Task for an artificial lifeform
Timm Haase
freak_B
Let's say you build an artificial nanny, it could take care of your
childeren.
Or you build an atrificial bacteria. It could infect others and grow a
population.
or you build an .......
Timm Haase wrote in message <7jibjj$g...@f49x18.lhag.de>...
Nik Thomas
Timm Haase <Timm_...@hdpp.de> wrote in article
<7jibjj$g...@f49x18.lhag.de>...
> which kind of useful tasks could an artificial lifeform perform ?
>
A cynic might say that the post by Jason Lohn (8th June) titled
"Call for participation: The first NASA/DoD Workshop..."
gives a clue. I'm only a casual reader, but I'd suspect the majority of
ppl in this group are more optimistic than that :-)
Nik
Timm Haase
care of my children is not realistic by now. And an artificial
bacteria, which could infect others is not really useful.
freak_B wrote in message <7jijci$hpl$1...@news1.xs4all.nl>...
Anthony Liekens
>
> which kind of useful tasks could an artificial lifeform perform ?
I'm working on the new FAQ - pity I can't refer to that at the moment -
but let me just copy part of Langton's original definition of alife -
which might give you some idea of what artificial life actually can do :
"[...] Artificial life amounts to the practice of 'synthetic biology'
and the attempt to recreate biological phenomena in alternative media
will result in not only better theoretical understanding of the
phenomena under study, but also in practical applications of biological
principles in the technology of computer hardware and software, mobile
robots, spacecraft, medicine, nanotechnology, industrial fabrication and
assembly, and other vital engineering projects. [...]" (Christopher
Langton)
By now I could rephrase your question as "which kind of useful tasks
could an artificial lifeform _NOT_ perform?"
(the only answer i can think of now is going to a pub and getting
smashed - sometimes that's useful but i never saw any of my critters
doing that - strange - have to pur this on my
yet-to-program-simulations-list)
So if you have the courage to investigate any engineering field (and
engineering includes "how are we gonna get this spaceship in space",
"how does a nanny work" and "how and why does one drink too much")
you'll be able to find something where artificial life could be used to
serve/simulate your tasks and give you some insights to the problems at
hand.
How we want to do that is just another open question I hope to find by
the time I'm 70 years old or something (and that's about 50 years from
now)
Anthony Liekens
Timm Haase
lifeform,
because this lifeform consists noisy data. For example robot-controll.
Mike Scirocco
a) has the whole library database at it's access (wireless or CD)
b) constantly sorts each row of books into alphabetical order,
just like the golden gate bridge painting, start at A, continue through Z,
repeat...
The books may require an easily scan-able bar code to simplify this task.
c) retrieves books for you when requested (wireless).
d) a voice program asking people to get the hell out of the way (politely of
course)
e) if there is a fire it will get an extinguisher and aim it correctly at the
fire (not you).
I'm sure you can think of lots of enhancements and other applications for
a robot that can do complex tasks of this nature. I wouldn't be at all
surprised
to see robots of this sort in all walks of life sometime in my lifetime. Robot
garbage men, nuclear power plant workers, assemblers in production plants.
They could walk dogs, go shopping for you....
Carlos Ortiz
suck em in, to keep the carpet clean. This would be something we could
accomplish today. I don't think it's too much fun though.
Carlos F. Ortiz
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Timm Haase
from the carpet ?
I think it must be important for the surviving of the lifeform to collect
object from the ground,
so the organism can evolve through generations to perform this task.
Carlos Ortiz wrote in message ...
Bjoern Guenzel
wrote:
>But how does the artificial lifeform learn, that it has to collect objects
>from the carpet ?
>I think it must be important for the surviving of the lifeform to collect
>object from the ground,
>so the organism can evolve through generations to perform this task.
Well, it would be important for the survival of the life form: if it
doesn't work properly, it gets thrown into the garbage bin by us
humans.
Think without less prejudice...
>Carlos Ortiz wrote in message ...
>>An artificial dog/vacuum cleaner could take small objects on a carpet and
>>suck em in, to keep the carpet clean. This would be something we could
>>accomplish today. I don't think it's too much fun though.
>>
>>
>
>
>
Bjoern Guenzel
--
always look on the bright side of death
(e.glavas)
Gene Michael Stover
who makes the walking, hopping robots whose name I can never remember.
He suggested that a useful robot [not necessarily A-Life, I know] would
be a bottle of a bunch of tiny robots that you empty onto your TV
screen. They'd hide in the corners and charge themselves from the
emissions of your screen when you watched TV. When you turned off the
TV, they'd scramble onto the screen and wipe it clean of dust. (I don't
know the name of the program, as I came in late.)
An application I think of whenever I read online news is a group of
evolving personal news noses. (As in "I've got a nose for news",
wherever that quote's from.) They'd quietly search for news articles
that might interest me. The headlines they found would be displayed as
hyperlinks for me in a morning news list, without any information about
which news nose found which article. My interest might be measured by
which hyperlinks I followed and now long I spent reading articles (or
whatever). Those that turned up things I found interesting would live
and periodically reproduce. Those that didn't turn up things I found
interesting would be wiped. Reproduction might happen when an article I
found interesting contained more than one topic that might have been the
cause for my interest. An offspring could be produced to follow each
topic. Those that followed the topics I actually found interesting
would live, the others would die.
I think about this every time my not-very-intelligent, non-A-Life,
current news hound finds articles about the stock prices of sailboat
manufacturers or wargames of the U.S. Marines. (The news hound searches
for, among other things, news of oceans, boats, and marine-related
things.)
gene
Timm Haase wrote:
> which kind of useful tasks could an artificial lifeform perform ?
--
gene m. stover (ge...@CyberTiggyr.com) / Newcastle, Washington, USA
Six geosynchronous fusion satellites? Galileo should hear about that.
-- Dr. Who, ``The Sunmakers''
Anthony Liekens
>>suck em in, to keep the carpet clean. This would be something we could
>>accomplish today. I don't think it's too much fun though.
>But how does the artificial lifeform learn, that it has to collect objects
>from the carpet ?
Stick a vacuum pump in its body, let it walk around (which isn't hard - if
it bumps, turn around and walk on...) and it is ready to vacuum clean all
day long. One has already commercialised a robot that can do lawn mowing
jobs. You put it in your garden in the beginning of summer, it starts
walking and mowing around, and you put it back inside at the end of winter,
so it doesn't rust. It's got a solar cell on it's back so it doesn't need to
look for power or charging, easy come easy go - don't make it any harder.
>I think it must be important for the surviving of the lifeform to collect
>object from the ground,...
I don't want to end up with a couple of dozens dead vacuum cleaners, as a
starter
>...so the organism can evolve through generations to perform this task.
You don't ant your robots to evolve - that's pretty important...
Artificial Life, for now, has to stay within very limited spaces (all
programs that have some artificial evolution within them, run them in
virtual machines etcetera) - don't let evolutrion come out of the artificial
world into the real world because by then you're opening the box of pandora.
Imagine that lawn mowing robot learning how to break down fences so it can
als mow your neighbours' lawn - i don't think that's a good idea...
Anthony Liekens
Nik Thomas
robot or machine with an artificial intelligence? It seems to me that all
the applications mentioned above would be better suited to the latter.
Nik
Bjoern Guenzel
There is no boundary IMHO.
Thomas J. Johnson
> Can I ask where one draws the boundary between an artificial lifeform and a
> robot or machine with an artificial intelligence? It seems to me that all
> the applications mentioned above would be better suited to the latter.
I would say that an artificial life form has the ability to self-replicate
Bjoern Guenzel
wrote:
>What I'm looking for is a task which could be better done by an artificial
>lifeform,
>because this lifeform consists noisy data. For example robot-controll.
Not sure what you mean by 'noisy data', but here is a task: how about
minefield clearing...
Timm Haase
Artificial Life tries to simulate the Life as it is. Intelligence comes
from the emergent proberties of the artificial lifeform.
Timm
>>>
Nik Thomas wrote in message <01beb63d$13c09100$0b099482@basit37307098>...
>Can I ask where one draws the boundary between an artificial lifeform and a
>robot or machine with an artificial intelligence? It seems to me that all
>the applications mentioned above would be better suited to the latter.
>
>Nik
>
>
Timm Haase
Artificial life can only exist whithin a computer. This means, if you
try to implement a robot, which will clear minefields, it has to be
controlled by an artificial lifeform. The problem of evolution still
exists (if the robots doesn't find all mines, etc.)
Timm
>>>
Bjoern Guenzel wrote in message <3766090...@news.demon.co.uk>...
Mike Scirocco
a) trying to blow up the mines with little or no damage to itself, and b)
learning to find most of if not all of the mines in any given area.
