Victor

Of course they do! You have google countless timelapse videos of fungi and bacteria moving against the earth's gravitational pull, in the way rocks cannot. Some may move. Some do not. Therefore not sufficient to serve as a categorical criteria. Energy is an abstraction. Energy does not exist. There is literally no such thing. It's akin to saying, "Love moves mountains". Well, maybe in poetry and metaphor, but not literally — not scientifically. Energy is a god-like term used 100 different ways and is not defined rationally or consistently. At best, it has to do with units of measurement. At worst it simply means 'activity'. Concepts cannot affect matter. Only in Star Wars and religious circles do they practise psychokinesis and exorcism! Is the magnetosphere an object? Is EM radiation an object? Even if you say that it's made of subatomic particles, well, subatomic particles are not objects.

Plants do not grow thanks to an "effect". The term capillary effect itself refers to the ACTION of water being squeezed through narrow places. "Electrostatic force" is a concept referring to how those things are being arranged. The term "electrostatic force" itself refers to an action. Actions can only be performed by objects, so "force" is synonymous with "arrangement". The action "to force" cannot perform the action "to arrange". Growth, forcing, arrangement, ect. is due to the STRUCTURE of the cell, not some nebulous "forces" and "actions". Growth is a verb. What is it that grows? The plant. When a tree pushes itself out of the acorn and up toward the sun, NOTHING is responsible for that movement apart from the plant's own structure. The capillary effect is not a squeeze. It's due to surface tension in water and electrostatic forces of the water molecules and cellulose. The plant is not doing anything other than being a plant, and water pulls itself up the branches. I think you also ignored what I pointed about fungi and bacteria that do not move and don't defy gravity, but are still alive. I think we had discussed in the past about these conceptualization exercises: about objects, forces, matter and energy. So, when you say only objects can perform actions, well, that's not accurate. Energy has effects on matter, and energy is not objects. I have problems following your way to conceptualize. I don't think we can reach an agreement about what life is without metaphysics and epistemology first. So when you say that I'm missing your point, I think you are completely right. To Party Hard is an action. To define it you'll need to include concepts that only apply to the Hard kind of Party. Some may apply to just a lame Party (like a gathering of people), but some will be unique to the Hard kind of parties (like drugs and alcohol and sex at the end). Parting Hard is the only kind of parting that contains this particular set of concepts. Replication, self-sustainability, these are all independent occurrences in the world. But only the concept life is the one that requires all of these combined and simultaneous.

How does that work? They'll pay you to take out a loan? Isn't that insane? What do they expect to achieve? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21589128 Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker has said negative interest rates should be considered. A negative interest rate would mean the central bank charges banks to hold their money and could encourage them to lend out more of their funds. Speaking to MPs on the Treasury Committee, Mr Tucker said: "This would be an extraordinary thing to do and it needs to be thought through carefully." He said it was one of a number of ideas that he had put up for consideration. "I hope we will think about whether there are constraints to setting negative interest rates," Mr Tucker told MPs.

How does a mineral deposit move itself against gravity? I've never heard of a mineral deposit moving itself around without any external causation. An accumulation of minerals, such as a Stalagmite may appear as though it grew up out of the ground on it's own, but that is not actually happens. The earth pulls mineralized water from the ceiling and those minerals accumulate. This accumulation and growth is DUE TO gravity, not in spite of it. Plants grow thanks to the capillariy effect. They don't move stuff up against gravity. Electrostatic forces arrange proteins in a way, and the sun drives this process. Plants don't "move" against gravity. We can say the same for many different kinds of bacteria, fungy and microbial plants. Some of these don't move at all. So the definition based on defying gravity does not work. I agree. None of these criteria are sufficient to objectively identify what life is. But all of them combined are objectively necessarry and sufficient. That's what I mean by saying that the definition is direct, simple and verifiable.

Many things evolve. Ideas evolve. This is not a sufficient definition. If you apply the definition I gave above, then viruses are not alive, but interact with living things. They are replicated, but are not self-sustained. It is the nucleus of a cell that holds and sustains the processes replicating viruses. It's not hard to use the definition when one realizes that the object this definition applies to is the cell. The multicellular organism is an aggregate of living cells. There are emergent properties that can be identified only in these kinds of organisms, and they die, while many cells remain alive (that's where it becomes complicated). But it's simplified when you recognize that a multicellular organism is a collection of living cells that work together (for the most part) for the multiplication of these cells (if not all, the sexual cells at least).

Under this definition, mineral deposits are alive. It's an ingenious take on the question, one I had not seen. But it looks more to be provocative than accurate. The definition of life I work with is very direct, simple and verifiable: Life is a self-sustaining (self-driven, not directed or sustained by an external process) chemical (using matter and energy) process that self-replicates (multiplies) and adapts (evolves). There are a number of other processes that approach but not quite become life (fire, self-replicating clay minerals, viruses). And also this definition is very accurate in helping us call when something dies (no-longer able to self-sustain, multiply and adapt). What do you think?

