Aristotle makes a claim that animals and plants are independent things, but the parts that make them up - bones, blood, leaves - are not because they don't have an inner source of motion. I'm not sure I fully agree with this. The individual parts of these "independent things" have their own inner networks and change frequently, just as the animals and plants that they're a part of do. New blood cells are constantly being created and old cells are constantly dying. Is this not an inner source of motion?
Even beyond the cell level, atomically we could speculate that atoms have a sort of network that we may not fully understand yet. Up until relatively recently, we didn't even know that they existed. Ruling out these things as "independent" doesn't really make any sense to me.
One could make the argument that since they rely on the plant or animal they exist in, they cannot be independent. But all of these plants and animals depend on each other for survival, as well as the planet we all live on. How can they be considered independent? Couldn't they be a part of a larger "independent" being that we just haven't discovered yet?
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I have to agree with you, parts of an animal or plant are in fact intricate systems in themselves. Science has prevailed in confirming this. At the molecular and subatomic level, these systems do interact toward achieving an ultimate goal. On thing that would separate your example of our world being part of another piece of a being would be the fact that not all pieces of our world work together toward a specific goal. Also certain aspects of life infringe on the survival of other aspects of life, which would mean that parts of the system destroy other parts of the system. This would not be in the best interest of a larger being (creating this small level of chaos in the system). You some valid point, good post.
ReplyDeleteAristotle's views during this time could best be attributed to the absence of advanced research in biology. I'm sure if he had the knowledge that pioneers in science allowed us to gather today, that his views would be slightly different. Because every living being need resources to sustain its life, it seems that we are all independent to an extent. Maybe some beings, such as human beings, have a greater degree of independence, no living orgasm is capable of operating completely independent.
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