New Concepts in the Evolution of Complexity
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Abstract
Vitalism is a traditional and persistent belief that the laws of physics that hold in the inanimate world will not suffice to explain the phenomena of life. Of course it is not suggested, either by those who share the belief or by those like me who reject it, that we know all the laws of physics now, or will know them soon. Rather what is silently supposed by both sides is that we know what kind of laws physics is made up of and will continue to discover in inanimate matter; and although that is a vague description to serve as a premise, it is what inspires vitalists to claim (and their opponents to deny) that some phenomena of life cannot be explained by laws of this kind.