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John Ashwell: Buddhist psychology
Having just listened to the programme about Vitalism. I was dismayed but not surprised, to hear a remark from Patricia Fara, where she made the comment that, "we still do not understand the difference between being alive and being dead."I know that you receive many ideas for future programmes and obviously could never fit them all in, but please, please, do a programme taking in Buddhist psychology. Buddhism, isn't a religion as the term is commonly understood, but a clear and profound method to understand reality, where all that is expounded, is self verifiable, and doesn't posit the fallacy that there is a supreme being outside of the self. Buddhist psychology, especially that of the Tibetan schools, set forth, many centuries ago, gives clear insights, into the world of matter and mind, which was seen as one whole, an understanding that quantum physicists are only now only beginning to understand; Nothing but energy, permeates the universe and all of nature!
Don Glbert Vitalism
Vitalism is alive, well and kicking in molecular biologists - and Richard Dawkins. They are even unable to appreciate what life means to them personally. Kicking out any basic law or principle as is convenient. I could (but won't) offer a reason just point out that genes exist in both live and dead cells. They can only enable reactions and not ensure they happen nor yet determine how well they happen. Dimensional analysis insists that quantitative and temporal features (so crucial but taken for granted) cannot be accounted for in terms of structure, genetic or otherwise.The major attribute of life is sustained auto-dynamic behaviour: it is how we judge its existence. It can only be explained in terms of cellular oscillations as I pointed out some 40 yrs ago. Since then, l and my colleagues have published much experimental evidence supporting the concepts (i) that live cells are multi-oscillators, and, (ii) that they have characteristic patterns of temporal organisation. Life can therefore be defined as the establishment of a complex auto-dynamic state. Oth4r qwp4ct are subsidiary.
Tom Milner-Gulland - Vitalism
A whole discussion on vitalism without a single mention of Henri Bergson! Bergson developed, in his Creative Evolution, the concept of the *elan vital*, or life force. In my own thinking, a life force is not merely essential to life, but - in accordance with Barrow and Tipler's Anthropic Principle - is essential to nature itself. And it is electricity - in which I include all atomic bonds - that serves to effect the link between mind and matter. Or, seeing it another way, it is the life force (at least, in my own conception of such) that serves to 'carve out' (in Bergson's phrasing) the conscious being from its environment. Mind and nature are ultimately united; but a life force serves to separate them for the duration of mortal existence, and electricity is a vestige of their underlying unity.
Vitalism
About the French Revolution, Vitalism and so much else. Germaine de Stael's reflections on the Revolution will be published in English in December. Great prog there - GdS, Talleyrand, Constant. All gathered at Juniper Hall on Box Hill in 1792, being spied on by Fanny Burney.
Pete Bailey - Vitalism
No mention of Samuel Hahnemann and Homeopathy. No, Melvin, vitalism has not gone away! Very much alive and kicking (if you'll pardon the Galvani pun)
violet-Vitalism
The theory of mind and the aspects of Quantum Theory is relevance to this subject., What is and what is not depends on where and how observation occurs. The self, the life force, vitalism remains a matter for investigation, similar to the investigations into 'dark matter'.
Paul Syms - Suggestions for future programmes
You have aired many different religious ideas, but I cannot recall a programme discussing atheism. How about it?
jane- vitalism
The heavens must smile at us - we're so earnest. Undiscovered physics is very frustrating. This morning's programme was superbly enjoyable as usual thank you. Sub-atomic physics was from a different era than today's discussion but is surely relevant. The 'chicken and egg' of consciousness and form also hovered at the sidelines. 'Electricity' can surely be used in a broad,generic sense for phenomena which operate across spectra we haven't yet considered as well as those we can register. The delightfully eloquent Pietro Corsi spoke of the French syncretizing of thought which takes "this or that" more inclusively to "this and that". In this context "and" could (and should) become a revelatory as well as a conjoining word - I reckon human biochemistry generally prefers 'and' to 'or' much as we've learned to compromise!! Whilst seeing the dismissive, resigned smiles of Darwinists in my mind's eye at the mention of the word 'teleology' - I would ask where, actually, is the proof against it or the proof for the 'blind' nature of evolution? Is the possibility of an 'and' so outrageous? Talking of the vital energy which animates life - when I ordered "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" from a small local bookshop the rather serious assistant became animated (in another sense of the word!) and told me that she and her husband were with her mother-in-law as she died. Several hours BEFORE the heart stopped beating this woman saw a colored haze lift up from the supine body and move away. Her husband did not see it but she said that she left the room, knowing that her mother-in-law had 'gone'. Her death had not been expected for several months. The reason she so keenly told the tale was because she later read 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead' and found the incident described as she'd witnessed it. She also read that what she'd observed was indicative of a "good death". A question would have to be - why did she see it but her husband didn't? (Assuming he was awake!) My grandma had a similar experience whilst nursing in hospital. "Spectrum" is, together with "and" and "electricity" a loaded word, one which almost certainly eludes us presently and one which is probably of the most fundamental importance in the scheme of things. Best wishes and thanks again. Thinking doesn't always, by itself, reveal truth but it can be, in the right context, a most enjoyable process.
