Aristotle is perfectly capable, for instance, of setting aside non-mental vital functions as irrelevant for the purposes of practical philosophy (NE 1.13, 1102b11-12).
At the same time, the Stoic theory does attempt to explain non-mental vital functions as well, in terms of the activity of 'nature', the intermediate kind of pneuma.
However, context and subject matter impose no such constraints on the 'plausible myth' of the Timaeus, and also that dialogue, in presenting a somewhat revised version of the Republic's account (Tim. 69c ff)., fails to address the question how the soul is related to non-mental vital functions.
Early Newtonians posited fundamental mental and vital forces alongside magnetic, chemical, cohesive, gravitational and impact forces.
By the middle of the twentieth century, belief in sui generis mental or vital forces had become a minority view.
However, the conservation of energy does imply that any such special forces must be governed by strict deterministic laws: if mental or vital forces arose spontaneously, then there would be nothing to ensure that they never led to energy increases.
(4) During the course of the twentieth century received scientific opinion became even more restrictive about possible causes of physical effects, and came to reject sui generis mental or vital causes, even of a law-governed and predictable kind.
In itself this does not rule out fundamental mental or vital forces, for there is no reason why such forces should not be "conservative", operating in such a way as to compensate losses of kinetic energy by gains in potential energy and vice versa.
sui generis mental and vital forces were still widely accepted, but an extensive philosophical debate about the significance of the conservation of energy led to a widespread recognition that any such forces would need to be law-governed and thus amenable to scientific investigation.
Basic services such as mental health — vital for those living with the stresses and trauma of the earthquake — also remain drastically underfunded.
The more voices we capture and transmit into the future, the larger our collective memory bank grows and the larger the mental toolkit vital to our destiny as problem-solvers.
