“Philosophers are still grappling with the idea that life and death may not be the only states of being.”
Death isn’t a state of being. It is the absence of being. When something dies, it ceases to be. It loses its identity as the thing it was. That’s why, strictly speaking, when something dies, what we are left with is not a body, as only a living thing is or has a body, but the remains of what was once alive. So, in the case of rotifers, if they are alive, either they are hibernating or suspended, or reanimation really is the instantiation of a new rotifer. I am curious what kind of metaphysics these philosophers are leaning into, or why “living thing” entails the actual function of respiration, metabolism, etc. and not just the potential for these things, for example. A rock has no potential for these, but a desiccated rotifer does. (Modern philosophy has a problem dealing with potentiality, so this is not necessarily surprising.)
“At the time, fear of excommunication or condemnation by the Roman Catholic Church for publishing scientific observations that challenged Church doctrine impacted communication about new scientific findings.”
The perennial boogeyman of the Enlightenment. Publishing scientific findings did not get you excommunicated. Indeed, fundamental to Catholicism is the recognition that reason and faith cannot contradict. If a scientific finding could or would authentically contradict Catholic doctrine, then Catholicism would be undermined and there would be no meaning to excommunication. (Some will point to the punishment of Giordano Bruno, but he wasn’t charged for his scientific findings —— he was a crackpot —— but for his heretical theology. Others will bring up Galileo, but again, he wasn’t excommunicated and the whole affair concerned a decades-long conflict of a personal or political nature that Galileo himself enjoyed provoking and which ended with a cozy house arrest in his old age at a time when Protestants were burning witches in Northern Europe.) A tiresome cliche. Frankly, I’m not sure how rehydrated rotifers and tardigrades are supposed to threaten Catholic doctrine. Because someone used the word “resurrection”? So what? Sloppy thinking.
> in the case of rotifers, if they are alive, either they are hibernating or suspended, or reanimation really is the instantiation of a new rotifer.
It is not a new rotifer. Firstly, any life is a continuation of a previous life. Tree grows from a seed, and the seed was grown on a tree. There is one likely exception of abiogenesis a few billions of years ago, but I think it will be hard to claim that roftier's reanimation is a case of abiogenesis.
Secondly, it is the same rotifer, made of the very same molecules roughly in the same places of its body. Some molecules were damaged and they are repaired, but it is the inherent property of life is the striving for homeostasis, life always do that. Cells spend ~30% of their metabolism budget on ion transport through their membranes to keep required differences in concentrations of ions between inside and outside.
But doesn't that mean that this allegedly philosophical/metaphysical question is predicated on technological advancement? I.e. by inventing a more advanced resuscitation method, people who have ceased to exist would suddenly exist again?
No, why would it? Why do you assume they've ceased to exist? Resuscitation is not recreation or re-instantiation. A person prior to resuscitation isn't dead. Rather, some function has ceased (cardiac arrest, for instance) which can, if his state persists, result in death because it will eventually cause all functions to cease and allow decay to begin.
What you have in mind is not so much a philosophical problem per se, but a medical or even a biological problem, i.e., at which point is resuscitation no longer possible even in principle? When is there no longer the potential to resuscitate? That would be the point at which the existence of something has ended.
This belief doesn't make people immune to become crackpots. I personally know one crackpot that happens to believe that the earth revolve around the sun. He believes also that 2+2=4, and it doesn't help either.
> What separates a crackpot from an eccentric person or someone with weird ideas, or is that just a crackpot?
I believe it is how a person construct their beliefs and how they defend it. I don't know enough about Giordano Bruno to claim that he was a crackpot though. All I want to say is that if Giordano Bruno shared some good ideas including some novel and good ideas of the time, it doesn't mean he was not a crackpot.
> And, is it ok to be a crackpot?
No, from the point of view of a Catholic Church of the time, it was not. And Giordano Bruno should have known that. I'm not trying to whitewash Catholic Church, just that Giordano Bruno could have predict what was coming to him and ignored it, while having some really weird ideas. I have a very little knowledge of him, but I heard of some of his ideas and I tend to think that he was a crackpot.
To add/refine: Bruno didn't incur his punishment because of "weird ideas" or because he was a crackpot, specifically, much less for believing in heliocentrism [0][1].
Thanks for your thoughtful and educational reply! I had to go do some digging on the views of the Catholic Church of the time and I hadn't realized, "crackpottery", if you will, was taken so seriously, but after researching I see the problems. Thanks again for taking the time, that was some good learnings.
> Death isn’t a state of being. It is the absence of being. When something dies, it ceases to be
Huh? What about things that were never alive? They never existed?
> strictly speaking, when something dies, what we are left with is not a body, as only a living thing is or has a body, but the remains of what was once alive
Strictly speaking, you're confidently guessing at something you don't know and have no way of knowing.
That said, thank you for introducing me to Giordano Bruno, his ideas seems very interesting and worth thinking about
>> Death isn’t a state of being. It is the absence of being. When something dies, it ceases to be
> Huh? What about things that were never alive? They never existed
No, he means that when something dies, it ceases to be what it was. When a dog dies, it's no longer a dog, but a corpse, and pretty soon will be earth. Same with a person (assuming no afterlife). He doesn't mean that a dead thing is nothing at all, only that a onetime-living thing ceases to be what it was when it dies.
>> strictly speaking, when something dies, what we are left with is not a body, as only a living thing is or has a body, but the remains of what was once alive
> Strictly speaking, you're confidently guessing at something you don't know and have no way of knowing.
Everything we observe about the difference between living animals and corpses tells us that the living body ceases to exist at death. It's a very basic observation. More systematic observation of the onetime-organism's biology or biochemistry will reveal the same thing, in more detail.
Death isn’t a state of being. It is the absence of being. When something dies, it ceases to be. It loses its identity as the thing it was. That’s why, strictly speaking, when something dies, what we are left with is not a body, as only a living thing is or has a body, but the remains of what was once alive. So, in the case of rotifers, if they are alive, either they are hibernating or suspended, or reanimation really is the instantiation of a new rotifer. I am curious what kind of metaphysics these philosophers are leaning into, or why “living thing” entails the actual function of respiration, metabolism, etc. and not just the potential for these things, for example. A rock has no potential for these, but a desiccated rotifer does. (Modern philosophy has a problem dealing with potentiality, so this is not necessarily surprising.)
“At the time, fear of excommunication or condemnation by the Roman Catholic Church for publishing scientific observations that challenged Church doctrine impacted communication about new scientific findings.”
The perennial boogeyman of the Enlightenment. Publishing scientific findings did not get you excommunicated. Indeed, fundamental to Catholicism is the recognition that reason and faith cannot contradict. If a scientific finding could or would authentically contradict Catholic doctrine, then Catholicism would be undermined and there would be no meaning to excommunication. (Some will point to the punishment of Giordano Bruno, but he wasn’t charged for his scientific findings —— he was a crackpot —— but for his heretical theology. Others will bring up Galileo, but again, he wasn’t excommunicated and the whole affair concerned a decades-long conflict of a personal or political nature that Galileo himself enjoyed provoking and which ended with a cozy house arrest in his old age at a time when Protestants were burning witches in Northern Europe.) A tiresome cliche. Frankly, I’m not sure how rehydrated rotifers and tardigrades are supposed to threaten Catholic doctrine. Because someone used the word “resurrection”? So what? Sloppy thinking.