Nik Thomas
Thomas J. Johnson <tjoh...@orion.ac.hmc.edu> wrote in article
<7k3qh4$fbf$1...@nntp1.interworld.net>...
> Nik Thomas <Nik.T...@gecm.com> wrote:
> > Can I ask where one draws the boundary between an artificial lifeform
and a
> > robot or machine with an artificial intelligence? It seems to me that
all
> > the applications mentioned above would be better suited to the latter.
>
> I would say that an artificial life form has the ability to
self-replicate
>
I agree that this is a key distinction, and is why AL systems, as opposed
to AI systems, are confined to programs within operating systems. I see no
real advantage to a self replicating artificial nanny. (If anyone does know
of one, _do_ let us know!)
Is a virus an artificial life form?
Nik
Anthony Liekens
>
> Nik Thomas <Nik.T...@gecm.com> wrote:
> > Can I ask where one draws the boundary between an artificial lifeform and a
> > robot or machine with an artificial intelligence? It seems to me that all
> > the applications mentioned above would be better suited to the latter.
>
> I would say that an artificial life form has the ability to self-replicate
Do crystals self-replicate? And dune hills too move, break up into more
dune hills, in a similar form to their "parent" dune hill (a hill is a
hill, right?), dune hills die due to wind...
Life isn't about self-replication - there's more magic
I think a living system has an extra possibility - it doesn't just
replicate but has some need - programmed within his instincts and
behaviour to replicate. A dune does replicate because nature wants it
to, a crystal replicate because nature is programmed in such a way (hmmm
- alifer talking here), and living systems replicate because they have
an explicit program inside them that (ab-)uses nature's ways to
replicate the living system. There's some way of abuse of nature
explicitly in the living system, unlike a dune or crystals. (IMHO)
On my personal web site, I give the following definition for life (in
which i do _not_ say that a living system has to replicate to be a
living system):
"What is Life, anyway?
Life can't be defined, in any answer to this question (and how good is
this question, anyway?) lies a problem, any answer can be misunderstood
or might have flaws in it.
Don't ask what life is, ask what a living system is... (formal
non-philosophical thinking!)
These are my personal ideas on the subject:
The question in many reductionists' minds lies in the problem how to
determine whether a system is living or not. Is there a way to
distinguish a non-living object from a living object? What are the
properties of any living system? And we certainly don't want to define
life on earth, we want to keep it universal.
One thing is for sure, a living system is a dissipative system, a system
that uses energy flow to maintain its form. But that would also include
atmospheric vortices, engines, stars or whole galaxies. A living system
does more than that. A living system tries to survive and tries to
accomplish the biggest energy flow it can get. A living system goes out
searching for food, which is probably its main goal in its life. We can
say that a system is living when it is self-referent in some way or
another. And self-reference is grown, for example, through evolution, or
learning. Self-reference does not have to be a direct property of the
living system, bacteria are not aware of themselves, but somewhere
within their system lies the idea that they must go out for food, or
they'll end up dead. I call a self-referent dissipative system a living
system. If anyone can tell me what I've been thinking wrong in the last
sentences, don't hesitate to tell me why... Please, give me a system
that is self-referent and dissipative, but not alive!
When I ask people to define me a living system, they always come up with
properties of life as we know it on earth: A system that contains cells
(does an RNA string live?), A system that self-reproduces (how about the
greater part of an ant colony, which don't replicate?) and many
others... You surely can't define life universally by giving some
properties of life on earth!"
Anthony
alife FAQ maintainer
al...@nerdhero.org
http://alife.nerdhero.org
Anthony Liekens
>
> I think minefield clearing is a task, which must be done by robots.
> Artificial life can only exist whithin a computer.
Huh?
How about life within physics, chemicals or mathematics that is
non-biological but artificial? What about art containing some form of
artificial living entities? I thought that's alife too.
Alife is about life within artificial media, not about life within
computers only.
Anthony Liekens
> Artificial Life tries to simulate the Life as it is. Intelligence comes
> from the emergent proberties of the artificial lifeform.
I almost know the following (almost biblical) text by langton by heart:
"Biology studies life, in principle anyway. Biology studies
life_as_we_know_it while alife studies life_as_it_could_be. In other
words: alife studies life made by man rather than by nature. Alife is
about 'synthetic biology'"
We're not studying or simulating life as it is, that's for biologists,
alifers try to do more than that.
I also disagree that intelligence is an emergent property of life. I
think I have a couple of machines in my house that do intelligent things
(like keeping the house on perfect temperature, making sure i wake up at
the right time and others. But I don't think they are alive. (then
again, you can discuss that those appliances are emergent properties of
intelligent humans, who are alive, ok)
But then we're discussing definitions of intelligence, which is a
completely different story (and i don't think one should reply to the
discussion of "what is intelligence", because it's actually a
non-comp.ai.alife topic - on the other hand is comp.ai.alife the right
place to discuss whether intelligence emerges from life or not)
freak_B
>within their system lies the idea that they must go out for food, or
>they'll end up dead.
>
Ok, You say a bacteria is not self-aware. Somehow i think that you say this
based on the fact that you can not communicate with an bacteria.
The same stands for trees. Is a tree self-aware???
When I ask people what self-awareness is the usualy come up with something
like, It doesn't want to die......
I personaly think selfawareness is knowing that you are part of a community,
even if this is a one entity community. Now can anyone tell me if a bacteria
is aware of it's community?
Freak_B
Bjoern Guenzel
<mo...@mail.dma.be> wrote:
>Thomas J. Johnson wrote:
>>
>> Nik Thomas <Nik.T...@gecm.com> wrote:
[...]
>"What is Life, anyway?
>
>Life can't be defined, in any answer to this question (and how good is
>this question, anyway?) lies a problem, any answer can be misunderstood
>or might have flaws in it.
>
>Don't ask what life is, ask what a living system is... (formal
>non-philosophical thinking!)
>
>These are my personal ideas on the subject:
>
>The question in many reductionists' minds lies in the problem how to
>determine whether a system is living or not. Is there a way to
>distinguish a non-living object from a living object? What are the
>properties of any living system? And we certainly don't want to define
>life on earth, we want to keep it universal.
IMHO, that question is rather arbitrary, isn't it? I can understand if
you, like, ask about a cellular automaton wether it depicts class 1 or
class 2 behaviour, but 'alive' - that's a completely meaningless
statement, since it isn't well defined. I could of course imagine that
one day all people agree on a definition, and then we could use
'alive' in a meaningful way. Then again, we could as well use another
adjective, ie 'class 6 behaviour' or whatever. There is nothing magic
about life, no particular reason why we should be interested in that
question if something is alive or not - it simply doesn't matter. Of
course most bacteria or other living cells ('living' in the biological
sense now) are much more interesting than sand dunes (depends on your
tastes, though - but let's agree their behaviour is much more
complex). But that's it. So my stance is crystals are crystals, sand
dunes are sand dunes and biological cells are biological cells. That's
all there is to it.
Imagine we would suddenly agree that sand dunes were alive - would
this make them inherently more interesting then they are now? I don't
think so...
>One thing is for sure, a living system is a dissipative system, a system
>that uses energy flow to maintain its form. But that would also include
>atmospheric vortices, engines, stars or whole galaxies. A living system
>does more than that. A living system tries to survive and tries to
>accomplish the biggest energy flow it can get. A living system goes out
>searching for food, which is probably its main goal in its life. We can
>say that a system is living when it is self-referent in some way or
>another. And self-reference is grown, for example, through evolution, or
>learning. Self-reference does not have to be a direct property of the
>living system, bacteria are not aware of themselves, but somewhere
>within their system lies the idea that they must go out for food, or
>they'll end up dead. I call a self-referent dissipative system a living
Most plants I know tend to stay in one place, though, yet we call them
alive... (yes, they spread bits of themselves around to explore other
places, but so do sand dunes :-)
As for bacteria having ideas, don't you think their crawling around
for food is more or less a mechanical/chemical reaction, not per se
more special than the reason that sand dunes move? So no
self-reference at all...
[...]
Anthony Liekens
> >accomplish the biggest energy flow it can get. A living system goes out
> >searching for food, which is probably its main goal in its life. We can
> Most plants I know tend to stay in one place, though, yet we call them
> alive... (yes, they spread bits of themselves around to explore other
> places, but so do sand dunes :-)
Then again, a plant doesn't just get its food, it has to do something in
return (it has to grow leaves and roots etcetera - it searches in its
own way for food...
> As for bacteria having ideas, don't you think their crawling around
> for food is more or less a mechanical/chemical reaction, not per se
> more special than the reason that sand dunes move? So no
> self-reference at all...
