Paper Reading #0 : On Computers

Reference

"On Plants" from the Complete Works of Aristotle

Edited by Jonathan Barnes who was an English philosopher, historian and translator of ancient philosophy.~wikipedia

Summary

Aristotle involves in the general discussion on whether plants should be considered to have soul. He makes subtle comparisons between the way animals and especially human life has been to the way animals have been in existence. The main idea has been about feelings and emotions like pain, hunger and so on. Later he goes on discussing the ways different physical conditions like air , light, water have affected plants.He is somewhat skeptical about plants having soul like animals but does not completely deny an existence of a somewhat different type of soul.

Discussion

In a world where there were not any scientific measures to make studies about how life came into existence and how life sustains in animals and plants, Aristotle did a pretty good job with his limited resources and techniques; observations and deductions, to come to his idea about plants, animals and souls and other natural phenomenons.

Even today subtle observation and deductions can be a major resources when we are lacking ideas and scientific methods. They can help us come us with hypotheses to work on.

We can compare computers like plants and argue if computers can have soul. But, I do not even want to go there because I believe in nature and and cycle of natural birth and death which can never be true with computers.