To say that a car is presently going 60mph is usually to say a counterfactual: one who says this means that if it did travel for an hour (even though it hasn't yet done so), then it would have traversed 60 miles. And this counterfactual goes beyond what has been experienced. For the measured speed in question is really the disposition to go 60 miles in an hour. But a disposition as such is beyond the reach of an empiricist. We simply don't sense "60mph": rather, we interpret something as having a disposition to traverse a certain distance. This interpretation, in going beyond experience, is just as metaphysical as causality, for like causality, disposition goes beyond experience in interpreting it.
How about defining it as an instance of functional complexity? And treating the list of properties as following necessarily from this definition? Okay, this is very diamond-in-the-rough (or perhaps zirconium...) but here goes my thoughts on the matter: (Complexity) Many diverse parts (functional) acting for the sake of the whole I think I need to add something like "not as the instrument of another" or something like that. Given that they act together as one whole and given entropy, etc., the organism will need to posses more order than its surroundings (homeostasis). It will therefore need to take in energy (nutrition), which it will use to sustain its readiness to interact with its environment so as to preserve its own being (homeostasis again?), but which will eventually break down (death), so that in order for that life form to continue it will need to duplicate itself (reproduction), which, upon occurring, will involve both development (growth) to maturity and...
Comments