So I ask you - what is the difference between sand dunes and bacteria?
(answer, IMHO, bacteria are dissipative systems while sand dunes are
Bjoern Guenzel
<mo...@mail.dma.be> wrote:
>> >does more than that. A living system tries to survive and tries to
>> >accomplish the biggest energy flow it can get. A living system goes out
>> >searching for food, which is probably its main goal in its life. We can
>
>> Most plants I know tend to stay in one place, though, yet we call them
>> alive... (yes, they spread bits of themselves around to explore other
>> places, but so do sand dunes :-)
>
>Then again, a plant doesn't just get its food, it has to do something in
>return (it has to grow leaves and roots etcetera - it searches in its
>own way for food...
I don't know - are there not single-cell plants that just drift around
in water (plancton?)? I am not a biologist...
Anyway, that's not really the point I am interested in.
>> As for bacteria having ideas, don't you think their crawling around
>> for food is more or less a mechanical/chemical reaction, not per se
>> more special than the reason that sand dunes move? So no
>> self-reference at all...
>
>So I ask you - what is the difference between sand dunes and bacteria?
>
>(answer, IMHO, bacteria are dissipative systems while sand dunes are
>not)
I don't know if sand dunes are dissipative systems (at the very least,
they need wind to blow into them so that they can move I suppose), but
anyway, there are propably countless differences between sand dunes
and bacteria. To pick 'dissipative system' as THE separating property
is just arbitrary.
Think about it: you are looking for a universal definition of life.
But life as we know it is carbon based - so isn't it for example
totally arbitrary to leave the property 'carbon based' out of the
definition, just for the sake of getting a 'universal definition'?
What I find more interesting is: WHY do you want to know if something
is alive?
Is there subconsciously some old mythologie or tradition behind it,
that assumes that anything that is 'alive' is somehow better than
everything else?
In my opinion, what is interesting is WHAT DO WE WANT TO ACHIEVE?
In alife, perhaps we try to mimmick properties of biological life -
but not because we want to play god (so to speak) and create something
living, but because biological life achieves fantastic things, and we
would like to be able to do so, too. And because we want to understand
how it works.
IMHO, the question 'what is life' is for the linguists to resolve (ie
they would study what people commonly think about it etc., I suppose).
For science it has no relevance whatsoever... You show it yourself: at
the moment you are talking about 'dissipative systems', which makes a
lot more sense than talking about 'living/non-living'. So why, for
science sake, not stay precise?
Bjoern Guenzel
wrote:
>I like the minefield clearing robot idea. The challenges for the robot might be
>a) trying to blow up the mines with little or no damage to itself, and b)
>learning to find most of if not all of the mines in any given area.
Somebody must be working on this already?
What would be cool is if it could be made from garbage, so that people
in 3rd world countries could build their own... ;-)
[...]
freak_B
responsebility. What is we make a true alife system. If the system is alive
than does it also have the rights of a living being. So the question what is
life is relevant.
Freak_B
Bjoern Guenzel wrote in message <3768ba2d...@news.demon.co.uk>...
Bjoern Guenzel
<abroer...@mediaport.org> wrote:
>I think you are not aware that we as scientists also have an ethical
>responsebility. What is we make a true alife system. If the system is alive
>than does it also have the rights of a living being. So the question what is
>life is relevant.
No, I'd rather like to question your ethics. Perhaps 'non-living'
things could have rights, too, no?
Besides, what rights do living things have? Look around you, and you
see that nobody gives a sh... about the rights of living things. When
was the last time you worried about the fate of a bacterium?
I agree that scientists have responsibility, just to make that clear.
[...]
Timm Haase
>How about life within physics, chemicals or mathematics that is
>non-biological but artificial? What about art containing some form of
>artificial living entities? I thought that's alife too.
>
I agree with you that alife could exist in a chemical medium,
but the others are only theoretical mediums. You don't have
the tools to proof the system alive - they are only in our minds.
Timm Haase
>We're not studying or simulating life as it is, that's for biologists,
>alifers try to do more than that.
>
using modells from nature ?
>I also disagree that intelligence is an emergent property of life. I
>think I have a couple of machines in my house that do intelligent things
>(like keeping the house on perfect temperature, making sure i wake up at
>the right time and others. But I don't think they are alive. (then
>again, you can discuss that those appliances are emergent properties of
>intelligent humans, who are alive, ok)
>
The machines you have are NOT intelligent. They can only do the things
you want them to do (or a function tells them to do something).
Intelligence (which is not proberly defined by now) is more than that.
By now I think only living systems have intelligence.
>But then we're discussing definitions of intelligence, which is a
>completely different story (and i don't think one should reply to the
>discussion of "what is intelligence", because it's actually a
>non-comp.ai.alife topic - on the other hand is comp.ai.alife the right
>place to discuss whether intelligence emerges from life or not)
>
Is an artificial lifeform whithout intelligence alive ? (I don't think so)
Even a bacteria (which seems to be a good example) must have
some kind of intelligence to persist in it's enviroment.
Erik Max Francis
> I agree with you that alife could exist in a chemical medium,
> but the others are only theoretical mediums. You don't have
> the tools to proof the system alive - they are only in our minds.
And what "tools" do you have to demonstrate living systems now? Keep in
mind that there is no and has never been an objective, official
definition of what life is.
--
Erik Max Francis / email m...@alcyone.com / whois mf303 / icq 16063900
Alcyone Systems / irc maxxon@efnet / finger m...@members.alcyone.com
San Jose, CA / languages En, Eo / web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
USA / icbm 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W / &tSftDotIotE
\
/ Success and failure are equally disastrous.
/ Tennessee Williams
David Burleigh
Bjoern Guenzel <guenz...@blinker.net> wrote in message
news:3768ba2d...@news.demon.co.uk...
> What I find more interesting is: WHY do you want to know if something
> is alive?
>
> Is there subconsciously some old mythologie or tradition behind it,
> that assumes that anything that is 'alive' is somehow better than
> everything else?
An important property of truly alive systems is that they can die, in the
sense that once dead (whatever that means), they cannot be made alive again.
When you run your latest Alife simulation, do you think something
significant happens when you turn it off? Will we ever?
> always look on the bright side of death
> (e.glavas)
be-do, be-do be-do be-do.
Sorry.
David Burleigh
Anthony Liekens
>
> >
> >How about life within physics, chemicals or mathematics that is
> >non-biological but artificial? What about art containing some form of
> >artificial living entities? I thought that's alife too.
> >
>
> but the others are only theoretical mediums. You don't have
> the tools to proof the system alive - they are only in our minds.
How can you proof a systemn in nature or in computers is alive? If you
can answer this question, I guess all of us alifers will be out of job
soon.
One can see a computer as a formal model, which is pretty mathematical.
If you can create living systems within a computer, you can also
replicate the systems within mathematical models, and from there on
spread those models to other mediums (just like you can copy systems
that are turing-machine-alike to other media)
Life is about "synthetic biology", the medium one uses is not important!
Anthony Liekens
Anthony Liekens
> But life as we know it is carbon based - so isn't it for example
> totally arbitrary to leave the property 'carbon based' out of the
> definition, just for the sake of getting a 'universal definition'?
I'm not looking for a definition of life, but for "living systems", the
formal is pretty philosophical while the latter can be answered in a
formal way...
> What I find more interesting is: WHY do you want to know if something
> is alive?
I'm looking for the answer what the differences between living systems
(for example bacteria) and non-living systems (eg sand dunes) are...
> IMHO, the question 'what is life' is for the linguists to resolve (ie
> they would study what people commonly think about it etc., I suppose).
I think you didn't read my post where i talk about living systems and
not about life...
> For science it has no relevance whatsoever... You show it yourself: at
> the moment you are talking about 'dissipative systems', which makes a
> lot more sense than talking about 'living/non-living'. So why, for
> science sake, not stay precise?
ARGH - what do you think I was doing in my post?
(this is the last time: ) What is a living system? What are the
differences between living systems and non-living systems? Can we define
living systems so we can construct them within mathematics, computer
science, physics, art and biology? What is life-as-it-could-be?
Then I come up with my answer: living systems are self-referrent
dissipative systems
Anthony
Anthony Liekens
>
> >
> >We're not studying or simulating life as it is, that's for biologists,
> >alifers try to do more than that.
> >
> why should alifers do more than to create artificial life by
> using modells from nature ?
since we're studying life as-it-could-be, rather than life-as-it-is.
Biology studies life-by-nature while alife studies life-made-by-man,
which can be a lot more universal than the former...
> The machines you have are NOT intelligent. They can only do the things
> you want them to do (or a function tells them to do something).
> Intelligence (which is not proberly defined by now) is more than that.
