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A large fraction of the chemical elements that occur naturally on the Earth's surface are essential to the structure and metabolism of living things. Four of these elements (hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen) are essential to every living thing and collectively make up 99% of the mass of protoplasm. [1]
Philosopher Brian Leftow has argued that the question cannot have a causal explanation (as any cause must itself have a cause) or a contingent explanation (as the factors giving the contingency must pre-exist), and that if there is an answer, it must be something that exists necessarily (i.e., something that just exists, rather than is caused ...
In Physics II.3 and Metaphysics V.2, Aristotle holds that there are four kinds of answers to "why" questions: [2] [5] [6] Matter The material cause of a change or movement. This is the aspect of the change or movement that is determined by the material that composes the moving or changing things.
What is said "of" a subject describes the kind of thing that it is as a whole, answering the question "what is it?" What is said to be "in" a subject is a predicate that does not describe it as a whole but cannot exist without the subject, such as the shape of something. The latter has come to be known as inherence. Of all the things that exist,
Aristotle describes potentiality and actuality, or potency and action, as one of several distinctions between things that exist or do not exist. In a sense, a thing that exists potentially does not exist; but, the potential does exist. This type of distinction is expressed for several different types of being within Aristotle's categories of being.
The natural philosophers had explained soul, intelligence, and so on, in terms of corporeal things: corporeal things exist first and give rise to psychic phenomena. In contrast, Plato argues that soul is first, both as that in terms of which corporeal things ought to be explained and as that which gives rise to the corporeal world.
Living systems are life forms (or, more colloquially known as living things) treated as a system. They are said to be open self-organizing and said to interact with their environment. These systems are maintained by flows of information , energy and matter .
The existential quantifier ∃ is often used in logic to express existence.. Existence is the state of having being or reality in contrast to nonexistence and nonbeing.Existence is often contrasted with essence: the essence of an entity is its essential features or qualities, which can be understood even if one does not know whether the entity exists.