and we were given two boxes, one labeled "aware things" and one labeled "unaware things". How would we go about deciding which box the strange object ought go? Which tests would we perform on it that could tell us whether it was aware or not? And for the objects that are already in the boxes, would they remain where they are if we were to subsequently perform those same tests on them? Who knows...

Maybe I'm a bit sensitive to subtle differences

to subtle for yourself but not subtle enough when it comes to others. later on in this very post you actually ingored the subtly of one of my statements and ended up putting words in my mouth again. I dont want this to devolve into wars and stuff so Ill piont that out now.

I find that fire does have ability to interact with and affect its environment

.
Of course it does, but that still does not make it aware of what its doing. it will burn until one of the 3 thingys needed for its existence is gone and it still wont care or take any steps to preserve that thing.

Stoma control to me qualifies as one manifestation of that capability [self preservation].

hmm good thought. I agree, maybe plants do have a self preservation quality in their awareness and can react to their environment as well as respond.

Well, it responds pretty much the same if you do it with an artificial light of a vaguely similar spectral composition, and if it gets cold wherever the plant itself is, that's what it responds to

Of course i agree. but why does a plant have to tell the difference between a light and the sun? If the light is capable of giving it what it needs then it will respond to that as well. I see no need to distinguish between artifical and natural enviornment here.

but that alone I find insufficient to argue that it processes information.

Heres were we got a problem and where you just put words into my mouth. I never said anything about processing information. I exatly said responding to environment. there is a difference.

So growth and reproduction - two further criteria for life

Nope. Now who is the one not reading? See my donkey link above. An animal that is alive but does not reproduce.

Maybe. I just don't understand what the criterion is by which we draw that line. If we say plants have awareness, what room remains there to say that rocks do not?

Because rocks can be distinguished from things that respond (and react) to their environment. A rock will not respond or react to its environment. Your example of a rock dropping into a mud puddle... how did it get dropped? If you show me one rock that has ever jumped into a mud puddle by itself please share that with the class.

Fyxe wrote:

I find that fire does have ability to interact with and affect its environment

.
Of course it does, but that still does not make it aware of what its doing. it will burn until one of the 3 thingys needed for its existence is gone and it still wont care or take any steps to preserve that thing.

Fair enough. I was just addressing your saying that water and fire and a rock have no ability to affect their environment. Maybe I misread.

Well, it responds pretty much the same if you do it with an artificial light of a vaguely similar spectral composition, and if it gets cold wherever the plant itself is, that's what it responds to

Of course i agree. but why does a plant have to tell the difference between a light and the sun? If the light is capable of giving it what it needs then it will respond to that as well. I see no need to distinguish between artifical and natural enviornment here.

but that alone I find insufficient to argue that it processes information.

Heres were we got a problem and where you just put words into my mouth. I never said anything about processing information. I exatly said responding to environment. there is a difference.

The distinction I'm trying to quantify is not so much between the natural and the artificial environment, as it is between things that "respond to information in" (as you put it) their environment and those that just "react" to it. Maybe this is controversial, but I would think that something we call information is something that can be extracted from a signal/stimulus, stored, and transmitted. If all the plant does is blindly do something "in response" to it, without any actual processing, how is that different from a rock "reacting" to the pull of gravity after being pushed off which ever support? We might say that there is information to be gathered from the environment, about the position of the sun or the temperature, but I hesitate to speak of something as a response to it, if we cannot clearly say that any actual gathering or processing is happening.

Maybe. I just don't understand what the criterion is by which we draw that line. If we say plants have awareness, what room remains there to say that rocks do not?

Because rocks can be distinguished from things that respond (and react) to their environment. A rock will not respond or react to its environment. Your example of a rock dropping into a mud puddle... how did it get dropped? If you show me one rock that has ever jumped into a mud puddle by itself please share that with the class.[/quote]Well how did the plant's seed get buried? Not all things can do everything on their own. My example was of something that we would classify as un-living and un-aware still interacting with its environment, even storing information with it. It is an example of something that would call into question whether interactivity or information dealings are a reasonable criterion by which to tell unaware things from aware ones, because if we were to judge the rock by it we may well find it classified as aware. Sure, rocks don't jump into puddles on their own, but doing things on their own (which is also rather limited for plants, let's face it) was not a criterion until now anyway. Until now, it was about reacting to the environment based solely on physical stimuli vs responding to information in the environment based on... well, obtaining it, then making some kind of assessment (i.e. processing, and yes, that is necessary, otherwise the whole performance is indistinguishable from an unaware thing's reaction) that results in which ever response, particularly responses that impact said environment. The rock's shape is not information it gathered from its environment, I can grant that much. Nevertheless, the performance the rock was moved to by which ever force - which aware things of course are also subjects to - was in the end performed by that rock, and it affected the rock's environment in a way that can even technically be classified as information transmission to it.

things that "respond to information in" (as you put it) their environment and those that just "react" to it

lol but thats NOT how I put it! Once again you have added something that I did NOT say. I never said anything about "information" or processing that information. I said precisely "responding to their environment". nowhere is the word information in that sentence.\

do something "in response" to it, without any actual processing, how is that different from a rock "reacting" to the pull of gravity after being pushed off which ever support?