> By now I think only living systems have intelligence.
I guess machines (and that's in a pretty large sense) can make
intelligent decision based on poarameters in their environments, which
is a pretty intelligent task, right? Or do you want to say that these
intelligent decision-making engines within those machines are programmed
by an intelligent being and therefore not intelligent? Then again, can
techniques from machine learning, such as neural networks, GAs and
reinforcement learning solutions make intelligent things, or are systems
from AI not intelligent?
> Is an artificial lifeform whithout intelligence alive ? (I don't think so)
> Even a bacteria (which seems to be a good example) must have
> some kind of intelligence to persist in it's enviroment.
How about RNA strings? It is pretty good possible that life on earth
originated from RNA chains. Where is the border between chemicals and
intelligent living systems? Are RNA strings intelligent because they can
replicate? And what about crystals, then again? And if you say RNA
strings are not intelligent (for whatever reason) are bacteria
intelligent?
Anthony
Nik Thomas
Timm Haase <Timm_...@hdpp.de> wrote in article
<7kb55n$4...@f49x18.lhag.de>...
> >
> >We're not studying or simulating life as it is, that's for biologists,
> >alifers try to do more than that.
> >
> why should alifers do more than to create artificial life by
> using modells from nature ?
Because they can?
>
> Is an artificial lifeform whithout intelligence alive ? (I don't think
so)
> Even a bacteria (which seems to be a good example) must have
> some kind of intelligence to persist in it's enviroment.
>
Why should it? How can it? Intelligence implies to me the ability to make
rational judgements (and ignore them? ;-) ) based on memory of past
experience and the possible consequences of acting on that decision. I
can't see how you could argue that a bacterium does that.
Nik
Timm Haase
>
>And what "tools" do you have to demonstrate living systems now? Keep in
>mind that there is no and has never been an objective, official
>definition of what life is.
>
But I think you would agree with me, that life needs birth and death
(nothing in the known universe lifes forever). Afterall life allways have
a development. I know that these are only parts of a living system and
no complete definition.
Artificial life in our minds can't have their own development (independend
from the man who 'created' the alifeform) !
freak_B
Timm Haase wrote in message <7kcq8s$a...@f49x18.lhag.de>...
>
>>
>>And what "tools" do you have to demonstrate living systems now? Keep in
>>mind that there is no and has never been an objective, official
>>definition of what life is.
>>
>Yes that's right. We don't have a complete definition of what life is.
>But I think you would agree with me, that life needs birth and death
>(nothing in the known universe lifes forever).
Because we always see death after life there is only life when we are able
to die???
So I do not know i am alive because i haven't died yet. Death is NOT a
property of life, it only ends the life. If something lives for ever it can
be alive.
In the same way birth is no property of life. It is merly the beginning of
life.
freak_B
Bjoern Guenzel wrote in message <3768edb...@news.demon.co.uk>...
>On Thu, 17 Jun 1999 12:11:44 +0200, "freak_B"
><abroer...@mediaport.org> wrote:
>
>>I think you are not aware that we as scientists also have an ethical
>>responsebility. What is we make a true alife system. If the system is
alive
is
>>life is relevant.
>
>No, I'd rather like to question your ethics. Perhaps 'non-living'
>things could have rights, too, no?
I read back my post, but i could not find the statement that non-living
things have no rights, but ok it keeps the threat living (threat is alive???
;-) )
Ethics is not something nature gave us, it's something people made on there
own. Our ethics, as known by the community, does not give rights to
non-living things. My bike doesn't has the right to cycle each month....
So general ethics and personal ethics are two compete distinct this. But
this doesn't say if either is good or bad.
>
>Besides, what rights do living things have? Look around you, and you
>see that nobody gives a sh... about the rights of living things. When
>was the last time you worried about the fate of a bacterium?
Not so long ago. Some pains and it turened out to be a bacteria that i did
NOT have.
>
>I agree that scientists have responsibility, just to make that clear.
>
And then they invented wapons ( :-) )
>[...]
>
>
>Bjoern Guenzel
>
>
>--
Timm Haase
>> >
>> >We're not studying or simulating life as it is, that's for biologists,
>> >alifers try to do more than that.
>> >
>> why should alifers do more than to create artificial life by
>> using modells from nature ?
>
>Because they can?
>
>>
I don't think they can ! Alifers were happy if they only could implement
life as it is on earth. But even this is to complex !
>> Is an artificial lifeform whithout intelligence alive ? (I don't think
>so)
>> Even a bacteria (which seems to be a good example) must have
>> some kind of intelligence to persist in it's enviroment.
>>
>Why should it? How can it? Intelligence implies to me the ability to make
>rational judgements (and ignore them? ;-) ) based on memory of past
>experience and the possible consequences of acting on that decision. I
>can't see how you could argue that a bacterium does that.
>
Ratio is not the whole intelligence. By this you imply, that many of the
animals
have no intelligence. Intelligence is an adaptive behaviour and bacteria
are well adaptors (across generations).
Timm Haase
>Because we always see death after life there is only life when we are able
>to die???
>
>So I do not know i am alive because i haven't died yet. Death is NOT a
>property of life, it only ends the life. If something lives for ever it can
>be alive.
>
No ! By now everything on earth, which lives, have to die (so you and me,
too).
If something 'lives' forever, it don't has the chance to reproduce. If this
organism can reproduce, than the whole world dies, which implies the
death of the organism.
>In the same way birth is no property of life. It is merly the beginning of
>life.
>
For a living system, there must be a beginning. So I think this
is a property of life.
Keith Wiley
> > >accomplish the biggest energy flow it can get. A living system goes out
> > >searching for food, which is probably its main goal in its life. We can
>
> > Most plants I know tend to stay in one place, though, yet we call them
> > alive... (yes, they spread bits of themselves around to explore other
> > places, but so do sand dunes :-)
>
> Then again, a plant doesn't just get its food, it has to do something in
> return (it has to grow leaves and roots etcetera - it searches in its
> own way for food...
One could say that all life searches through the multitudes of successful
methods for procuring energy input. How about that? Consider the "library of
energy-procuring methods" that any evolutionary scenario wanders through, or
think of energy-procuring ability as a variable on a fitness landscape. All
life (successful life at any rate) climbs the peaks of effective practices.
Any other life dies. This even demonstrates local maxima. Plants are stuck
with their method, they can't jump over to the animal method of killing (in
most animal cases, not all), ingesting, and digesting proteins from other
forms of life. Actually some carniverous plants come pretty close to this
don't they, except for the wandering around thing, and that's okay since many
animals *don't* wander around. Many spiders sit waiting for example, they are
kind of like plants waiting for a clear day to get good sunlight, only they
are waiting for energy to cross their path for a strike or get entangled in
their web (which is exactly what carniverous plants do), almost literally in
fact. Carniverous plants are even more efficient at this, because after
capturing the prey, a robot doesn't have to cross the web to go wrap up the
food and eat it. The "web" becomes the stomach in most cases.
> > As for bacteria having ideas, don't you think their crawling around
> > for food is more or less a mechanical/chemical reaction, not per se
> > more special than the reason that sand dunes move? So no
> > self-reference at all...
>
> So I ask you - what is the difference between sand dunes and bacteria?
>
> (answer, IMHO, bacteria are dissipative systems while sand dunes are
> not)
I agree, but I don't quite follow your wording. Dissipative means not in
equilibrium? That's how I see the difference in the example above.
. . .. ... ..... ........ ............. .....................
.. ... ..... ....... ........... ............. .................
. .. .... ........ ................ ................................
Keith Wiley * * * * *
Email: kwi...@tigr.org ** * * ** *
WWW: http://www.tigr.org/~kwiley/ * ** ** ***
MP3 songs: http://www.keithw.amp3.net/
MP3 cds: http://www.mp3.com/keithWiley
Keith Wiley
> >responsebility. What is we make a true alife system. If the system is alive
> >than does it also have the rights of a living being. So the question what is
> >life is relevant.
>
> No, I'd rather like to question your ethics. Perhaps 'non-living'
> things could have rights, too, no?
>
> see that nobody gives a sh... about the rights of living things. When
> was the last time you worried about the fate of a bacterium?
>
Well, not just any old living thing. I think the consensus is that conscious
life has rights. This excludes anything not in the animal kingdom (of Earthly
life I mean). As for the consciousness of various levels of animal life, that
has already become a very serious issue in many different areas. Animal
testing comes to mind. Eating meat comes to mind. Animal slave labor comes
to mind. And etc. All this does is shift the topic from defining "life" to
defining "consciousness" and its countless grey levels, however, I think that
when morality enters an alife discussion, it is consciousness that becomes of
primary importance, not that it is any easier to resolve.
