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Cyborgs and Digiforms; Artificial lifeforms acting as life
Topic Started: Feb 11 2011, 11:27 PM (1,857 Views)
T.Neo
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Wikipedia- Definition of Life

Essentially, it boils down to three things:

-Heritable reproduction - It must reproduce, and its offspring must retain its heritable traits.

- Metabolism - Transformation of energy and construction of structures that are used within the organism.

- Organisation - It must have an organised structure and have a clear "inside" and "outside", i.e. it must not be spilled out across the "floor", so to speak.
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Ànraich
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Feb 17 2011, 10:59 PM
Actually, due to the conical nature of a glass, the glass is always less than half empty.

And a person can actually divide by zero.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Hyperbola_one_over_x.svg
That chart kind of disproves your statement.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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Kamidio
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Back in 06 they found out you can divide the quotient of positive infinity and negative infinity by zero.
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Space Gorilla
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I wasn't mocking you...

but I was being a tad facetious - but not directed at you...
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And so long as we agree to disagree on that other issue - things are sweet mate, although I thought it was a bit harsh of you calling me a "loser"...


Okay. I apologize. I just thought you were being sarcastic.

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'~' In a purely biological sense, no, it'd be a mind without an organic body, so it couldn't be a living thing. But in a more casual sense of the word it would be considered alive...

I doubt a digital glass of water is going to be thinking much...


So life can be only biological? Wow .... Like I said, organocentrism :/

A non-physical intelligent mind (even artificially created), if can understand even the basics of life, and use its intelligence to develop a way to continue its existence, say, develop a physical body (or would that in this case be an avatar/puppet?) and a way for that body to replicate itself and copy the A.I.'s program (analogue to procreation and genetic material/DNA?)

I really don't see much of a difference, in terms of life. Yes, biological, mechanical, and non-physical are astronomically different, but if they all behave the way the definition of life lays down they should (in order to be considered a form of life), then why not?
Edited by Space Gorilla, Feb 19 2011, 08:53 AM.
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Dark-Matter
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Life doesn't have to be biological to be alive. How can you prove that is possible, because atleast all creatures that we have discuss in this post are available to replicate itself, some have some thing similar to metabolism.
Edited by Dark-Matter, Jan 9 2012, 01:04 AM.
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Ànraich
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Brutal Sniper 64
Feb 18 2011, 05:19 PM
Back in 06 they found out you can divide the quotient of positive infinity and negative infinity by zero.
No you can't. You can't do anything with infinity, it's infinite. Any kind of equation done with infinity will end with infinity, because that is the nature of infinity. Anyways, it's not the thread for this discussion.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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T.Neo
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So life can be only biological? Wow .... Like I said, organocentrism


Organocentrism again? :|

Quote:
 
A non-physical intelligent mind (even artificially created), if can understand even the basics of life, and use its intelligence to develop a way to continue its existence, say, develop a physical body (or would that in this case be an avatar/puppet?) and a way for that body to replicate itself and copy the A.I.'s program (analogue to procreation and genetic material/DNA?)

I really don't see much of a difference, in terms of life. Yes, biological, mechanical, and non-physical are astronomically different, but if they all behave the way the definition of life lays down they should (in order to be considered a form of life), then why not?


I am struggling to see how "concious computer that can build a robot body" is alive in the biological sense of the word.

Non-physical is already breaking the definition of life. And "biology" does not have to mean traditional, chemical based life... some sort of speculative mechanical organism is still an organism, just one with a different structure. It's biology, just a biology of a different kind.
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Fuck, I said BIOLOGICAL. As in, made of cells and organic molecules and all that, in a biological sense of the word it is required to be that way, in a more casual sense of the word then yes, you can say that a computer that is self aware is alive.
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Ànraich
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Biological doesn't mean made of cells. It means anything pertaining to life. Viruses aren't technically alive, but they fall into the category of biology. Organic refers to being made of cells and such.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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T.Neo
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As far as I can tell, organic means being organic... you know, there are tons of chemicals that are organic but aren't even close to life. If I recall correctly, even simple hydrocarbons such as methane are 'organic'.

I can create life- an entity(s) that actually fit the definition of life, out of aluminium, silicon, gallium, and used silicone oil as a suspensory medium, and it will be life- biological (biology is the study of life), but not organic (it's made of metal and silicon).

Unlike a sentient computer, which is only philosophically alive... there is a big difference between a philosophical "definition of life" and a scientific definition.

Edited by T.Neo, Feb 21 2011, 08:32 AM.
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Kamidio
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And when faced with a situation where an actual Silicon+Aluminum+Gallium-based life form shows up, then we have to redefine organic, as this creature would obviously be ground breaking in itself.
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Holben
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We wouldn't have to redefine organic, alive and organic are not mutually inclusive.
Why would we ever have to?

If it has carbon in it, it's organic. If not, then it's not.
An AI would be alive, and if it has no carbon parts, inorganic.
Sci-fi authors have known this for decades.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

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T.Neo
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Holben, rubbish. A grand majority of the time sci-fi authors don't know jack shi- ahem, don't know nothing, and just write crap instead (scientifically speaking- even then, the most scientifically rubbish science fiction can still be good fiction). Being sentient and/or sapient does not make you alive. It does, however, make you sentient and/or sapient. Apparently though this isn't enough for... I dunno, the posthuman idealists who want their favourite entities to be described as an extra form of life...

I have a computer- it's the computer that I write rubbish posts like this one on. :P

My computer is not alive, regardless of whatever software I run on it. The software isn't alive either. It's software.
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
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Holben
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T.Neo
Feb 21 2011, 12:17 PM
Holben, rubbish. A grand majority of the time sci-fi authors don't know jack shi- ahem, don't know nothing, and just write crap instead (scientifically speaking- even then, the most scientifically rubbish science fiction can still be good fiction). Being sentient and/or sapient does not make you alive. It does, however, make you sentient and/or sapient. Apparently though this isn't enough for... I dunno, the posthuman idealists who want their favourite entities to be described as an extra form of life...

I have a computer- it's the computer that I write rubbish posts like this one on. :P

My computer is not alive, regardless of whatever software I run on it. The software isn't alive either. It's software.
Hm? Which but was rubbish? Sci-fi authors knowing anything? :|

An AI can be alive, if you build it out of nanobots or through selective evolution on a virtual environment.



Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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T.Neo
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An AI can be alive, if you build it out of nanobots or through selective evolution on a virtual environment.


Viruses are bred through selective evolution in a real environment. They aren't alive. They also exist, unlike anything virtual.

Evolving alone doesn't make you alive... that has to be one trait of many.

Nothing explicitly states that nanobots have to be alive. Macroscale robots aren't alive.

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Hm? Which but was rubbish? Sci-fi authors knowing anything?


Just me giving in to a little (unhealthy) self hate. :P
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