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Only if you define it that way, which means that you need an alternative term for non-biological entities which, otherwise, fulfill all the actually functional landmarks of life: sensing, processing, and subsequently interacting with the environment. There’s no proof that these phenomena are implicitly bound to biological systems.
Call it what you want, but there’s absolutely no evidence (besides the circumstantial evidence of observed phenomenon in an implicitly biased environment) that biology is the only way to achieve sentience. Our knowledge of the mechanisms of sentience is woefully limited. Biological-chauvinism only cements your own myopic biases, skepticism taken to the extreme of prejudice.
I’m claiming that carbon and hydrogen are both atomic elements composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons. You’re claiming that hydrogen is the only legitimate substance and carbon, by definition, isn’t a real substance.
A definition is not an assumption, it’s a description of something which has certain known properties. If something else fulfills similar functions to a living being, but it isn’t a biological entity, then, by the biological definition, it isn’t alive. I’m not sure what your issue is here. It’s not like we’re ever going to run out of definitions. Are you arguing in favor of animism?
My claim is that carbon and hydrogen are distinct substances with particular properties and definitions. There is no “one true substance.”
Why is the definition of biological life relevant to a conversation about nuclear sentience? You’re the only one throwing the word “life” around. Arguing against its misuse when I haven’t actually used it is classic straw manning.
You’re the one who started arguing that a head may not necessarily be part of a biological being, which was irrelevant to my point. I’m not sure why you’re so concerned about nuclear sentience to begin with, quite frankly. I was just enjoying the conversation. I raised the conjectural angry solar head to demonstrate a claim that can be disproved scientifically to show that some religions have a stronger basis in reality. The sun doesn’t have the properties of a sentient head, so such a claim is false. What is your point, and how does it relate to mine?
When your point is that the sun can’t be a disembodied godhead because heads are biological, then yes refuting the biological limitation is of central relevance. Claims can’t really be disproven scientifically, that’s not science. Claims can be evaluated and judged scientifically that the sun doesn’t have the properties of a biological head, there is no scientific test to judge that the sun cannot be the head of some unknown non-biological sentient being.
Science only determines whether data is consistent with a given model. Nothing more, nothing less.
This isn’t a meaningful distinction. A claim that the sun is an angry head would assert that it fits the model of a head. This is something we can test scientifically. If the data regarding the sun isn’t consistent with the model of a head, then the claim that it’s a head has been disproved. At minimum, we can prove that the data is inconsistent with the model and give significant evidence against the claim.
So far, the only counterargument to this is “we can’t know for sure that it isn’t the head of an unknown non-biological sentient being.” If this was a substantial argument in favor of the claim, then it would stand to reason that the sun could be considered anything, like a planet from another universe, the eye of a mortal human named Bob, a USB-C cable for a bottle of hand sanitizer, and more.
I’m not sure what your point is, or why you’re so adamant that the sun may, in fact, be the head of a non-biological sentient being. This has nothing to do with my point that OP’s argument isn’t convincing because it holds equal relevance to other fields.
Incorrect. Robots have electrical heads, organizations have conceptual heads. You’re not making a scientific argument, you’re making semantic strawmen contrived to confirm your biases. Nothing could be further from science.
First, what is your point?
Second, does the sun fit any of the following definitions:
headcommandThird, if it doesn’t fit any of the above definitions, can you explain which definition of head that it does, what that definition is, and why it’s relevant?
My point is you’re torturing a non-scientific argument to try to pass it off as scientific. No one benefits my pretending achieve is something it isn’t. You’re trying to use it to determine reality, when it’s just a tool to develop consistent models. It does not work when considering a phenomenon outside of testable hypotheses.
Again, the sun could be the head, the sensory and processing unit, of an unknown nuclear being. We have no way to test this, so it cannot be scientifically “disproved”. That does not dictate reality. You’re trying to apply scientific reasoning to phenomena outside its preview.