Because a rock does not "react" to that push! They simply fall in a very deterministic fashion. Now if you push a flying squirrel of that same support, guess what that squirrel will do? It will "react" to that push and glide, actually defying the otherwise deterministic power that would make it just fall.

Well how did the plant's seed get buried? Not all things can do everything on their own.

you are exactly right but who cares how it got burried? a bird might have put it there or the wind and rain. A plant cant walk and neither can a seed to it stays there just like the rock you pushed off its support. The difference is that a Rock, when put into that environment will never respond to the sun and the dirt and the water like a seed will. A rock will just sit there and erode by the natural forces of friction. However a seed, if viable, will sprout and begin to grow and to seek out that water and that sun and that nutrients in the dirt. It will gain complexity and greater order in this process. A rock will only move further towards entropy and never have the ability to change that.

Fyxe wrote:

things that "respond to information in" (as you put it) their environment and those that just "react" to it

lol but thats NOT how I put it! Once again you have added something that I did NOT say. I never said anything about "information" or processing that information. I said precisely "responding to their environment". nowhere is the word information in that sentence.

*sigh* No, that's what you said responding to me. I was initially replying to your post #349549 where you said

Fyxe wrote: The plant does not react to its environment as it has no self preservation capability but it does respond to information in its enviornment such as the sun coming up or it getting cold outside. (emphasis added)

So yea. That plants "respond to information in" their environment is how you put it. If that is not how you meant it, fair enough. I can only respond to what you say, not to what you mean, and so I did. If that is foul play to you, that's fine, too.

do something "in response" to it, without any actual processing, how is that different from a rock "reacting" to the pull of gravity after being pushed off which ever support?

Because a rock does not "react" to that push! They simply fall in a very deterministic fashion. Now if you push a flying squirrel of that same support, guess what that squirrel will do? It will "react" to that push and glide, actually defying the otherwise deterministic power that would make it just fall.

I called it "reacting" in an attempt to use the same terminology as you did. "Reacting" is what non-aware things do, because physics forces them, and "responding" is what aware things do. If you want to change the terminology now, that's fair enough. I see no need to it, and no point but confusion, but if that's what you need to do, be my guest. Until now I was consistent with the way you were phrasing it before.

Well how did the plant's seed get buried? Not all things can do everything on their own.

you are exactly right but who cares how it got burried? a bird might have put it there or the wind and rain. A plant cant walk and neither can a seed to it stays there just like the rock you pushed off its support.

Exactly. Nobody cares how it got to fall towards the puddle. You asked, challenging me to point at a rock that would do that on its own, but this has nothing to do with awareness.

The difference is that a Rock, when put into that environment will never respond to the sun and the dirt and the water like a seed will. A rock will just sit there and erode by the natural forces of friction. However a seed, if viable, will sprout and begin to grow and to seek out that water and that sun and that nutrients in the dirt. It will gain complexity and greater order in this process. A rock will only move further towards entropy and never have the ability to change that.

The differences you are describing boil down to the plant being a living organism where chemical processes happen, while the rock is not. I'm not arguing that the plant isn't alive or that the rock is. The only thing I'm challenging is that the plant has any more "awareness". Nothing that is happening to or in the plant is any less of a natural force than the friction eroding the rock. Both of them, at the end of the day, are subject to the same physical forces. The difference you point to is that the plant is more sensitive to more subtle nuances, where the rock is rather... inert. That's a difference in scope, though, not in principle. Again, the question remains, where to draw the line. How much "sensitivity" counts as awareness, and how much does not? Fair enough, let's say the rock does not have enough, but the plant does. But why? Where do you draw the line and why there and not someplace else? If you were presented a thing you couldn't identify as a rock or a plant, how would you go about finding out which side of that line it was on? If it's a matter of complexity, how much complexity is enough? How much is not? And how would one go about measuring the amount of complexity any one thing possesses anyway?

Erinis wrote: I would like to ask, because I am bit confused. If the plant hadn´t no self-preservation instinct
how would be possible to grow again if you cut off some of its parts.
What cause its recovery in this case?