Keith Wiley
> > is alive?
> >
> > that assumes that anything that is 'alive' is somehow better than
> > everything else?
>
> An important property of truly alive systems is that they can die, in the
> sense that once dead (whatever that means), they cannot be made alive again.
> When you run your latest Alife simulation, do you think something
> significant happens when you turn it off? Will we ever?
This one always bothers me. I don't think death has anything to do with life.
I will illustrate in a few ways here. Incidently this is arguing against the
notion that all living things *must* die, not that argument that they *can*
die, but it may be theoretically possible for a living thing to be incapable
of dieing in all practical situations.
First, I know I am alive, and I may never die, in theory at least. But I'm
still alive dammit!
Second, when a bacteria splits in two via mitosis, has it "died" giving birth
to two offspring, or has it simply spawned a clone and continued living. If
the second case is more accurate, then present bacteria are literally billions
of years old.
Which leads me to three, vast physical redundancy and geographic distrution
can render a particular lifeform almost incapable of dieing regardless of the
circumstances. If all bacteria (of a particular species) are the same
organism, then that "being" can virtually never be killed. It's practically impossible.
So not only does life not *have* to die, it might not be capable of dieing in
any realistic situation.
Tim Tyler
> On Tue, 15 Jun 1999 12:14:15 -0700, Mike Scirocco <ms...@cruzio.com>
> wrote:
>>I like the minefield clearing robot idea. The challenges for the robot might
>>be a) trying to blow up the mines with little or no damage to itself,
>>and b) learning to find most of if not all of the mines in any given
>>area.
> Somebody must be working on this already?
Well, the Shadow Robot project at http://www.shadow.org.uk/ ...list...
"* Mine Clearer : A cheap 8 legged vehicle minefield walker."
...among their products.
--
__________
|im |yler The Mandala Centre http://www.mandala.co.uk/ t...@cryogen.com
What was Fermat's solution, then?
Tim Tyler
> > [...] Death is NOT a property of life, it only ends the life. If
> > something lives for ever it can be alive.
>
> No ! By now everything on earth, which lives, have to die (so you and me,
> too).
> If something 'lives' forever, it don't has the chance to reproduce. If this
> organism can reproduce, than the whole world dies, which implies the
> death of the organism.
AIUI, current cosmological theories believe the universe is open - and
thermodynamic heat death is inevitable. If these theories are
correct, living forever appears to be a rather remote possibility.
--
__________
|im |yler The Mandala Centre http://www.mandala.co.uk/ t...@cryogen.com
Terminal error. You're dead.
Keith Wiley
> so)
> > Even a bacteria (which seems to be a good example) must have
> > some kind of intelligence to persist in it's enviroment.
> >
> Why should it? How can it? Intelligence implies to me the ability to make
> rational judgements (and ignore them? ;-) ) based on memory of past
> experience and the possible consequences of acting on that decision. I
> can't see how you could argue that a bacterium does that.
Some ameoba can learn from past experiences and alter their behavior in the
future. C. Elegans (not a bacteria but a Eucaryote with an extremely small
number of cells) can also learn over time. Life doesn't have to be very
complicated to alter its behavior in reaction to its environment. If you are
really implying that intelligence means rational (human) thought and that life
is tied to this, then practically all life on Earth is dead.
Keith Wiley
> >non-biological but artificial? What about art containing some form of
> >artificial living entities? I thought that's alife too.
> >
>
> I agree with you that alife could exist in a chemical medium,
> but the others are only theoretical mediums. You don't have
> the tools to proof the system alive - they are only in our minds.
That really does depend on the given definition of life, which is of course
the point of this thread. If whatever definition you settle on can be applied
to nonchemical phenomena, or more importantly, if that definition *can* be
applied to your computer alife simulation, then you very well might have life
on your hands there. If life is nothing but evolution in progress (not that
I'm claiming that to be my view), then alife is already alive on some level.
Nik Thomas
Keith Wiley <kwi...@tigr.org> wrote in article
<376A4B60...@tigr.org>...
> Some ameoba can learn from past experiences and alter their behavior in
the
> future. C. Elegans (not a bacteria but a Eucaryote with an extremely
small
> number of cells) can also learn over time. Life doesn't have to be very
> complicated to alter its behavior in reaction to its environment. If you
are
> really implying that intelligence means rational (human) thought and that
life
> is tied to this, then practically all life on Earth is dead.
>
I'm opining that intelligence means thought, based on some rationality, but
I'm not restricting this to humans. Intelligence to me is not just
behavior, it's linked to conciousness and being sentinent.
I'm offering no opinion at all on the intelligence / life debate, because I
think that most of the life on earth is fairly alive ;-)
Quite how this helps in the debate on artificial life / intelligence is
another matter.
Nik
Bjoern Guenzel
wrote:
>
>>
>>And what "tools" do you have to demonstrate living systems now? Keep in
>>mind that there is no and has never been an objective, official
>>definition of what life is.
>>
>Yes that's right. We don't have a complete definition of what life is.
>But I think you would agree with me, that life needs birth and death
>(nothing in the known universe lifes forever). Afterall life allways have
Actually recently an immortal jellyfish was discovered (immortal in
the sense that it would not die of old age, of course it could still
die by being eaten, the sun collapsing or whatever).
The thing just discovered a method to exchange all it's cells over
time.
Bjoern Guenzel
<abroer...@mediaport.org> wrote:
>
>Bjoern Guenzel wrote in message <3768edb...@news.demon.co.uk>...
>>On Thu, 17 Jun 1999 12:11:44 +0200, "freak_B"
>><abroer...@mediaport.org> wrote:
>>
>>>I think you are not aware that we as scientists also have an ethical
>>>responsebility. What is we make a true alife system. If the system is
>alive
>>>than does it also have the rights of a living being. So the question what
>is
>>>life is relevant.
>>
>>No, I'd rather like to question your ethics. Perhaps 'non-living'
>>things could have rights, too, no?
>
>I read back my post, but i could not find the statement that non-living
>things have no rights, but ok it keeps the threat living (threat is alive???
>;-) )
I interpreted your post so, because you said wether somethinng was
alive or not would have consequences for it's rights, and consequently
for the ethical considerations of scientists.
>Ethics is not something nature gave us, it's something people made on there
>own.
I totally agree - but we should look closely on what assumptions we
base it on. I think we are carrying around some garbage from history
that does more harm than good.
>Our ethics, as known by the community, does not give rights to
>non-living things. My bike doesn't has the right to cycle each month....
But it also doesn't automatically give rights to living things. In
some states of the US, apparently the right to live is not even
granted to some humans...
>So general ethics and personal ethics are two compete distinct this. But
>this doesn't say if either is good or bad.
What do you mean by personal/general ethics?
>>Besides, what rights do living things have? Look around you, and you
>>see that nobody gives a sh... about the rights of living things. When
>>was the last time you worried about the fate of a bacterium?
>
>Not so long ago. Some pains and it turened out to be a bacteria that i did
>NOT have.
:-)
>>I agree that scientists have responsibility, just to make that clear.
>>
>
>And then they invented wapons ( :-) )
Shit happens...
[...]
Bjoern Guenzel
wrote:
>
>Bjoern Guenzel <guenz...@blinker.net> wrote in message
>news:3768ba2d...@news.demon.co.uk...
>> What I find more interesting is: WHY do you want to know if something
>> is alive?
>>
>> Is there subconsciously some old mythologie or tradition behind it,
>> that assumes that anything that is 'alive' is somehow better than
>> everything else?
>
>An important property of truly alive systems is that they can die, in the
>sense that once dead (whatever that means), they cannot be made alive again.
The last word is not yet spoken on this. Besides, some dead things
have the same property, they can be destroyed beyond repair.
Usually perhaps we might be able to make a perfect copy, but then
we'll soon be able to clone humans, too (although not their
experience, and that's the clue, I think - uniqueness). Then again, if
a 1000 year old thing is being destroyed, we can't copy it (or it
would take at least 1000 years, but then, could we recreate the exact
conditions of the ageing process?)
>When you run your latest Alife simulation, do you think something
>significant happens when you turn it off? Will we ever?
It depends, if it just discovered intelligence and you turn it off, it
would be a pity. However, ie if you always safe the state of the
system and can just continue the process at any time, I don't think
anything significant happens. So no murder charges for switching of
Computers in the future (perhaps deprivation of freedom, though).
What happens when we fall asleep, should we all be accused of
attempted suicide for falling asleep? I think not... ;-)
>
>> always look on the bright side of death
>> (e.glavas)
>
>be-do, be-do be-do be-do.
Is that from Monty Python?
Erik Max Francis
> AIUI, current cosmological theories believe the universe is open - and
> thermodynamic heat death is inevitable.
