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Mechanical Life; Non-biological organisms? BLASPHEMY!
Topic Started: Jul 30 2011, 06:55 PM (1,258 Views)
Russwallac
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I been looking through the site and haven't seen anything like this, soooooo...

Although mechanical life couldn't evolve naturally by definition, it is possible for machines to be complex enough to evolve and adapt to their environment, even reproducing. So, you could theoretically have a planet full of robotic organisms.

Thoughts? Ideas? Glaringly obvious problems?
"We've started a cult about a guy's liver, of course we're going to demand that you give us an incredibly scientific zombie apocalypse." -Nanotyranus

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Empyreon
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Are you plausible?

Well, technically speaking, mechanical life can evolve. I wouldn't be able to move around, for example, if my legs didn't have hinges in them. ;)

But of course you're talking about metallic, robotic types of mechanical life. I don't see why some machine rebellion couldn't happen, but in order for such an event to take place, I think they would have to be at least as intellectually capable-- at least as sapient-- as their creators. In such a situation, I don't think the machines will wait for the gradual, haphazard process of Darwinian evolutions to adapt. They would probably opt for a more Lamarckian pattern, or something even more radical.
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food for thought
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Dinotherium09
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Two words: Von Neumann machine

Elaboration: Also known as self-replicating machine usually created for mining/colonization purpose. Typically, a Von Neumann machine is a drone programmed to only three things: 1. Harvest raw material, 2. Perform designated task, and 3. Make more of itself. They don't need to be sapient, but they can evolve.

A Von Neumann machine evolves when a glitch happened in the replication process (after all, those who made them will make mistakes), which is carried out or amplified when as they replicate. Maybe it slowly grew smarter as the glitch continued, or adapt traits not essential to its original purpose (i.e.: builder drone arming itself with weapon, etc). Its programing might also deviate from their true purpose.

For example, us human created Von Neumann drone to mine the asteroid field. Due to a glitch however, the drones' mining laser become stronger than necessary. After generations, the glitch compounded and made the drones lose their purpose, driving them to attack human because the glitch had shifted their programing from 'mine and harvest material from asteroids and bring them to human ship ' to 'mine and harvest materials from human ships and bring them to asteroids'
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Russwallac
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I'm talking about machines DELIBERATELY designed to imitate life. Perhaps some race, as an experiment, seeded a planet with simple, self-replicating machines...
"We've started a cult about a guy's liver, of course we're going to demand that you give us an incredibly scientific zombie apocalypse." -Nanotyranus

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TAXESbutNano
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I'd say that it might work. To be honest, though, I think that it'd be similar to normal life, except with higher limits. There'd be ecosystems starting with chemicals, heat, sunlight or some other stuff to produce electricity or whatever they run on, primary consumers steal fuel and materials from the producers, and predators eat the primary consumers. If it starts with machine cells (I'll call them ferrocells), then the ferrocells would probably evolve like any other thing, sort of like what we see on Sagan 4. Life will find a way, even if that life happens to be inorganic.
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Russwallac
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That's just what I was thinking. Finally, a way to have metallic (or crystalline) life!
"We've started a cult about a guy's liver, of course we're going to demand that you give us an incredibly scientific zombie apocalypse." -Nanotyranus

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Flisch
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Except it wouldn't look metallic or crystalline, but pretty close to organic life.
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TAXESbutNano
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I'd agree with flisch. Maybe the cells, eventually, would even lose their inorganicicity.
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Zorcuspine
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Enjoying our azure blue world

Now THIS is a cool idea. We could have mechanical cells swimming in oceans of lava on a mercury like planet :D
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Dark-Matter
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There was a novel call prey that was about nanobot that evolved to form giant flying swarms,then when humans started to exterminate them they started to hide themselves in the human body until they have completelly mimic and subtitud them.
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Russwallac
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I've read that; not one of Crichton's best works. Jurassic Park was WAY better.
"We've started a cult about a guy's liver, of course we're going to demand that you give us an incredibly scientific zombie apocalypse." -Nanotyranus

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Russwallac
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And as for the way it looks, it would really vary depending on the size and composition of the cells.
"We've started a cult about a guy's liver, of course we're going to demand that you give us an incredibly scientific zombie apocalypse." -Nanotyranus

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TAXESbutNano
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Maybe we could start thinking of the ferrocell's biology. I wanna make a project on this! Let's all post ideas for the original ferrocell.

Euferrobios 'First iron life.'
Cladistics:
Ferrobiota
Euferrobios
Euferrobios is the first of the metal cells. Engineered by a sapient, space-faring species, they are the very beginning of a new form of life. Their cell walls are made from chips of rusted iron, held together by water. Their genes, like ours, are made from carbon, although the chemicals that make up the rest of it are metallic. Tiny threads of metal hang amongst the genes and go through the cell walls, absorbing a charge and chemicals.

I'm not too sure about fundemental(?) biology, so it's a bit vague.
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Russwallac
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Hmmmm... Perhaps, for simplicity's sake, we should begin with a simple but "multicellular" lifeform. It would make it much easier, and would result in actual mechanical organisms, as opposed to organisms with mechanical cells.
"We've started a cult about a guy's liver, of course we're going to demand that you give us an incredibly scientific zombie apocalypse." -Nanotyranus

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lamna
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Shepard Commander.

When you get down to the very small scale, the line between machine and life is rather narrow. It's all molecules arranged in a certain way. What differentiates a mechanical lifeform from one that was simply made from scratch?
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