Well, in the argument of Good Rapist vs. Bad Rapist, I would choose no Rapist.

A computer, or an amoeba, to a degree (although extremely limited) have some awareness of their environment. A typical computer running windows perceives its environment through its keyboard and mouse, and the intelligence written into its programming is able to perform input-output tasks. An amoeba displaces itself and engulfs its food when it perceives it in the environment. To this day though, computers and amoebas are unable to modify their behavior driven by self-knowledge and self-analysis, and ulterior considerations about their wellbeing. The good for them is written into their intelligence, either by human programming or by the ruthlessness of natural evolution. The concept of Free Will is valid if we are to consider the ability sufficiently intelligent and healthy beings exhibit of being able to separate their decision-making process from their inherited (fixed) intelligence, and allow a process of self-identification and examination to drive aspects of their behavior. Although this only accounts for a subset of the entire individual’s behavior, given the prioritization and capacity to override most of other behavior patterns and outcomes, one cannot avoid realizing that this is the most fundamentally essential characteristic of these beings. Regardless if it’s a great ape, a whale or dolphin, a Velociraptor, a green alien, Skynet or a politician, achieving this capacity takes you into a whole new category. Now, I’ve seen some argue for the invalidity of this concept, basing their logic in the fact that there is no freedom from cause and effect relationships in matter and physical laws. This is, I think, a disappointment reaction at realizing the non-existence of a soul, and some force or realm beyond reality where our mind resides. I think that those who argue for no free will do so from a place of scorn for the material reality of our brains. I think the unconscious processes in their minds go something like this: Our minds are not immortal, and there is no transcendence to interconnectedness with the universe or a god. We are left alone and isolated. As material reality is inferior to the higher realm of goodness and virtue where the mind of gods reside, whatever material process that goes on in the brain cannot be elevated to the level of a mind. The best way to achieve undermining the brain of seemingly self-conscious humans is to state the self-evident claim that there is no freedom from reality, thus there is no choice beyond the materially-physically driven reactions. This does not qualify as mind, so there is no free will. The brain is pathetic and man is doomed to servitude to mater and its inescapable nature. You can easily imagine this as some sort of projection, and also sadly imagine the place where this comes from. I can imagine a child scorning him or herself for being an individual in the face of narcissistic and sadistic parents.

There is no free will in the sense of free from material, objective, constrained, physical reality. Whatever mind executing choice does so engulfed and delimitated by physical/material reality, because mind is an emerging property of complex organisms; organisms which are themselves composed of only physical/material stuff. Whatever laws and properties, whatever principles of cause and effect govern the interactions of matter and energy, do the same for the matter and energy where any Mind is operating upon. But there is free will in the sense that a sufficiently intelligent and healthy mind existing within an organism is independent enough and capable to pursue preferred states (to identify properties of itself and its environment, and hopefully other beings as well, and to select a course of action out of a plethora of possible candidates based on the expected outcome and its virtue and value).

There is no free will in the sense of free from material, objective, constrained, physical reality. Whatever mind executing choice does so engulfed and delimitated by physical/material reality, because mind is an emerging property of complex organisms; organisms which are themselves composed of only physical/material stuff. But there is free will in the sense that a sufficiently intelligent and healthy mind existing within an organism is independent enough and capable to pursue preferred states (to identify properties of itself and its environment, and hopefully other beings as well, and to select a course of action out of a plethora of possible candidates based on the expected outcome and its virtue and value).

I'd like to advocate strongly for self defense. If you do, this would leave to the end of war, as war invariantly begins by the unilateral unimpeded violence upon the taxed population to fund international aggression.

Conceptual vs. Perceptual. A mind incapable of dealing with elaborate conceptual constructs will experience a great deal of anxiety when attempting to understand the complexity of the world around it, when some level of understanding is required to propose any quasi-solution to a problem. The cheat irresponsible minds invariantly rely on is to substitute reasoning with emotions; to elevate the perceptual (what they can readily see superficially) to the level of the reasoned (non-contradictory identification). They see men having success, but they lack the capacity to abstract the particular aspects of their actions and endeavors that differentiate these and propel them over the rest. Without analyzing the content of their thinking, the reasoning behind their actions, the weaknesses of their enemies, the strengths of their ideas, the believes of societies, they choose the weakest, most superficial identifiable characteristic, the color of their skin. Even worse, these weakened minds resolve to correct the imbalance by proclaiming and celebrating the skin color or the collection of symbols, rituals and institutions (culture) of the vanquished and oppressed.