We can summarize contemporary approaches on life according to 3 basic views as followes:
- mechanistic approach.
- vitalism.
-
holism.
Definitions of 3mentioned items are as follows:
Mechistic approach is a philosophical doctorine that maintains that all events or phenomena ,no matter their complexity,can be ultimately understood in a mechanical
framework.the position is strongly deterministic and opposed to a host of other positions including dualism,idealism,mentalism and vitalism.
Holism is a general label applied to any philosophical approach that focuses on the whole living organism .the basic axiom of a holistic position ia that a complex phenomenon cannot be understood by an analysis of the constituent parts alone.
Contrast with elementarism and atomism.Gestalt and Freudian theories are classic
Examples of holistic approaches in psychology.
Vitalism is a philosophical points of view which hold that a “vital force” not explicable by mechanical,chemical or physical principle is responsible for life.it is a form of pluralism,involving the vital force in addition to the mind and body of dualism.
I was using to accent on vitalism till recent months,which I have been engaged to develop this paper.But now I prefer to defend of holism due to following reasons:
Although the theory of vitalism,by itself is a holistic approach,but as some of the workers believe that it is synonymous to idealism and it can not interpret life by itself,so I prefered to integrate vitalism into holism and to defend of holism,which can cover vitalism as well.It seems that this trend will become stronger and more defenceable in this sense.But the more striking message of the two principles is the same:”there is a nonchemical agent in bio-organisms;I mean life”.which is in contrast to the deterministic approach of the mechanistic theory,and it is the core of our study.
I will show some of the contradictions of the mechanistic approach in this paper. Then, the scientific field will be empty to look forward to holism.
METHODOLOGY:
Our methodology contains the use and follow up of “the cause and effect principle” in some biologic, behavioral and humanistic sciences as examples and some parts of the Divine religions as well. We are going to find the factor that is responsible to fulfill biologic and behavioral activities in all bio-organisms,as follows:
We study some of the biologic and behavioral activities in plants, microorganisms, animals and humans.
FINDINGS AND RESULTS:
We find motion, sense, lawful and goal directing regular activities in living creatures that have been active from the beginning of life in the world; they are continuing in all bio-organisms all over the world, without any mistake; and they will continue forever according to the Divine religions. These activities are the source of different biologic and behavioral sciences. In humans the trend is more complicated, and we are confronted with man’s unique identity that, according to the Divine religions, will be active forever.
CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION
As we mentioned before, we can summarize temporary approaches of life into3 basic views namely. mechanistic approach in one side and vitalism and holism in the other side.According to the basic message of two recent schools and broad spectrum of holism we can integrate vitalism into holism. So there would be only two approaches to explain life, namely holism and mechanistc approach.
Researches show that the characteristics of molecules in bio-organisms are the same as these characteristics in non-living status. I will show some of the contradictions of mechanistic approach as follows:
As we have been reviewed some regular, lawful and goal- directing activities in bio-organisms, animals and humans and some psychologic. social and spiritual trends in humans; one can rewrite the essence of the mechanistic approach as follows:
A-According to the scientific and experimental facts, the chemical elements of Mendeleef,s periodic law, which are the known chemical agents, are motionless, lacking life, knowledge, power, wisedom and volition, and it is obvious ,they have not ability to grant motion,knowledge,power,wisedom and volition to other things.
B-Chemical elements of Mendeleef ,s periodic law, which are the known chemical agents of the world, although they are motionless by themselves, and are lacking knowledge, power, wisedom, they have granted motility, knowledge, power, wisedom and volition to all bio-organisms including all animals and humans.
By reviewing the two above sentences, one can simply find out clear contradiction In the belief of the mechanistic approach. It is expected that we can convince the followers of this school of thought and we all come together to the reasonable strategy of holism,which can clearly interpret life and its multidimensional aspects without any Trouble or contradiction.
If our colleagues who are interested in the mechanistic approach, still do mind to reject their belief, we expect at least they clarify that this school can not interpret life, and it has obvious contradiction in this process. In this case many ambiguities will be removed ,and there will be generated a field of mutual understanding.
We should remember that the existence of a non chemical factor in bio-organisms Have been accepted as an evident axiom through the history of science;I mean the classification of creatures into animate and inanimate beings.All of us even followers of mechanistic approach use this classification frequently in our prcatices in different branches of science remembering in mind that life is different from inanimate chemical agents.If we say that the universe is nothing except molecules, then this classification might be useless.
A very big question which can one arise,is:”although it seems the problem has been solved,why some of our colleagues may still resist?
It seems the answer may relates to the definition of the science.
In our cotemporary accepted definition of science,which has been based on the mechanistic approach,any oservable thing can be studied in the field of science, and any thing which is not observable,although we can see its effects,can not be studied in the field of science.
Now we are studying many aspects of non-visible aspects of humans in the field
of clinical psychology, and they are instruments of our every day practice of psychology and psychiatry; and they all are out of the field of science according to the above definition.
Now that we have been succeeded to throw away this illogic definition, we can Simply rescue ourselves from its boring complications. So any thing which is non-visible, but we can sea its effects by sensorial or wisedom data, it can be put into the scientific trend.