This is not stated sufficiently carefully. Nothing about general
relativity or cosmological models suggests that the Universe _should_ be
open, but luminous tallies of the amount of matter suggest that the
density of the Universe is below the critical limit, even if you count
dark matter ("of the first kind") to correctly explain galactic rotation
curves. In terms of curvature, though, the Universe looks very flat
(just on the critical density).
Einstein himself believed that the Universe was closed (it was one of
his boundary conditions), but current cosmologists aren't sure. If you
want the Universe to be closed, then you need more dark matter ("of the
second kind") to bring the density up to the critical limit.
At present we simply don't know whether the Universe is open or closed;
in the lack of further data, the Universe _looks_ open. Note the
careful distinction -- general relativity says the Universe can either
be open (or flat) or closed, but observation determines which it is.
--
Erik Max Francis / email m...@alcyone.com / whois mf303 / icq 16063900
Alcyone Systems / irc maxxon@efnet / finger m...@members.alcyone.com
San Jose, CA / languages En, Eo / web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
USA / icbm 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W / &tSftDotIotE
\
/ I like young girls. Their stories are shorter.
/ Thomas McGuane
Erik Max Francis
> That really does depend on the given definition of life, which is of
> course
> the point of this thread. If whatever definition you settle on can be
> applied
> to nonchemical phenomena, or more importantly, if that definition
> *can* be
> applied to your computer alife simulation, then you very well might
> have life
> on your hands there.
"Very well might"? If a computer simulation matches the criteria for a
definition of life, then it is alive _by definition_. The question is
which definition is the best choice, and no one can agree on that.
> If life is nothing but evolution in progress
> (not that
> I'm claiming that to be my view), then alife is already alive on some
> level.
I would suggest a thermodynamic definition of life, one that grades
organisms on their complexity and their ability to reverse entropy
locally -- so that life is a gradient, not a yes-or-no question. I
think it's clear, even from discussions about, say, biological viruses,
that treating life as a binary property (you have it or you don't) is
going nowhere, since people simply can't agree on whether _known_
potential organisms are "alive."
Under this definition, interesting chemical reactions might also be
classified as living (albeit really far down on the scale), but who
cares? Life _is_ just chemical reactions, after all.
Anthony Liekens
> But I think you would agree with me, that life needs birth and death
> (nothing in the known universe lifes forever). Afterall life allways have
> no complete definition.
> Artificial life in our minds can't have their own development (independend
> from the man who 'created' the alifeform) !
huh?
I think birth and death are properties of life on earth, I don't think
life and death are universal.
BIRTH -> one can say anything is born, otherwise it wouldn't exist, ok,
but i think i'm alive without knowing for sure i was born yes or no,
it's not necessary to check whether something is born or not to call it
living or not
DEATH -> Why wouldn't something be able to live without death? Just
imagine one lives forever -> he lives + never dies (i can't explain this
any further because my explanation lies in the statement "living
forever" :)
Anthony
Void
Erik Max Francis wrote:
"I would suggest a thermodynamic definition of life, one that grades
organisms on their complexity and their ability to reverse entropy
locally -- so that life is a gradient, not a yes-or-no question"
So what you're saying is: "Life is fuzzy"?
Nico Rasters
"..The stars are not wanted now, put out every one
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods
For nothing now can ever come to any good.."
Erik Max Francis
> So what you're saying is: "Life is fuzzy"?
Please don't encourage the alt.fan.fuzzy crowd to come over here.
[shudder]
--
Erik Max Francis / email m...@alcyone.com / whois mf303 / icq 16063900
Alcyone Systems / irc maxxon@efnet / finger m...@members.alcyone.com
San Jose, CA / languages En, Eo / web http://www.alcyone.com/max/
USA / icbm 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W / &tSftDotIotE
\
/ Love, the itch, and a cough cannot be hid.
/ Thomas Fuller, M.D.
Donald Jacques
for some time. I hope I don't disturb its dilectable direction, but
here goes.
I would be interested in any comments on the following that appears In a
paper I am working on. The basic premise being that DEFINITIONS may not
necessisarily be what we should be looking for. Might it be more
reasonable to RECOGNIZE that an Entity (plant or animal - chemical or
physical) might DISPLAY attributes, that when taken in concert, allow us
to identify the Entity as either alive/living or not. Some of these
attributes are dependent on the manifestation of certain criteria within
the makeup of the Entity. I have taken five Entity Samples as "test
subjects": a rock, fire, a plant, an animal, a chimp, and a human.
1. LIFE
1. Life may be indentified by three primary attributes:
a. The manifestation of the conversion and movement of
energy.
b. The ability to self-repair.
c. The ability to re-produce.
2. INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence may be identified by two major attributes:
a. Cognizance of:
1) Self,
2) Others,
3) Environment, and
4) One’s own actions in relation to the environment &
others.
b. The ability to demonstrate behavior adjustments to new
situations and individuals; and to continue adjustments
in
the future (adaptivity based on survival instincts -
Learning)
The possession of intelligence does not imply the ABILITY to
interact
with or change the individual(s) environment, only that the
individual is
AWARE of the existence of that environment in relation to
the
individual(s). Any definition of Intelligence must also
factor in the ability
to learn from "the unknown" ie, adaptive acquisition and
modification.
3. SENTIENCE
Sentience may be identified by four attributes:
a. The ability to acquire and store knowledge not
necessarily required
for survival. (Questing)
b. The ability to design, manufacture, modify, and use tools
not readily
found in nature. (Invention)
c. Some sense of Community and History.
d. An ability to define and maintain/modify a consistent
set of
behavioral ethics.
I suspect that life (artificial or otherwise) may demonstrate
intelligence or it may not. And that the appearance of intelligence is
dependent upon the emergence of life itself. In the same manner I would
suspect that Intelligence
Void wrote:
> Erik Max Francis wrote:
> "I would suggest a thermodynamic definition of life, one that grades
> organisms on their complexity and their ability to reverse entropy
> locally -- so that life is a gradient, not a yes-or-no question"
>
> So what you're saying is: "Life is fuzzy"?
>
freak_B
Timm Haase wrote in message <7kdftl$e...@f49x18.lhag.de>...
>>
>>Because we always see death after life there is only life when we are able
>>to die???
>>
>Yes, If we can't die, we'll never live. (give evolution a chance ;^)
>
>>property of life, it only ends the life. If something lives for ever it
can
>>be alive.
>>
>No ! By now everything on earth, which lives, have to die (so you and me,
>too).
>If something 'lives' forever, it don't has the chance to reproduce. If this
>organism can reproduce, than the whole world dies, which implies the
>death of the organism.
>
>>life.
>>
>For a living system, there must be a beginning. So I think this
>is a property of life.
>
This discussion also started in an other branche of the threat.
I quote Keith Wiley
{
Peter Zvirinsky
"freak_B" <abroer...@mediaport.org> wrote:
> This discussion also started in an other branche of the threat.
> I quote Keith Wiley
>
> {
> First, I know I am alive, and I may never die, in theory at least.
But I'm
> still alive dammit!
Sorry but you will. After a time your cells gets older and then more
and more malfunctions will appear in your body. Sad but true ;)
> Second, when a bacteria splits in two via mitosis, has it "died"
giving
> birth
> to two offspring, or has it simply spawned a clone and continued
living. If
> the second case is more accurate, then present bacteria are literally
> billions
> of years old.
When a bacteria splits it creates two copies of DNA that are passed to
new
daughter cells. And there is a possibility of error = mutation and
therefore also evolution. That works also for cloning, even if they
would
clone you, there is still chance of mutation and slightly different
cloned individual.
I would say life starts and ends with passing the genome copy to
offsprings. So alife organisms cannot live forever, the only imortals
one here are the genes (according to R.Dawkins: Selfish Gene) but they
are not alive.
> Which leads me to three, vast physical redundancy and geographic
distrution
> can render a particular lifeform almost incapable of dieing regardless
of
> the
> circumstances. If all bacteria (of a particular species) are the same
> organism, then that "being" can virtually never be killed. It's
practically
> impossible.
Why not, what about vanished species ? Australian dog Dingo, dinosaurus,
... and it was so easy :o)
The same could work for bacteria, though I am not expert for bacteria
species.
Peter
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Anthony Liekens
I hope you are defining "living system" over here (which is formal) and
not life (which is pretty philosophical)
> 1. Life may be indentified by three primary attributes:
> a. The manifestation of the conversion and movement of
> energy.
Indeed, I use the same in my definitions, a living system is
dissipative, if you want to use a cool word...
> b. The ability to self-repair.
