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1 the Problem of Life's Definition the Philosophical Literature Is Positively Chapter 1. The Problem of Life's Definition The 'mystery' of consciousness today is in roughly the same shape that the mystery of life was before the development of molecular biology or the mystery of electromagnetism was before Clerk-Maxwell's equations. It seems mysterious because we do not know how the system of neuro-physiology/ consciousness works, and an adequate knowledge of how it works would remove the mystery. (Searle 1992, 101-2) The philosophical literature is positively rife1 with claims similar to those made in the epigraph, claims to the effect that the nature of life no longer presents interesting philosophical questions. The field of Artificial Life — a field which bears essentially the relationship to biology that Artificial Intelligence research bears to psychology2 — is currently bringing the nature of life and 1 In addition to Searle's comment, see Searle (1997, 201), Cornman (1992, 5), Crane (1995, 4-5), McGinn (1991, 6, 8, & 45), & Chalmers (1996, 25). The view is commonplace in science as well. Boyce Resenberg says, "life is just so much chemistry and physics", and he quotes biologist Harold Erikson as saying, "The secret of life is not a secret anymore. We have known for twenty or thirty years now that life is not more mysterious than the chemical reactions on which it is based." Cell biologist Tom Pollard is quoted as saying (what may be something quite different) that "What molecular biologists have believed for two generations is now generally regarded as proved beyond any doubt. Life is entirely the result of physics and chemistry inside cells and among cells" (Rensberger 1996, 25. Emphasis added.). Against this view, see Kraemer (1984). 2 See Bedau (1992b); also Sober (1992) for necessary qualifications to the claim. It is perhaps best to let some of Artifical Life's (AL) leading practitioners describe the nature of AL research. Bonabeau and Theraulaz define AL thus: "We consider it as a general method consisting in generating at a macroscopic level, from microscopic, generally simple, interacting components, behaviors that are interpretable as lifelike" (1995, 303). Here is T. Ray on AL: "Artificial Life (AL) is the enterprise of understanding biology by constructing biological phenomena out of artificial components, rather than breaking natural life forms down into their component parts. It is the synthetic rather than the reductionist approach.... The umbrella of AL is broad and covers three principle approaches to synthesis: in hardware (e.g., robotics, nanotechnology), in software (e.g., replicating and evolving computer programs), and in wetware (e.g., replicating and evolving organic molecules, nucleic acids, or others).... I would like to suggest that software syntheses in AL could be divided into two kinds: simulations and instantiations of life processes. AL simulations represent an advance in biological modeling, based on a bottom-up approach, which has been made possible by the increase of available computational power.... In simulation, data structures are created that contain variables that represent the states of the entities being modeled. The important point is that in simulation, the data in the computer is treated as a representation of something else, such as a population of mosquitoes or trees. In instantiation, the data in the computer does not represent anything else. The data patterns in an instantiation are considered to be living forms in their own right and are not models of any natural life form. These can form the basis of a comparative biology. The object of an AL instantiation is to introduce the natural form and process of life into an artificial medium. This results in an AL form in some medium other than carbon chemistry and is not a model of organic life forms." (Ray 1995, 179-80) 1 the problematic status of its analysis back into focus, however.3 This chapter's aim is to focus attention on the philosophically rich character of questions concerning what it is to be animate. The following passage may serve to focus attention on the problematic status of our conception of living: There is no universally agreed definition of life. The concept covers a cluster of properties, most of which are themselves philosophically problematic.... Theorists differ about the relative importance of these properties, although it is generally agreed that the possession of most (not necessarily all) of them suffices for something to be regarded as alive. It is not even obvious that, as A-Life scientists assume, life is a natural kind. In other words, 'life' may not be a scientifically grounded category (such as water, or tiger), whose real properties unify and underlie the similarities observed in all those things we call 'alive'. (Boden 1996, 1) The problem of the nature of life is at a troubling crossroad between philosophy and science; scientists tend to find the question 'too philosophical,' whereas philosophers tend to find the question 'too scientific'.4 This conjunction of philosophical and scientific aspects leads into a