vitalism nanette freeman
a somewhat narrow overview of 'the spark of life' the eastern philosopies have it... reiki, chakras, and the aura, a more metaphysical approach, no doubt a subject on its own for another day. Also need a much longer time slot, as the presenter has to manage all the ego's and finish on time, can almost hear the clock ticking!
Vitalism Hiram Baddeley
It is true that the laws of physics, especially quantum theory, apply to complex physiological processes and to all the anatomical atoms in the human body, as they do to inanimate matter. Physics goes on inside us as well as outside Science, especially in its purest form as mathematical physics, is a tool of the mind. It is a method of looking at the universe objectively by making accurate observations and drawing logical conclusions from these observations. It is therefore impossible for scientific methods to be applied to the subjective experience of human consciousness. A neuroscientist can lie within a functional brain scanner observing her brain regions light up as her mind patrols different centres, whilst thinking about her brain, thinking about her brain thinking… But however long she stays in the scanner, she will not be able to describe the subjective mystery of being a conscious being in objective, provable scientific terms. Only poets and artists can attempt to describe what it feels like to be alive.Hiram Baddeley, Clinical Radiologist
Vitalism Mrs Anderson
variations of Vitalism are still being worked on - see Dr Rupert Sheldrake's book A New Science of Life.
Bill Cameron, 'Life'
I enjoyed this programme but was exasperated by its premature conclusion with Schoedinger's 'What is Life'. Since then there has been substantial development: we have Maturana and Varela on 'autopoiesis', Monod's 'Chance and Necessity,Foucault in 'The Order of Things' and many others. What is new here is the fusion of biology, cybernetics and contingency. A paper of mine 'Autopoiesis, Agency and Accident' in Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 2001, is fun and gives a flavour. This is a current and important topic.
Alpin McGregor, Vitalism
As always IOT is thought provoking and the discussion on Vitalism was no exception. I feel elated when the discussion follows lines that I think I know about and somewhat deflated when items I think should be included were not and it was the case with this morning’s programme. Given the introduction about Frankenstein I was disappointed not to hear about Rabbi Low and the Golem in Prague.
Vitalism
I take issue with Patricia Fara's view that saying "biology is organisation" amounts to a non-materialistic view of biology (please forgive me if I misunderstood that view). From a modern physics perspective, "matter", i.e. what can be described by the mechanistic laws of physics, is composed of mass, energy and entropy. The latter is a quantification of the amount of information, i.e. organisation, in a system. Many phase transitions, such as magnetisation of a ferromagnet, or the transformation of an ordinary metal into a superconductor, when they are cooled below their "critical temperatures", are understood in terms not only of lowering the energy, but also losing entropy entropy, i.e. a tendency to higher organisation in matter. So organisation is definitely part of the mechanistic view of the world espoused by physics, and therefore saying that biology is about organisation (which is correct, because it is mostly about exchanges of entropy) is not to say that biology is somehow non-mechanistic. What is more, entropy is not a particularly contemporary concept: it was proposed at the beginning of the XIX century.J. QuintanillaRutherford Appleton Laboratory
Robert Allwood, prana/chi
I feel there is some neglect of non European thought in this programme in general. It would have been interesting to relate the life force to the Indian prana and Chinese chi or ki (Tai chi, Reiki, Xi Gong, acupuncture) – not to mention etheric and astral bodies etc. See also You’re Avin’ a Laugh by Prana of the band Bindu Babas!
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