“The issue here is whether or not physicochemical entities and processes underlie all living phenomena. Are organisms constituted of the same components as those making up inorganic matter? Or, is it the case that organism consist of other entities besides molecules and atoms? Other questions related to the previous ones are the following: Are organisms nothing else than aggregations of atoms and molecules? Do organisms exhibit properties other than those of their constituent atoms and molecules?”

“In the ontological or constitutive domain, the reductionist-antireductionist controversy in its extreme form resolves into the mechanism versus vitalism issue. The mechanist position is that organism are ultimately made up of the same atoms that make up inorganic matter, and of nothing else. Vitalists argue that organism are made up not only of material components (atoms, molecules, and aggregations of them) but also of some nonmaterial entity, various called by different authors, entelechy, vital force, elan vital, radial energy and the like.”

“Organisms consist exhaustively of atoms and molecules. A steam engine may consist only of iron and other materials, but it is something else than iron and other components. Similarly, an electronic computer is not only a pile of semiconductors, wires, plastic, and other materials. Organisms are made up of atoms and molecules, but they are highly complex patterns, and patterns of patters, of these atoms and molecules.”

“Consider the following question: are the properties of common salt, sodium chloride, simply the properties of sodium and chlorine when they are associated according to the formula NaCl? If among the properties of sodium and chlorine we include their association into table salt and the properties of the latter, the answer is ‘yes’.”

“Among the properties of hydrogen we do not usually include the properties of water, of ethyl alcohol, or proteins, and of human beings. Nor do we include among the properties of iron those of the steam engine.”

“Can the properties of benzene be predicted from knowledge about oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon? Or, at a higher level of complexity, can the behavior of a cheetah chasing a deer be predicted from the knowledge about the atoms and molecules making up these animals?”