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Glen comments on Rationality Quotes Thread November 2015 - Less Wrong
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Why is it not ridiculous? From skimming the source, he seems to be using a long discredited biological idea and applying it to intelligence because there's a vague resemblance if you squint at it. There's no clear reason to believe that vitalism would be any more possible, let alone plausible, with regards to intelligence as opposed to organic compounds.
It's not ridiculous because it's a concept that has been used to advance science. For many practical applications it makes sense to treat living entities different from non-living one's just as for many practical applications Newton's physics is useful. The fact that modern physics showed Newton's physics to be inaccurate doesn't make it ridiculous.
No, vitalism wasn't just a dead end, it was a wrong alley that too many people spent time wandering down. Vital theories were responsible for a lot of the quack ideas of medical history.
Quantum theories are responsible for a lot of the quack ideas too. I fear this isn't enough to make an idea ridiculous.
But quantum theory also makes correct predictions, and mainstream physics does not en masse advocate quackery. Vitalism never worked, and it lead the entire medical community to advocate actively harmful quackery for much of the 19th century.
As said above Vitalism worked in the sense that it suggest to treat organic and anorganic chemistry differently.
Vitalism isn't a single idea. Aristoles get's labeled as a Vitalist but he didn't consider the vital force to be a prime element the way people in the 18th century did. He instead had the theory of the four bodily humors. Homeopathy that is supposed to strengthen the vital force is less harmful than draining blood from people during a cold as the four bodily humor theory predicted.
If you say the theory of the existance of a vital force lead to harmful treatments and there treatments that you mean that aren't based on humorism?
By this line of reasoning almost all past theories can the discredited. People use a theory to make predictions and act on them. Only later do you learn the shortcomings. If you don't have empiricism you don't even have a tool to systematically notice your error. I think this is a fully general counter argument.
No, the important older theories lead to better theories.
Newton's gravitational physics made correct predictions of limited precision, and Newton's laws lead to the development of Navier-Stokes, kinetic theories of gasses,etc. Even phlogiston lead to the discovery of oxygen and the modern understanding of oxidation. You don't have to be 100% right to make useful predictions.
Vitalism, on the other hand, like astrology, didn't lead anywhere useful.
'long discredited' sounds like hindsight bias.