Point the following out to him: 1. that we can all use common nouns to refer to many individuals of the same kind, many cats, humans or bear.w And in doing so we recognize that they have something in common with each other (assuming here that nominalism is not a live option for a Whiteheadian). But we could easily include two phases of the same individual. So there must be something common to the same individual at two different moments. The very fat that we can know a multiplicity of members of a the same species entails the identify through time of an individual: our meaningful use of common nouns entails that each individual of a certain kind continues to be the same kind of being, i.e., has an enduring essence.
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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