I don't see why a living system has to self-repair to be called living -
give us some infos here please... Maybe all living systems on earth
self-repair, but i don't think self-repairability is not necessary for
being alive...
> c. The ability to re-produce.
I don't think a living system has to re-produce to be called living.
Major parts of ant colony individuals do _not_ re-produce (they have
been reproduced, but they don't reproduce themselves because they cannot
reproduce, still, they are alive...)
> I suspect that life (artificial or otherwise) may demonstrate
> intelligence or it may not. And that the appearance of intelligence is
> dependent upon the emergence of life itself.
Can you support thius idea with some explanation so we really could
reply to this?
Anthony
Donald Jacques
> 1. LIFE
I hope you are defining "living system" over here (which is formal) and
not life (which is pretty philosophical)
Would "living system" refer in context to one homo sapien as
a single living system, also an unharvested potato plant as a
single living system? If so, then yes.
> 1. Life may be indentified by three primary attributes:
> a. The manifestation of the conversion and movement of
> energy.
Indeed, I use the same in my definitions, a living system is
dissipative, if you want to use a cool word...
> b. The ability to self-repair.
I don't see why a living system has to self-repair to be called living -
give us some infos here please... Maybe all living systems on earth
self-repair, but i don't think self-repairability is not necessary for
being alive...
to mutate? Being able to change, i.e. mutate, at any level might
suggest the ability to change, i.e. repair, would be inimical at
any level?
> c. The ability to re-produce.
I don't think a living system has to re-produce to be called living.
Major parts of ant colony individuals do _not_ re-produce (they have
been reproduced, but they don't reproduce themselves because they cannot
reproduce, still, they are alive...)
Humans as individuals, are also incapable of re-producing,
the species as a "Life Form", through coupling, is capable of
reproduction.
Reproduction (asexual, sexual, or otherwise), I think, introduces
the principle of evolution and ultimately, change to a species.
We have seen that things alive tend to change and adapt in
some form or another.
While the attribute of adaptation in itself does not seem fitting
as a qualifier (rivers change course over time due to
environmental conditions and are not "alive"), reproduction
presents an opportunity for nature or species to introduce
mutations.
Note that my original comment stated that these
"attributes, when taken in concert, allow us to identify the
Entity as either alive/living or not."
I would never propose that any one attribute is an indicator
on its own of life, but, indeed when taken in concert with
the others, might be sufficient to identify a life form, new
or old.
> I suspect that life (artificial or otherwise) may demonstrate
> intelligence or it may not. And that the appearance of intelligence is
> dependent upon the emergence of life itself.
Can you support thius idea with some explanation so we really could
reply to this?Anthony
Apologies, an incomplete thought. I had not intended to open
a second topic, but here goes.
As has been mentioned here before, intelligence appears to be
indicated by some form of learning and/or memory acquisition
and retrieval. As these events require some direction, whether
concious or unconcious, It would seem that directive actions
must be dependent upon that entity being able to mutate,
change, or otherwise manipulate some element within itself
or its environment in order to execute the chemical/physical
changes necessary for the storage and retrieval of memory
elements.
Therefore, the presence of the attributes of life must preceed
the appearance of intelligence within an organism.
Timm Haase
>since we're studying life as-it-could-be, rather than life-as-it-is.
>Biology studies life-by-nature while alife studies life-made-by-man,
>which can be a lot more universal than the former...
>
Should a researcher not start from a point, which is rather simple
to reach ? So let's start with life-as-it-is. This is complex enough.
If you try more, you maybe get nothing !
>
>I guess machines (and that's in a pretty large sense) can make
>intelligent decision based on poarameters in their environments, which
>is a pretty intelligent task, right? Or do you want to say that these
>intelligent decision-making engines within those machines are programmed
>by an intelligent being and therefore not intelligent? Then again, can
>techniques from machine learning, such as neural networks, GAs and
>reinforcement learning solutions make intelligent things, or are systems
>from AI not intelligent?
>
This decisions are not intelligent. They could be computed by mathematical
functions. Intelligence is more than the analytic result of a function.
Adaptive Behaviour is a kind of Intelligence.
>How about RNA strings? It is pretty good possible that life on earth
>originated from RNA chains. Where is the border between chemicals and
>intelligent living systems? Are RNA strings intelligent because they can
>replicate? And what about crystals, then again? And if you say RNA
>strings are not intelligent (for whatever reason) are bacteria
>intelligent?
>
I think, the first think we have to do, is to define what intelligence is.
If we have a definition, with which everyone (in this thread) could
life, we could discuss when a system is intelligent.
Timm
Timm Haase
>can answer this question, I guess all of us alifers will be out of job
>soon.
>
No. You have to proof, that a system is alife (or do thinks what living
systems do). Otherwise you can say a stone is alife and no one could
say something against it (This is not that what we wan't)
>One can see a computer as a formal model, which is pretty mathematical.
>If you can create living systems within a computer, you can also
>replicate the systems within mathematical models, and from there on
>spread those models to other mediums (just like you can copy systems
>that are turing-machine-alike to other media)
>
>Life is about "synthetic biology", the medium one uses is not important!
>
The medium is the enviroment. Life in a computer must be different from
life in a chemical base. So the medium is (for the living system) important.
Timm
Nik Thomas
Timm Haase <Timm_...@hdpp.de> wrote in article
<7kn60v$9...@f49x18.lhag.de>...
> >
> >since we're studying life as-it-could-be, rather than life-as-it-is.
> >Biology studies life-by-nature while alife studies life-made-by-man,
> >which can be a lot more universal than the former...
> >
>
> Should a researcher not start from a point, which is rather simple
> to reach ? So let's start with life-as-it-is. This is complex enough.
> If you try more, you maybe get nothing !
>
I think that you are wrong in your assumption that alife is more complex
than natural life. Natural life has an enormous number of
interdepandancies and boundary conditions that are not understood, but by
studying life-made-by-man we can decide what conditions and boundaries are
included.
I think that anything that is more universal will be (must be??) more
simple than something that applies only to a particular region or section
of an environment. My example would be bacteria, which are simpler and
exist much more widely than any more complex group of creatures.
Once we have understood how alife models relate to simple realities, we can
go on to model a-ecosystems and a-earths...
Nik
Bjoern Guenzel
<mo...@mail.dma.be> wrote:
>> Think about it: you are looking for a universal definition of life.
>> But life as we know it is carbon based - so isn't it for example
>> totally arbitrary to leave the property 'carbon based' out of the
>> definition, just for the sake of getting a 'universal definition'?
>
>I'm not looking for a definition of life, but for "living systems", the
>formal is pretty philosophical while the latter can be answered in a
>formal way...
I admit I don't quite see the fundamental difference. But if you are
proposing 'living systems' as a word to describe certain classes of
systems, why not. Only I would find it still unfortunately, because
'living' is likely to confuse people (apparently it confused me
already).
>> What I find more interesting is: WHY do you want to know if something
>> is alive?
>
>I'm looking for the answer what the differences between living systems
>(for example bacteria) and non-living systems (eg sand dunes) are...
So you already have a clear-cut idea what 'living systems' are?
[...]
>> For science it has no relevance whatsoever... You show it yourself: at
>> the moment you are talking about 'dissipative systems', which makes a
>> lot more sense than talking about 'living/non-living'. So why, for
>> science sake, not stay precise?
>
>ARGH - what do you think I was doing in my post?
>
>(this is the last time: ) What is a living system? What are the
>differences between living systems and non-living systems? Can we define
>living systems so we can construct them within mathematics, computer
>science, physics, art and biology? What is life-as-it-could-be?
I admit, for me the question makes about as much sense as 'what is a
dkfjhdudf system? What are the differnces between dkfjhdudf systems
and non-dkfjhdudf systems?...'
No offence, it's just I still don't understand what you are trying to
do :-(
>
>Then I come up with my answer: living systems are self-referrent
>dissipative systems
then why call them 'living' if you could just as well call them
'self-referrent dissipative' systems? I for one am not sure if
self-referrent, dissipative is really the fundamental property that
makes things that are alife more interesting, meaning I don't know if
I would like to use the word 'living' for that. However, I could
imagine it would be interesting to discuss/study self-referrent
dissipative systems.
>
>Anthony
Peter Harrison
Timm Haase <Timm_...@hdpp.de> wrote in message
news:7kn60v$9...@f49x18.lhag.de...
> Should a researcher not start from a point, which is rather simple
> to reach ? So let's start with life-as-it-is. This is complex enough.
> If you try more, you maybe get nothing !
Simple? I can't even hope to imagine the complexities of REAL life. We
don't yet understand how the most basic one celled organism works - how DNA
works - how the mechanics of cells work... etc etc etc...
