"Hello, is there anybody in there...?" A call to pagans, pantheists, and assorted...

John99 said:
It depends on how free you are with the term alive. You can say a light bulb is alive too but a light bulb is made by a human and humans were made by nature. A fish that can jump a foot out of water is alive. This is an entirely different level of life.
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Life is very well defined. Saying a tree isn't alive according to your own obscure definition is not exactly productive.
 
Enmos, i copied my respon to the new thread. Copy uours there and then we will come back here and delete our posts. In essence we will moderate ourselves.
 
Enmos said:
Is this a religious statement ?
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Enmos,
notice that my example was not hypothetical. There are gradations within the dead universe paradigm. Now you have encoutered someone who sees less life out there than you. I doubt very much I will convince you that more things are alive than you currently see as alive. In fact I will not really try, though I will present my views in parallel. However John here presents you at the very least with a small piece of how frustrating it is to deal with someone who sees more things as not alive than you do.

Imagine what us pantheist/animists go through.
 
Enmos said:
Is this a religious statement ?
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and it is a religious statement.

Many people think that if they believe something is not true it cannot be a religious statement. But saying something is dead should have as much onus of proof as saying something is alive. Actually I believe it should have more since I experience everything as alive. In fact you have to be trained to think things are dead.
 
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Enmos said:
How is frozen water alive ?
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Ah, now Enmos. A glaciar is a lot more complicated than that. It has structure and organization. It can grow. It has a metabolism. (and these are easy for us to track. I am not accepting your limited definition of life, merely pointing out a case that should be hard for you to make a call on. I could have said 'an ocean' also.)
All life reliefs on structure and organization.
And I know trees are alive.. I hope you just meant that as an example
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Look what my example has produced. Compared to John you are a weird semi-pantheist. Welcome.
 
Simon Anders said:
Enmos,
notice that my example was not hypothetical. There are gradations within the dead universe paradigm. Now you have encoutered someone who sees less life out there than you. I doubt very much I will convince you that more things are alive than you currently see as alive. In fact I will not really try, though I will present my views in parallel. However John here presents you at the very least with a small piece of how frustrating it is to deal with someone who sees more things as not alive than you do.

Imagine what us pantheist/animists go through.
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I see your point, however "life" has a definition.
Glaciers do not qualify as life, trees do.
 
Simon Anders said:
and it is a religious statement.

Many people think that if they believe something is not true it cannot be a religious statement. But saying something is dead should have as much onus of proof as saying something is alive. Actually I believe it should have more since I experience everything as alive. In fact you have to be trained to think things are dead.
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No, you just have to follow the scientific definition.
I see no reason to call anything not existing of cells life.
 
Simon Anders said:
Ah, now Enmos. A glaciar is a lot more complicated than that. It has structure and organization. It can grow. It has a metabolism. (and these are easy for us to track. I am not accepting your limited definition of life, merely pointing out a case that should be hard for you to make a call on. I could have said 'an ocean' also.)
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How does is reproduce or respond to outside stimuli ?
Come on, you agree that glaciers do not qualify under the scientific definition, right ?

Simon Anders said:
Look what my example has produced. Compared to John you are a weird semi-pantheist. Welcome.
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Huh ?
 
Enmos said:
How does is reproduce or respond to outside stimuli ?
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Reproduce, I have problems with. You should know of course that glaciers have a very, very complicated inter-causal relationship with what is around them. But working with the definition you gave earlier I wanted to point out that a glacier fit.

Come on, you agree that glaciers do not qualify under the scientific definition, right ?
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I think it is clear that I consider the scientific definition too limited. Or, another way to frame the issue - I consider current technology and focus incapable of testing properly.
 
Simon Anders said:
Reproduce, I have problems with. You should know of course that glaciers have a very, very complicated inter-causal relationship with what is around them. But working with the definition you gave earlier I wanted to point out that a glacier fit.

I think it is clear that I consider the scientific definition too limited. Or, another way to frame the issue - I consider current technology and focus incapable of testing properly.
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Why would you assume anything without a cellular structure to be alive ?
 
Enmos said:
Huh ?
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John thinks trees are not alive. He is not alone in this. To some degree he sees you as you see me. For a long time scientists thought animals were machines that do not experience or have consciousness. The set of things that are considered alive has been expanding in science. The set of things that are considered conscious is expanding.

I am quite sure science (and perhaps even the monotheisms) will catch up on this issue. But I am not sitting around waiting and tapping my fingers.
 
Simon Anders said:
John thinks trees are not alive. He is not alone in this. To some degree he sees you as you see me. For a long time scientists thought animals were machines that do not experience or have consciousness. The set of things that are considered alive has been expanding in science. The set of things that are considered conscious is expanding.

I am quite sure science (and perhaps even the monotheisms) will catch up on this issue. But I am not sitting around waiting and tapping my fingers.
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Do you agree that you cannot scientifically call glaciers alive ?

By the way, I asked you and Tht1guy whether or not I could be considered a pantheist. The answer was no.
 
Enmos said:
Why would you assume anything without a cellular structure to be alive ?
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Why do you think things are dead? Are your senses dull?

You assume that the onus is on me to prove that things are alive.

You also assume that the charactoristics of what we call cells are not met in other ways.
 
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