The following analogy occurred to me as plausible but also greatly in need of clarification: it is between organism/mineral, animal/organism and human/animal.
Regarding organism/mineral: the law of entropy is nowhere to be broken. But the following non-exception to this law is, after a fashion, exceptional. That is the fact that plants increase the amount of order that is going on within a small scale. One can point out correctly that the whole constituted by organism/environment is in accordance with entropy. But only organisms seem to increase the amount of order per unit of space as it were.
The second point regards animal/organism: Here two are laws that admit of no exception (i.e., the laws of inertia and gravitation), yet animals do seem exceptional in this regard. If one were to look at the relations of force between parts, MF=A and similar laws would obtain. Yet the animal as a whole doesn't rest/move in the same way that simpler, more basic beings do. If it were a simpler kind of being,
The third regards passions. Suppose there is a general law that animals move (qua animals) only inasmuch as they are moved by appetite. This law applies to humans and other animals. Yet humans can withstand the pull of those kinds of passions that they share in common with brutes. And in doing so they are exceptional. But they do so only inasmuch as moved by the desire for goods that are not strictly imaginable.
All of this is much too fuzzy, but I think it's promising...
Regarding organism/mineral: the law of entropy is nowhere to be broken. But the following non-exception to this law is, after a fashion, exceptional. That is the fact that plants increase the amount of order that is going on within a small scale. One can point out correctly that the whole constituted by organism/environment is in accordance with entropy. But only organisms seem to increase the amount of order per unit of space as it were.
The second point regards animal/organism: Here two are laws that admit of no exception (i.e., the laws of inertia and gravitation), yet animals do seem exceptional in this regard. If one were to look at the relations of force between parts, MF=A and similar laws would obtain. Yet the animal as a whole doesn't rest/move in the same way that simpler, more basic beings do. If it were a simpler kind of being,
The third regards passions. Suppose there is a general law that animals move (qua animals) only inasmuch as they are moved by appetite. This law applies to humans and other animals. Yet humans can withstand the pull of those kinds of passions that they share in common with brutes. And in doing so they are exceptional. But they do so only inasmuch as moved by the desire for goods that are not strictly imaginable.
All of this is much too fuzzy, but I think it's promising...
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