The plants different cells respond to differenent stimulus in different ways, and through evolutionary factors those that had the most advantageous reactions (at that local cellular level, though their are chemical signals which happen but they diffuse locally) the best survived. Vastly different from a nervous system as we know it in animals.
If I get thrown in a volcano, I react to it and it reacts to me, neither of us are alive to experience it well maybe me for an instant. But the volcano is not caring, aware or alive... besides displaying characteristics at times which we might be famuar with from our perch of limited self/human perspective.

This is a video about how trees recognize and communicate with each other.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4m9SefyRjg

Gist its obvious you just like to argue about anything no matter what it is. You are still putting words in my mouth in order to make your point. Your original quote you cited I never said anything about information. Now you want to backpedal and pull an earlier quote where I said information. However even in that quote I said nothing about processing.

React and respond are both attributes of life. I also defined those earlier and now you are trying to tell me I said rocks react??!! NO rocks do not react or respond. A reaction implies an awareness of change in which to react to. Rocks cant do this.

And no shit double duh that all things are subject to physical forces! I also never said plants were not. I did say they have capability beyond that though because they are alive. Rocks dont react or respond they simply follow a predetermined pattern. Thought I had made that clear already. But like you have accused me of so many times... I guess you forgot to read that, right?

Fyxe wrote: Your original quote you cited I never said anything about information. Now you want to backpedal and pull an earlier quote where I said information.

Alright, let's do some thread history for those of us who have no intention of clicking back a page before making up what happened... again...


My original response in this line of dialogue was post #349548 on page 4 and I did not quote you in it. It was however vaguely in response to your message that came immediately before it, post #349545 on the same page. I asked in my response what the difference was between a reaction and a response, because in post #349545 you made the distinction, saying that plants going dormant over the winter was not a "reaction" but a "response".

In the next message, post #349549, you answered, defining a "reaction" a something that is "based in the moment and does not consider the future". A "response", you said, on the other hand, is "slower and more measured and is based on collected information about the environment". You proceeded to say in the next sentence that "[the] plant does not react to its environment", but rather "does respond to information in its enviornment".
I was under the impression that at this point you had established the vocabulary going forward. You did mention "physical response" before, but without that qualifier it seemed that something where information about the environment is considered would be called a "response", and something I assumed would be in contrast to it, something blind, unthinking, that just happens because forces make it happen, would be called a "reaction". So I went with that vernacular, hoping that I had understood you correctly. Apparently, I did not.

However even in that quote I said nothing about processing.

That is correct. "Information processing" is an expression I admit I brought into the discussion. That being said, upon your pointing out that you had not brought it in, I explained exactly why I did in my post #349557 (still on page 4, for those who wish to go back to verify that I'm making none of this up) that hypothetical presence or absence of information about an environment warrants no meaningful distinction without that information being dealt with in some way. If we are saying, as you have, that information-based-ness is what makes the difference between the "responses" of aware things and the "reactions" of (what I presumed would be the) non-aware things, this only makes any sense if the aware things actually do something with information that non-aware things do not. This unique interfacing that only aware things do I called "processing".
By no means am I correct on this and you incorrect. If you find that the label is inappropriate, I invite you to suggest another one for our use here. Perhaps, too, you find that the entire stipulation that aware things have to process information in order for that information to have any impact it doesn't have on the non-aware things, is unreasonable or at least contrary to what you meant. If this is the case I invite you to propose some other criterion to distinguish between information simply being there and it impacting a thing's behaviour.

React and respond are both attributes of life. I also defined those earlier and now you are trying to tell me I said rocks react??!! NO rocks do not react or respond. A reaction implies an awareness of change in which to react to. Rocks cant do this.

Well, you did say that plants do not react to their environment (post #349549). And the way you defined what react is supposed to mean did not include any implication of awareness of change. The way you defined it only says that a reaction is momentary and contains no consideration of the future. In my opinion that is something that would include pretty much everything a non-aware thing can do, for falling into a puddle is something the rock does in the moment without considering the future, too, seeing as that is the only thing it can do, anyway. If anything, one might suspect that being inconsiderate of the future is rather quite consistent with a lack of awareness of change. If awareness of change was a prerequisite for reactions, then a refusal to consider the future in favour of acting in the moment would be almost intention-laden, possibly even contain some form of information processing. Until now I was under the impression that this was the entire point of making the distinction to begin with. Aware things, though subject to forces all the same, can treat information and "respond", while non-aware things can only perform immediate, unthinking "reactions". Perhaps I was mistaken in that impression, though, and you meant that both the reaction and the response was reserved to aware things, while "simply following" is the only thing non-aware things can do. I'm glad this is cleared up now.

