June 15, 2007: some contextualized definitions

I didn't write any of this:

Essentialism is the view, that, for any specific kind of entity it is at least theoretically possible for there to be a set of characteristics all of which any entity of the specific kind cannot fail to have. This view is contrasted with non-essentialism which states that for any given kind of entity there are no specific traits which entities of that kind must have.

Vitalism asserts that the phenomena of organic life cannot be explained by the properties of physical matter alone. Consequently, life must be due to some unknown, non-physical vital principle. The classical 18th century vitalist doctrines propose that all life phenomena are animated by immaterial life spirits. These spirits are unexplainable and indescribable.

Expert systems are methods and techniques for constructing human-machine systems with specialized problem-solving expertise. The pursuit of this area of artificial intelligence research has emphasized the knowledge that underlies human expertise and has simultaneously decreased the apparent significance of domain-independent problem-solving theory. In fact, new principles, tools, and techniques have emerged that form the basis of knowledge engineering.