Editing Life (section)

=== Materialism ===

{{main|Materialism}}

Some of the earliest theories of life were materialist, holding that all that exists is matter, and that life is merely a complex form or arrangement of matter. [[Empedocles]] (430 BC) argued that everything in the universe is made up of a combination of [[Classical element|four eternal "elements"]] or "roots of all": earth, water, air, and fire. All change is explained by the arrangement and rearrangement of these four elements. The various forms of life are caused by an appropriate mixture of elements.<ref>{{cite web |first1=Richard |last1=Parry |date=4 March 2005 |title=Empedocles |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/empedocles/ |access-date=25 May 2012 |archive-date=13 May 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120513201301/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/empedocles/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
[[Democritus]] (460 BC) was an [[atomist]]; he thought that the essential characteristic of life was having a [[soul]] (''psyche''), and that the soul, like everything else, was composed of fiery atoms. He elaborated on fire because of the apparent connection between life and heat, and because fire moves.<ref name=democritus>{{cite web |first1=Richard |last1=Parry |date=25 August 2010 |title=Democritus |website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/democritus/#4 |access-date=25 May 2012 |archive-date=30 August 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060830030642/http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/democritus/#4 |url-status=live }}</ref>
[[Plato]], in contrast, held that the world was organised by permanent [[Theory of Forms|forms]], reflected imperfectly in matter; forms provided direction or intelligence, explaining the regularities observed in the world.<ref>{{cite book |title=Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought |last=Hankinson |first=R.J. |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1997 |isbn=978-0-19-924656-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iwfy-n5IWL8C |page=125  |access-date=10 August 2023 |archive-date=13 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230413194747/https://books.google.com/books?id=iwfy-n5IWL8C |url-status=live }}</ref>

The [[mechanism (philosophy)|mechanistic]] materialism that originated in [[ancient Greece]] was revived and revised by the French philosopher [[René Descartes]] (1596–1650), who held that animals and humans were assemblages of parts that together functioned as a machine. [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz]] emphasised the [[Hierarchical organization|hirarchical]] organization of living machines, noting in his book ''[[Monadology]]'' (1714) that "...the machines of nature, that is living bodies, are still machines in their smallest parts, to infinity."<ref>{{Citation |title=The Monadology |date=2014-09-10 |work=Leibniz's Monadology |pages=14–33 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780748693238-006/html |access-date=2025-04-10 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |doi=10.1515/9780748693238-006 |isbn=978-0-7486-9323-8}}</ref>  This idea was developed further by [[Julien Offray de La Mettrie]] (1709–1750) in his book ''L'Homme Machine''.<ref>{{cite book |last=de la Mettrie |first=J.J.O. |date=1748 |title=L'Homme Machine |trans-title=Man a machine |publisher=Elie Luzac |place=Leyden }}</ref> In the 19th century the advances in [[cell theory]] in biological science encouraged this view. The [[evolution]]ary theory of [[Charles Darwin]] (1859) is a mechanistic explanation for the origin of species by means of [[natural selection]].<ref>{{cite book |first1=Paul |last1=Thagard |title=The Cognitive Science of Science: Explanation, Discovery, and Conceptual Change |publisher=MIT Press |date=2012 |isbn=978-0-262-01728-2 |pages=204–205 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HrJIV19_nZYC&pg=PA204 |access-date=10 August 2023 |archive-date=13 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230413194751/https://books.google.com/books?id=HrJIV19_nZYC&pg=PA204 |url-status=live }}</ref> At the beginning of the 20th century [[Stéphane Leduc]] (1853–1939) promoted the idea that biological processes could be understood in terms of physics and chemistry, and that their growth resembled that of inorganic crystals immersed in solutions of sodium silicate. His ideas, set out in his book ''La biologie synthétique'',<ref>{{cite book |last=Leduc |first=Stéphane |author-link=Stéphane Leduc |date=1912 |title=La Biologie Synthétique |trans-title =Synthetic Biology |publisher=Poinat |place =Paris}}</ref> were widely dismissed during his lifetime, but has incurred a resurgence of interest in the work of Russell, Barge and colleagues.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1089/ast.2013.1110 |title=The Drive to Life on Wet and Icy Worlds|year=2014|last1=Russell |first1=Michael J. |last2=Barge |first2=Laura M. |last3=Bhartia |first3=Rohit |last4=Bocanegra |first4=Dylan |last5=Bracher |first5=Paul J. |last6=Branscomb |first6=Elbert |last7=Kidd |first7=Richard |last8=McGlynn |first8=Shawn |last9=Meier |first9=David H. |last10=Nitschke |first10=Wolfgang |last11=Shibuya |first11=Takazo |last12=Vance |first12=Steve |last13=White |first13=Lauren |last14=Kanik |first14=Isik  |journal=Astrobiology |volume=14 |issue=4 |pages=308–343 |pmid=24697642 |pmc=3995032 |bibcode=2014AsBio..14..308R}}</ref>