Alexandre Orion wrote: ... as an afterthought :

This would be a good time, and good for this topic, to consult Thomas Nagel's 1974 article What is it Like to be a Bat ?...

It's a pretty easy article to find, but if not, contact me and I can beam it to you. I have it on a memory stick somewhere...

Thanks ill have to read the paper. From Wikipedia my thoughts are I'd say his subjective character of experience (SCOE) is true enough, but I'd imagine it's just a model of prioritising different sensory data types at the main processing level of conscious awareness.... and therefore accessible as an objective framework (given suitable tools). In Tibetan meditation there is the story about the student told to meditate on embodiment visualuzations in a remote cave about what it would be like to be an Ox. He tries and tries, failing, wanting to abandon the effort, but the teacher tells him to persist. Eventually the teacher doesn't hear anything from him, and feels sorry its taking so many months, relenting he calls in that it's OK to come out now. The student replied from the cave, I cannot get through the cave entrance, my horns are too big and won't let me

Gisteron wrote: I asked in my response what the difference was between a reaction and a response,

yea I think in your eagerness to pounce on me again you have failed to carefully read the dialogue. reactions and responses are living things actions. A rock does not react of respond. It simply follows a predetermined path based on the forces of the universe. and we established that reactions are self preserving acts while responses are more measured and controlled. I originally said a plant does not react because if you pull a weed out of the ground or cut a tree down it does nothing to save its own life. However it will respond by turning leaves etc. however you then pointed out that some plants do certain things to preserve their life and I then AGREED with you that plants do both react and respond. you cant even seem to remember your own writings.

Also plants cant "process" information because they cant think. This is because they dont have brains. they are aware of their envionrment at a very simply level.

Adder wrote:

Alexandre Orion wrote: ... as an afterthought :

This would be a good time, and good for this topic, to consult Thomas Nagel's 1974 article What is it Like to be a Bat ?...

It's a pretty easy article to find, but if not, contact me and I can beam it to you. I have it on a memory stick somewhere...

Thanks ill have to read the paper. From Wikipedia my thoughts are I'd say his subjective character of experience (SCOE) is true enough, but I'd imagine it's just a model of prioritising different sensory data types at the main processing level of conscious awareness.... and therefore accessible as an objective framework (given suitable tools). In Tibetan meditation there is the story about the student told to meditate on embodiment visualuzations in a remote cave about what it would be like to be an Ox. He tries and tries, failing, wanting to abandon the effort, but the teacher tells him to persist. Eventually the teacher doesn't hear anything from him, and feels sorry its taking so many months, relenting he calls in that it's OK to come out now. The student replied from the cave, I cannot get through the cave entrance, my horns are too big and won't let me

... I like to codify concepts into indexes which are easier to handle hence me acronymizing things, in this case to SCOE.... like scone lol, perhaps add noetic hehe, anyway it reminds me of Mahamudra 'one taste' samarasa, where all perceptive streams are given flexibility enough to mingle and merge to generate an experience of one base energy of mind itself! So in that context being a Bat or being a human etc would be like different flavour blends.

So to me awareness needs perception and processing of information, otherwise its just procession of systems.

"So to me awareness needs perception and processing of information, otherwise its just procession of systems."
Absolutely. Consciousness of any sort requires an object thereof and a subject to perceive the phenomena. That subject requires a certain level of reflexivity. How do you and I identify ourselves in common parlance?
It's phenomenology

They are two different things. Awareness is general and for all, but perception is individual paradigm that is just related to intuition. Plants are aware but they cant perceive.

I'm sorry to sound all elitist and intellectual, but really one has to get a much better notion of phenomenology to consider what "consciousness", "awareness", and "perception" are.

This is a much more complex topic than many of us have personal resources (all the "to me..." opinions) available for opinions to be reliable. Even to ourselves.

Also, I know that most of us won't have the interest to even try to get one's head around 5000 or more years of philosophical pondering/writings (or even more millennia of 'art') ; all of that has left us a wonderful heritage from which to draw on - certainly not ignoring the "to me..." thoughts and interpretations (which are also experiences, conscious ones or not).

Please do not try to be objective here : it is beyond our grasp. Especially since life is a process constantly in self-(re)organisation.

It may feel gratifying to argue about it, take a stance to defend, but I can guarantee you that it is much more gratifying to come to it through genuine dialogue - rather than futile debate - to a position of intersubjectivity. Naturally, this will not provide any comfortable certainty, but it will make our standing much more well-grounded.