Alife makes gross simplifications in order to simulate 'real life'. Trying
to simulate individual cells in a creature for example would be a hopeless
cause if you needed to simulate a whole population of creatures. No - like
physicists we simulate small bits, making (hopefully) intelligent guesses
about how to simplfy without losing the nature of the problem.
> This decisions are not intelligent. They could be computed by mathematical
> functions. Intelligence is more than the analytic result of a function.
> Adaptive Behaviour is a kind of Intelligence.
Define Intelligence. No don't! You see - I know you will define
intelligence in such a way that it supports your assertion. I will define
intelligence in such a way that it supports my assertion. Any because we
have different ideas on what intelligence IS - and there is no objective way
to decide - there is little point in discussing what 'things' are
intelligent.
> I think, the first think we have to do, is to define what intelligence is.
> If we have a definition, with which everyone (in this thread) could
> life, we could discuss when a system is intelligent.
Oh Sh*t I can't believe it - my previous statement before reading whats
directly above. Seriously! I make the point again - there is no objective
way to define what 'Intelligence' is. There is no objective way to define
what 'life' is. I'm not saying you can't try - just that everyone has
similar but slightly different views, and that none can be proved more
valid.
Anthony Liekens
> Would "living system" refer in context to one homo sapien as
> a single living system, also an unharvested potato plant as a
> single living system? If so, then yes.
yes - i even guess an uncooked patato is alive...
>
> > > 1. Life may be indentified by three primary
> > attributes:
> > > a. The manifestation of the conversion and
> > movement of
> > > energy.
> > Indeed, I use the same in my definitions, a living system is
> > dissipative, if you want to use a cool word...
>
> I am unfamiliar with this one - could you clarify "dissipative" in
> this context?
dissipative = the manifestation of the conversion and movement of energy
:)
> Is it not possible that the ability to self-repair is linked to the
> ability
> to mutate? Being able to change, i.e. mutate, at any level might
> suggest the ability to change, i.e. repair, would be inimical at
> any level?
Mutation is doine on a random level, a living system doesn't choose to
mutate...
> Perhaps a qualifier - "The ability (for the species) to re-produce"
(damn I forgot the name of the animals where you mate donkeys with
horses) [...] cannot reproduce, therefore they are not alive?
[dropped of a whole lot of text about reproducability and the emergence
of intelligence]
It are all big questions, the enswers on what intelligence and life is
will always remain open and objective... Too bad
Anthony
Anthony Liekens
> life in a chemical base. So the medium is (for the living system) important.
I can simulate television on my computer, but you say that won't be like
real television because the medium is different...
One should read a couple of things about simulation and then get back
here
I drop your point now...
Anthony
Nik Thomas
Anthony Liekens <mo...@mail.dma.be> wrote in article
<376F8475...@mail.dma.be>...
No, Timm said that the medium is important for living systems
One should read a couple of things about the previous post before getting
back here... ;-)
Nik
Anthony Liekens
Timm said that the same environment within a computer or outside a
computer makes a difference, I don't see a difference between them...
Anthony
Alliax
I didn't follow the thread of this post, but there is an obvious
difference between the two :
> > No, Timm said that the medium is important for living systems
>
> Timm said that the same environment within a computer or outside a
> computer makes a difference, I don't see a difference between them...
an environment outside a computer is R1, the same environment within a
computer is R2, we can say that the "reality" of R2 is included in R1.
the opposite is not true.
does it makes sense or not ?
byebye.
---
Coventry's School of Art and Design
Damien Cola
member of the VLAN
www.chez.com/vlan
current project:
www.respublica.fr/lingoparadise
-
Donald Jacques
> > Would "living system" refer in context to one homo sapien as
> > a single living system, also an unharvested potato plant as a
> > single living system? If so, then yes.
>
> >
> > > attributes:
> > > > a. The manifestation of the conversion and
> > > movement of
> > > > energy.
> > > Indeed, I use the same in my definitions, a living system is
> > > dissipative, if you want to use a cool word...
> >
> > I am unfamiliar with this one - could you clarify "dissipative" in
> > this context?
>
> :)
>
> > Is it not possible that the ability to self-repair is linked to the
> > ability
> > to mutate? Being able to change, i.e. mutate, at any level might
> > suggest the ability to change, i.e. repair, would be inimical at
> > any level?
>
> mutate...
>
>
> horses) [...] cannot reproduce, therefore they are not alive?
>
> [dropped of a whole lot of text about reproducability and the emergence
> of intelligence]
>
> It are all big questions, the enswers on what intelligence and life is
> will always remain open and objective... Too bad
>
> Anthony
Poking fun is one thing, sarcasm and ignoring a new member is not
the way to encourage new posters. If I have offended you, sir Anthony,
I apologize, If I seem beneath your godlike knowledge, tough. Go ahead
and take the concepts, make them your own, if you wish in a different
thread, thats why I posted them.
I am curious, I must have offended everyone, or else my comments were
so beneath the group as to be un necessary for their consideration. I'll
leave you all to your meanderings.
ignored and patronized.
Anthony Liekens
> the way to encourage new posters. If I have offended you, sir Anthony,
> I apologize, If I seem beneath your godlike knowledge, tough. Go ahead
> and take the concepts, make them your own, if you wish in a different
> thread, thats why I posted them.
>
> I am curious, I must have offended everyone, or else my comments were
> so beneath the group as to be un necessary for their consideration. I'll
> leave you all to your meanderings.
>
> ignored and patronized.
Can anyone tell me what i did wrong? I tried to answer his questions and
the man starts ignoring...
Sorry but I found this an interesting thread (that's why I'm replying,
right?)
Anthony
Keith Wiley
a making a point...rather graphically. Stay in the game.
Donald Jacques wrote:
>
> > > I am working toward a formal list of recognizable attributes.
> > > Would "living system" refer in context to one homo sapien as
> > > a single living system, also an unharvested potato plant as a
> > > single living system? If so, then yes.
> >
> > yes - i even guess an uncooked patato is alive...
> > >
> > > > > 1. Life may be indentified by three primary
> > > > attributes:
> > > > > a. The manifestation of the conversion and
> > > > movement of
> > > > > energy.
> > > > Indeed, I use the same in my definitions, a living system is
> > > > dissipative, if you want to use a cool word...
> > >
> > > I am unfamiliar with this one - could you clarify "dissipative" in
> > > this context?
> >
> > dissipative = the manifestation of the conversion and movement of energy
> > :)
> >
> > > Is it not possible that the ability to self-repair is linked to the
> > > ability
> > > to mutate? Being able to change, i.e. mutate, at any level might
> > > suggest the ability to change, i.e. repair, would be inimical at
> > > any level?
> >
> > Mutation is doine on a random level, a living system doesn't choose to
> > mutate...
> >
> > > Perhaps a qualifier - "The ability (for the species) to re-produce"
> >
> > (damn I forgot the name of the animals where you mate donkeys with
> > horses) [...] cannot reproduce, therefore they are not alive?
> >
> > [dropped of a whole lot of text about reproducability and the emergence
> > of intelligence]
> >
> > It are all big questions, the enswers on what intelligence and life is
> > will always remain open and objective... Too bad
> >
> > Anthony
>
> Poking fun is one thing, sarcasm and ignoring a new member is not
> the way to encourage new posters. If I have offended you, sir Anthony,
> I apologize, If I seem beneath your godlike knowledge, tough. Go ahead
> and take the concepts, make them your own, if you wish in a different
> thread, thats why I posted them.
>
> I am curious, I must have offended everyone, or else my comments were
> so beneath the group as to be un necessary for their consideration. I'll
> leave you all to your meanderings.
>
> ignored and patronized.
--
. . .. ... ..... ........ ............. .....................
.. ... ..... ....... ........... ............. .................
. .. .... ........ ................ ................................
Keith Wiley * * * * *
Email: kwi...@tigr.org ** * * ** *
WWW: http://www.tigr.org/~kwiley/ * ** ** ***
MP3 songs: http://www.keithw.amp3.net/
MP3 cds: http://www.mp3.com/keithWiley
Timm Haase
>
>Timm said that the same environment within a computer or outside a
>computer makes a difference, I don't see a difference between them...
>
artificial lifeform.
IMHO there a two possibilities :
(1) to simulate life like on earth
(2) to create life in a new media (like computer)
The first indicates, that one must implement the whole enviroment of living
systems on earth. But every model of the earth can't be complete (earth is
too complex). So your simulation can only be representive for small views of
life.
In contrast, if you try to create life, the one and only important thing is
the
media in which the artificial lifeform will live. In carbonbased lifeforms
the
energy comes from molecules. In artificial lifeforms (e.g. computer-agents)
energy must come from something else. The resources can't be longer
sun and food.