While debating with my friend __,it occurred to me that his anti-organized religion screeds were one-sided because he lacked an appreciation of the desires that lead one to regard religion as good. I would like to construct an analogy with a tone deaf person who can't recognize the beauty of violin playing, but winces with pain whenever a violinist squeeks a wrong note or something like that. Such a fellow would look at violin music as pernicious. Similarly, with __.
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...
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