Re: Empirics and Life X-Files moment

[Steve Johnson <***>]

Judith,

Sorry, I could not resist. Just a minute after I read
your post I saw this on the front page of MSNBC:

RALEIGH, N.C. - A medical examiner studying a body in
a morgue was startled when the man took a shallow
breath.

Emergency medical technicians had declared 29-year-old
Larry D. Green dead almost two hours earlier, after he
was hit by a car.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6875358/

Judith wrote:

>Many a time it has been reported in the news
> that someone was 
> declared dead and was zipped in a body bag, and they
> weren't dead 
> after all-- giving folks an X-Files moment, I'm
> sure!




--- Judith Rosen <***> wrote:

> Howard,
> 
> That wasn't really what I was asking. My question
> is: How does science 
> empirically verify life as a quality or property of
> a living organism? 
> It cannot be measured directly, so how do they
> empirically verify it? 
> As far as I know, they don't. In medical circles,
> where "human life" 
> is considered to be so different (so much more
> important) from other 
> life, they've put a lot of work into trying to
> benchmark this. 
> Ultimately, in medicine, certain physical processes
> are used to verify 
> life. Many a time it has been reported in the news
> that someone was 
> declared dead and was zipped in a body bag, and they
> weren't dead 
> after all-- giving folks an X-Files moment, I'm
> sure!
> 
> But I also have a new question, based on your post:
> 
> HP:  I think of it like the epistemic principles in
> physics, like the 
> requirement that all empirically verifiable models
> (laws) obey 
> invariance principles.
> 
> How would you define an "invariance principle"?
> 
> The reason I'm asking is connected to the first
> question above. 
> Basically, empirics are slippery. They're context
> dependent, just like 
> everything else. Literally: In the eye of the
> beholder. Empirics in 
> science consists of a set of rules, isn't that
> correct? Very much like 
> our legal system. Being able to prove or disprove
> something in a court 
> of law is not the same as arriving at truth or
> achieving justice. 
> Empirics in science is a lot like that, it seems to
> me. It's the 
> substitution of syntax for semantics, because syntax
> is seen as 
> somehow more "objective" and "invariant". But there
> is a big problem 
> with doing that when we are evaluating complex
> systems, as we all 
> know.
> 
> And yet, there remains a need to legally determine
> certain biological 
> properties and various other issues that arise from
> the fact that we 
> are living organisms. So my question is a real one:
> How does science 
> empirically verify "life"?
> 
> Judith
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Howard Pattee
>   To: ***
>   Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2005 11:40 AM
>   Subject: Re: [ROSEN] Rosen, Kauffman and
> compatibility
> 
> 
>   Judith,
> 
>   I think of "closed to efficient causation" as a
> necessary condition 
> to answer What is life? It is certainly a principle
> that empirically 
> testable scientific models of life must satisfy, but
> I'm not convinced 
> it is itself empirically verifiable. I think of it
> like the epistemic 
> principles in physics, like the requirement that all
> empirically 
> verifiable models (laws) obey invariance principles.
> 
>   To me "closed to efficient causation" is still a
> very abstract image 
> that I find hard to associate with observable
> properties of organisms. 
> Maybe Tim can help me out here.
> 
>   Howard
> 
>   At 07:23 AM 1/27/05 -0500, you wrote:
> 
>     Howard Pattee wrote: I do not yet see how the
> existence of 
> "closure to efficient causation" can be empirically
> decided.
> 
>     How is "life" empirically decided?
> Scientifically, I mean.
> 
>     Judith
>  
> 


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com