What Shall It Profit a Man, To Explain the Whole World, and Lose His Own Soul?

We've completed Part I of Immortal Souls, which asked What is Mind? We now enter Part II, What is Body?, and the answers may surprise you. For example, a body is alive, but what is life? While there are theories, no one actually knows, or at least there's no agreement.

Looked at one way, the world would make perfect sense if it lacked the properties of life and mind. Of course, there would be no one here for whom it would make sense, but that's a small price to pay for a theory of everything. It is indeed possible to explain the whole world and lose one's soul:

Science, when it finishes explaining everything, but being unable to explain the consciousness that creates it, will not have explained anything.

Just as there are people who reduce mind to brain, there are those who reduce life to matter, which is another example of the "luxury metaphysics" of the tenured, adopted more to elevate oneself above the rubes than because it makes any sense. 

Our favorite theoretical biologist, Robert Rosen, made it his business to politely debunk these misosophical bunksters -- a reminder that

Without philosophy, the sciences do not know what they know. 

In Rosen's case he knew that the question "Why are living things alive?" is 

the most fundamental of all questions -- and yet it had never been answered satisfactorily by science....

For centuries, it was believed that the only scientific approach to the question "What is life?" must proceed from the Cartesian metaphor (organism as machine). Classical approaches in science, which also borrow heavily from Newtonian mechanics, are based on a process called "reductionism." The thinking was that we can better learn about an intricate, complicated system (like an organism) if we take it apart, study the components, and then reconstruct the system -- thereby gaining an understanding of the whole.

But of course, 

Philosophy ultimately fails because one has to speak of the whole in terms of its parts.

 So, why not speak of the whole in terms of the whole?

Rosen argues that reductionism does not work in biology and ignores the complexity of organisms. 

He developed a novel and Raccoon-friendly approach "to understanding the nature of life": 

He asserts that renouncing the mechanistic and reductionistic paradigm does not mean abandoning science. Instead, Rosen offers an alternate paradigm for science that takes into account the relational impacts of organization in natural systems and is based on organized matter rather than on particulate matter alone.

The operational term is relational, a principle to which we shall return. Suffice it to say, this is a deeply relational cosmos. For example, there is an intrinsic relationship between intelligence and intelligibility (which is me talking, not Rosen). As for Rosen, central to his work

is the idea of a "complex system," defined as any system that cannot be fully understood by reducing it to its parts... Since both the atom and the organism can be seen to fit that description, Rosen asserts that complex organization is a general feature not just of the biosphere on Earth -- but of the universe itself.

Life is of course complicated, but so too is my computer, and that doesn't make it alive. Complexity is an altogether different concept, going to interior relations, when a machine has only exterior ones (i.e., the parts are exterior to one another).

The question before the hows is how it is possible for exterior relations to become interior if they weren't there to begin with. And a casual acquaintance with quantum physics reveals the deep interiority of things, more on which as we proceed. Suffice it to say that matter is not what we thought it was (i.e., in the Cartesian/Newtonian paradigm). As one reviewer puts it,

Rosen showed that, in fact, biology is not merely a trivial subcategory of physics; but instead that biology displays physical systems that are beyond the limited scope of current physics. 

And why not? Maybe science can't say what life is, but it can certainly say what it is not, which is to say, a machine (any more than mind is a computer). Nevertheless, 

The philosopher who adopts scientific notions has predetermined his conclusions.

Which is to say, materialism in, reductionism out. But

The doctrines that explain the higher by means of the lower are appendices of a magician's rule book.

Who's kidding whom?

To believe that science is enough is the most naïve of superstitions. 

Now, the body is material, but what is matter? "The history of philosophy and science shows surprisingly little consensus on how to answer that question" (Feser). But as alluded to above, "what modern physics tells us about matter is not only compatible with [Aristotle's] hylemorphism but if anything vindicates it." 

However you spell it, hylomorphism "is a philosophical doctrine developed by Aristotle, which conceives every physical entity or being as a compound of matter (potency) and immaterial form (act)." It is no longer popular among the tenured, although it is making a comeback, because, after all,

Common sense is the father's house to which philosophy returns, every so often, feeble and emaciated. 