nest of problems and arguments centering on core questions in the philosophy of biology, the ontology of the physical world, and scientific methodology. The thesis of this dissertation is that a proper understanding of Aristotle on the nature of life yields an adequate contemporary account of life. Much of the plausibility of this thesis hangs, of course, on the phrase 'proper understanding'. Aristotle is often invoked as an archtypical vitalist; this dissertation attempts to debunk such a view. Aristotle's biology is justly eclipsed; this dissertation argues that this does not undermine the status of his account of life, for our account of living needs to accommodate the possibility of nonbiological life just as Aristotle's does. Aristotle's ontology is often thought to be incompatible with contemporary scientific methodology; I argue that this view is incorrect. 3 As Bonabeau and Theraulaz (1995, 323) remark, "If you are a philosopher, AL will give you the opportunity to think about new issues in ethics, epistemology, and so on and will provide you with years of work to unravel the ontological status of life: you will be able to think over life as no other philosopher before." 4 As noted by Mark Bedau (1996, 496). This conflict is brought into the open by Lange: "Immunologist P.B. Medawar, Nobel laureate in 1960, says that discussions of what it is to be alive 'are felt to mark a low level in biological conversation' (1977, 7), whereas geneticist Joshua Lederberg, Nobel laureate in 1958, writes: An important aim of theoretical biology is an abstract definition of life. Our only consensus so far is that such a 2 The goals of this dissertation are therefore twofold. One goal is to articulate a philosophically sophisticated and textually accurate account of Aristotle on the nature of life. This project involves extended investigation of Aristotle's epistemological and metaphysical grounding of the core notions involved in his account. Second, I seek to defend the view of life that emerges from Aristotle's work in light of contemporary discussions of the reducibility of teleology to evolutionary adaptation, the ontology of the physical world, and the presuppositions of a successful scientific methodology. 1.1. Dissertation overview. My strategy is to ease into the deep philosophical issues surrounding Aristotle's account of life through the relatively narrow scholarly elucidation of his views. The goal of this introductory chapter is the modest one of bringing to light a set of issues which mark the status of life as an area ripe for contemporary philosophical investigation. Through critically discussing a number of contemporary accounts of life, I argue that Aristotle holds a surprisingly sophisticated and interesting set of theses in his philosophy of nature; these commitments are currently unrepresented in discussions of the nature of life and amply justify further interest in and investigation of Aristotle's account. In chapters two through four I begin in earnest the scholarly task of uncovering Aristotle's core theses concerning life and investigating the philosophical presuppositions of the account. Chapter two critically surveys the contemporary secondary literature on Aristotle's account of life. I endorse the consensus view that Aristotle's conception of life is teleological, but separate this core commitment from the details of the particular accounts. Chapter three defends the provisional teleological account of life by arguing that the scope of Aristotelian teleology is compatible with an account of life in teleological terms. In the course of this defense, I offer a reading of Aristotle's central argument for teleology in Physics ii.8 on which Aristotle's grounds for postulating natural definition must be arbitrary [since] life has gradually evolved from inanimate matter... (1960, 394)" (quoted in Lange 1996). 3 teleology are moderate, plausible, and widely shared today. Chapter four raises the specter of the deep philosophical and methodological questions to come, however, for I argue in chapter four that Aristotle's view of the ontic status of final causality is in deep conflict with the presumptive modern realist approach to biological teleology. I argue (against the present trend in the secondary literature on Aristotle) that Aristotle takes the final cause to be a sui generis real causal factor in the structure of the world. Chapters five and six address the contemporary status of commitment to sui generis teleology. In these chapters I argue against the consensus theses that (1) the ontology of the physical world has no room for sui generis teleology, (2) the methodology of science cannot survive its postulation, and (3) an adequate realist yet reductivist account of teleology — or at least the broad outlines of such an account — currently exists. I argue in chapter five that contemporary philosophy of biology provides no adequate reductivist account of teleology, but that the grounds that encourage theorists to be realists rather than eliminitivists concerning teleological commitment survive the failure of these reductive accounts.
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