Vitalism

[Unveiled Artist]

I can't remember if I posted this topic, but this is a more biological and philosophical view of how people define the soul or spirit rather than purely religious.

Vitalism is the belief that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things".[1][a] Where vitalism explicitly invokes a vital principle, that element is often referred to as the "vital spark", "energy" or "élan vital", which some equate with the soul. In the 18th and 19th centuries vitalism was discussed among biologists, between those who felt that the known mechanics of physics would eventually explain the difference between life and non-life and vitalists who argued that the processes of life could not be reduced to a mechanistic process. Some vitalist biologists proposed testable hypotheses meant to show inadequacies with mechanistic explanations, but these experiments failed to provide support for vitalism. Biologists now consider vitalism in this sense to have been refuted by empirical evidence, and hence regard it either as a superseded scientific theory,[4] or, since the mid-20th century, as a pseudoscience.[5][6]
Vitalism - Wikipedia

The dictionary calls it a life-force:
The spirit or energy that animates living creatures; the soul.
The force or influence that gives something its vitality or strength.

Some people call it god.

Thoughts?

 

[PureX]

I can't remember if I posted this topic, but this is a more biological and philosophical view of how people define the soul or spirit rather than purely religious.

The dictionary calls it a life-force:
The spirit or energy that animates living creatures; the soul.
The force or influence that gives something its vitality or strength.

Some people call it god.

Thoughts?

I think there are two different aspects to this fundamental phenomena. One being the 'energy' or "life force" that animates matter and creates a "being". And the other is the unique 'pattern' that energy/force becomes, and projects, over time and through it's unique circumstantial interactions. I'm not sure which term I would apply to which, however.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I think there are two different aspects to this fundamental phenomena. One being the 'energy' or "life force" that animates matter and creates a "being". And the other is the unique 'pattern' that energy/force becomes, and projects, over time and through it's unique circumstantial interactions. I'm not sure which term I would apply to which, however.

I don't know. I understand the first half, but not the second. The one with the unique pattern-could you rephrase?

 

[Marcion]

P.R. Sarkar has given a theory about microvita but it is too complicated for me to reproduce it in detail.
There are positive microvita and negative ones, the negative ones can create disease or bring death.
Certain spiritual activities or certain forms of naturopathy can attract positive microvita that can heal.

The crudest can be made visible with a microscope and are in fact viruses.
Life evolves by attracting new microvita in the form of viruses that also float through interstellar space.
The less crude ones cannot be detected and are the most minute building blocks of elementary particles (billions of them together make up one elementary particle).
They form a kind of bridge between consciousness and matter.

I would have to read the literature on microvita to be able to tell it more accurately and with more details.

When the study of microvita gets more developed the science of healing will greatly improve and the real mechanism behind evolution will finally be discovered.

 

[Polymath257]

As the quote notes: there is NO evidence for such an elan-vitale.

Life is a matter of chemistry, not of a special 'life force'. Most of the processes in living things are the result of the chemical potential of oxygen (for example).

 

[Valjean]

I can't remember if I posted this topic, but this is a more biological and philosophical view of how people define the soul or spirit rather than purely religious.

The dictionary calls it a life-force:
The spirit or energy that animates living creatures; the soul.
The force or influence that gives something its vitality or strength.

Some people call it god.

Thoughts?

It exists; cogito ergo sum, but what exactly it is remains largely unknown. Science has thus far failed to find anything tangible or measurable to research.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Some chemists refused to believe that long chain molecules could be made synthetically, insisting there must be a vital (lifegiving) force present to make them. This was disproved when long chain molecules were made, and they become known as macromolecules.

Other similar attempts have been made to insist that there must be a hidden vital force behind chemical processes. Louis Pasteur proved that bacteria caused spoiling. He did this in the face of much opposition in a time when people thought that rot appeared spontaneously and also that other things appeared spontaneously such as flies from mud. Wealthy naturalists criticized Pasteurs attempts to demonstrate that spoiling was not spontaneous, but he eventually demonstrated beyond doubt that it wasn't.

For many centuries people have believed in vital forces of various kinds. Physics was long mixed with superstition and was doggedly pursued with little success by the alchemists. They couldn't make progress, because they didn't question philosophical assumptions, didn't have a scientific notion. They assumed and built assumptions into all of their superstitious manipulations of matter. They expected magic and vitalism and made no room for a world of pure mechanistic meticulous measurement. They forgot how to learn.

I think vitalism is a well meaning but failed approach to study.