Welcome home!

Why even argue over the existence of forms when the existence of argument presupposes them? You can say that the form "dog" doesn't actually exist, but in order to do so you have to know what a dog is, i.e., its form, and that's good enough for me. But I am a simple man, so

Four or five invulnerable philosophical propositions allow us to make fun of the rest.

Conversely, Feser is a serious man, so he methodically takes down mechanistic reductionism piece by piece, minus the insultainment. For example, "the atomist doesn't really get rid of substantial form and prime matter at all, but simply relocates them." In other words, the atoms of which the dog is composed merely become the new forms. 

Again, in the absence of form there can be neither intelligence nor intelligibility. If the world is "formless" it is thereby strictly unintelligible (which is again me talking). 

We could go into a review of the woo woo world revealed by quantum physics, but there's no need to deepak the chopra. Whitehead's Science and the Modern World was published back in 1925, and is just as relevant today. "There persists" a

fixed scientific cosmology which presupposes the ultimate fact of an irreducible brute matter, or material, spread through space in a flux of configurations. In itself, such a material is senseless, valueless, purposeless. It just does what it does do, following a fixed routine imposed by external relations which do not spring from the nature of its being. It is this assumption that I call "scientific materialism." Also, it is an assumption which I shall challenge as being entirely unsuited to the scientific situation at which we have now arrived.

As to the interior relations alluded to above, brute materialism

obscures the importance of relations. It sees every object as distinct and discrete from all other objects. Each object is simply an inert clump of matter that is only externally related to other things. The idea of matter as primary makes people think of objects as being fundamentally separate in time and space, and not necessarily related to anything. But in Whitehead's view, relations take a primary role, perhaps even more important than the relata themselves (wiki).

We won't even get into how this is grounded in the principle of the Trinity and its interior relations. But for Feser, "the holism implied by quantum entanglement" shows that

The properties of a system of entangled particles are irreducible to the properties of the particles considered individually.... The whole is more than the sum of its parts.... 

Speaking of Invulnerable Philosophical Principles.

Later Feser speaks of how quantum theory leads to a "dematerialism of matter," but it's still matter alright. Again, it's just that matter isn't what we thought it was.

Let us pause for an artificial summary:

Reductionism, the practice of breaking down complex systems into simpler components, is insufficient in understanding life and mind.  

Robert Rosen's work challenges the mechanistic and reductionistic paradigm, advocating for a relational approach to understanding complex systems. Complexity involves interior relations, which are not reducible to external relations between parts.

1. The Nature of Life and Mind:

   • The fundamental question of "What is life?" remains unanswered.
   • Life cannot be fully explained by mechanistic or materialist approaches.
   • Mind and life are not mere products of matter, but possess inherent qualities that transcend physical reduction.

2. The Role of Philosophy in Science:

   • Philosophy is essential for understanding the implications and limitations of scientific knowledge.
   • Philosophical inquiry can help to address the fundamental questions that science alone cannot answer.
   • The history of philosophy and science demonstrates the ongoing dialogue between these two disciplines.

3. The Nature of Matter:

   • The concept of matter has evolved significantly, particularly with the advent of quantum mechanics.
   • Matter is not simply inert substance, but possesses intrinsic properties and relationships.
   • Hylomorphism, an Aristotelian concept, offers a more nuanced understanding of matter as a composite of form and matter.

4. The Importance of Relationality:

   • Relations are fundamental to the nature of reality, including both physical and metaphysical realms.
   • Quantum entanglement demonstrates the interconnectedness of particles, suggesting a holistic view of the universe.
   • The concept of interior relations highlights the importance of understanding systems as wholes, rather than as collections of independent parts.

Overall Argument:

The text challenges the dominant materialist and reductionist worldview, arguing for a more holistic and relational understanding of reality. It emphasizes the limitations of scientific reductionism and the importance of philosophical inquiry in addressing fundamental questions about life, mind, and matter. By exploring concepts such as complex systems, interior relations, and hylomorphism, the text offers a more nuanced and comprehensive perspective on the nature of existence.