Talk:Vitalism

• why is Daniel Dennet's "Kinds of Minds" included on the reading section? I find it unjustified under any means, there is just one single quote on that book that touches vitalism and the topic of the book is *not* vitalism. I have included instead a text by Bechtel and Richardson on vitalism. Very good teaching material

I think Chapter 2 is worth reading. Dennett described the approach of that book as being part of a program of "breaking old habits" in how people think about the mind. Chapter 2 starts out with the idea that "molecular machines" can account for life. Dennett's dismissal of vitalism provides a good example of a modern approach to the study of life: explore how molecular processes in living things account for phenomena rather than assume that there is some "life force". Dennett's analogy between "mindless robots" and macromolecules is a useful teaching tool for people who have not studied modern biology. Dennett is not simply dismissive of vitalism. Dennett's chapter provides a short answer to the questions, "If not vitalism, then what?" --JWSchmidt 15:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Can living systems be explained by quantum mechanics?

The article begins, "Vitalism is the idea that living organisms cannot be entirely explained in terms of the same forces and materials that account for the behavior of non-living objects." There are some scientists that while they don't think that living systems are necessarily governed by different laws, they do feel that there may be principles that are used by living systems in ways that are uncharacteristic of inanimate systems and that these factors are not understood at the present time. Many of these ideas go beyond the concept of w:emergence. People such as w:Walter Elsasser, w:Robert Rosen and w:Robert Ulanowicz feel that a reductionist determinism may be insufficient to describe living systems. These tend to be more conservative than the likes of w:Rupert Sheldrake. The theoretical physicist, w:Eugene Wigner wrote an essay commenting on one of Elsasser's books and then presented an argument in the form of a mathematical proof that the probability of the existence of a self-contained, infinitely self-replicating system is zero based on assumptions derived from quantum mechanics.

In this model, a living system is represented as a state vector: v. Its environment would also have at least one state which permits the organism to multiply: w. The total state vector of the system, the organism and its environment would be represented by the direct Kronecker product of these two vectors: v X w. After replication, the state vector would be represented as v X v X r, that is two vectors representing a pair of organisms in the altered environment. This interaction was assumed to be random, more specifically, to be governed by a random symmetric Hamiltonian matrix. This assumption might be questioned. However, John Walton, at Cardiff University claims that it was this same assumption that enabled w:John von Neumann to complete a proof that the second law of thermodynamics is a consequence of quantum mechanics.

Other examples of this argument exist so the idea has been developed somewhat. It remains rather obscure, however, and is generally considered rather speculative and not particularly significant. Nevertheless, it suggests that something lies outside the calculation quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is generally considered to be a comprehensive model of any molecular system so a component "outside the calculation" would be unknown and very significant.

Wigner suggests that this component may be consciousness. This parallels another link between John von Neumann and Eugene Wigner which is the interpretation of quantum physics commonly referred to as w:consciousness causes collapse. In his monumental treatise The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, John von Neumann deeply analyzed the so-called measurement problem. He concluded that the entire physical universe could be made subject to the Schrödinger equation (the universal wave function). Since something "outside the calculation" was needed to collapse the wave function, von Neumann concluded that the collapse was caused by consciousness. The nature of this consciousness and indeed the nature of the collapse of quantum states remains unclear. This point of view was later more prominently expanded on by Eugene Wigner.

There are serious initiatives underway to create artificial living systems. They are still rather tentative. If these researchers encounter unexpected, intractable difficulties in creating a living system with comprehensive viability, they would have to concede the possibility that in using a reductionist, algorithmic approach they are missing something. Most of the people mentioned above are now deceased but the questions they asked are still largely unanswered. We may find it necessary to go back and reexamine the work they did.

(Charles ware 19:34, 4 February 2010 (UTC))