Posted: Apr 03, 2011 5:48 pm
pfrankinstein wrote:byofrcs wrote: I'm a materialist so there is only matter for me (or energy with matter-energy equivalence). I don't see a need to divide the matter into different domains. Thus certainly see no need to divide into "outer space" and "Earth" and definitely not into "mind".
The division into organic and inorganic is as arbitrary as saying that this atom has carbon and this doesn't. Matter has functionality which emerges when the matter forms. Carbon forms chains with itself. Other elements do this too, just not as well as carbon. So the division into organic and inorganic is predicated on the functionality of carbon catenation. So we end up having one domain of matter and any internal demarcation is going to be arbitrary according to characteristics of the matter.
The importance of dissection is lost on you.?
Puzzled.
Would i be right in assuming that the reason you only know what you know today is because somebody else, a pioneer before you dissected studied categorized and explained/made their findings accessible to you?
Paul.
No, a lot of the more oddball stuff I think of is my own thoughts though we stand on the shoulders of giants. I admit I'm a reductionist but I also see emergence as irreducible and so the claim about dissection is lost on me.
Take for instance the n-body problem; 1 body obviously has a very predictable motion, equally two bodies follow a predictable pattern of motion, but 3 bodies, 4 bodies or 5 and so on ?. No way.
I think you are standing on the edge of interesting things but I'm uncertain if you understand the implications to know what your next step will be. It will not be the same steps I take.