What makes life?

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Cryopyre
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What makes life?

Post #1

Post by Cryopyre »

WHat makes life life? What is the definition of a living organism.

How about the virus debate, is something like a virus considered a living organism, it can reproduce, but it needs the aid of others.

How about the must basic life form that is not under debate, a single celled organism. It has no intellect, it is just a repeating clock of chemical reactions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VxQuPBX1_U

here is a video that talks about us in the same way, simple chemical reactions.

Lastly, if we constructed a robot that could recreate itself without any intervention from other organism, would that constitute as life?


This may appear jumbled, so sorry, but these questions have bothered and confused me for quite a while.

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Metatron
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Post #51

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Metatron wrote: Part of my point was that mutation perse seems unlikely when we are talking about a self-replicating machine. However, a machine whose programming allows it to make modifications of its design to meet changes in its environment can effectively evolve. This Evolvable Hardware concept from NASA that you mentioned sounds like an interesting first step on this road.
QED wrote: That's exactly what I wanted to suggest. The focus is often too much on the individual. The concept of the probe is that it makes use of the material resources scattered throughout the Galaxy -- or maybe even the universe as a whole. With an effectively infinite supply of materials, evolution rates should be comfortably able to achieve the continuity required for total colonization.
Until the entire universe is assimilated by the Borg. :shock: :nervious:

Metatron wrote: Upon reading your reference to Von Neumann probes, I am both intrigued and somewhat disquieted by them. According to one of the parts of the article, these self-replicating probes, if sent out with no ingrained limitations, could multiply at a geometric rate and eventually essentially strip-mine the cosmos of materials for their continued creation. Kind of a scary idea.
QED wrote: It's a can of worms alright. It should, of course, be noted that life on this planet might be the result of this kind of colonization process. The machinery just happens to be on an elemental scale. The principle of evolution by natural selection is one grounded in universal logic so in the thermodynamic landscape afforded by our universe it seems rather inevitable that ripples of colonization will follow.
When you talk about life being colonized on our planet through elemental scale machinery, are you talking about a deliberate, artificial process (like nanobots sent by an alien civilization) or some sort of "natural" process (like some sort of hibernating spores traveling via space debris or some such).
Metatron wrote: Since there is no proof as of yet of some metaphysical component that makes us who we are, namely the soul, there seems no reason to believe that self-awareness and emotions are impossible things to design into an artificial entity whether constructed of organic or inorganic matter. Obviously, whether these things CAN be created by man's design is also yet to be proven. Perhaps research into our brain's functioning and their application to artificial intelligence will answer some of these questions within our lifetime. If so, then the fun really begins because man will be faced with a number of tough ethical/moral choices as well as the practical choices of how man wants these discoveries to influence our lives.
QED wrote: You mean we get to "play God" :lol: No doubt this kind of thought experiment has taken place before (albeit in a far less technologically inspired fashion). It seems to have automatically fostered the notion that life is here for a purpose, which could indeed follow if we consider our own potential motives for creating von Neumann probes. But in the presence of natural ordering processes, we have no unbroken chain of creation to follow back to a prime motive so we must remain wary of anyone claiming to know otherwise.
Imagine what our ability to "play God" would be like if we prove capable of creating self-replicating nanobots capable of manipulating matter at the atomic scale. Our ability to transform matter (and are ability to destroy ourselves) would be virtually unlimited.

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Post #52

Post by QED »

Metatron wrote: When you talk about life being colonized on our planet through elemental scale machinery, are you talking about a deliberate, artificial process (like nanobots sent by an alien civilization) or some sort of "natural" process (like some sort of hibernating spores traveling via space debris or some such).
I don't see any necessity for a contiguous chain of conscious causality (which would be paradoxical anyway), so I would expect to see a mix of natural and artificial colonization. It might even be, in principle, impossible to distinguish one from the other.
Metatron wrote: Imagine what our ability to "play God" would be like if we prove capable of creating self-replicating nanobots capable of manipulating matter at the atomic scale. Our ability to transform matter (and are ability to destroy ourselves) would be virtually unlimited.
I think it's reasonable to assume that human technology will reach this stage, and by implication any other technologically savvy life forms should also be expected to do so as well. What I think is interesting about this is that it returns us to the issue about colonization. Colonization is the natural escape route from self-destruction or indeed natural catastrophe so there are many good motives for conscious attempts to spread beyond a single planet or star system. Given the ability to manipulate the elemental components of life it would seem inevitable that once intelligent life appears in a universe, it would spread to wherever it could.

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Post #53

Post by Metatron »

QED wrote:
Metatron wrote: When you talk about life being colonized on our planet through elemental scale machinery, are you talking about a deliberate, artificial process (like nanobots sent by an alien civilization) or some sort of "natural" process (like some sort of hibernating spores traveling via space debris or some such).
I don't see any necessity for a contiguous chain of conscious causality (which would be paradoxical anyway), so I would expect to see a mix of natural and artificial colonization. It might even be, in principle, impossible to distinguish one from the other.
Metatron wrote: Imagine what our ability to "play God" would be like if we prove capable of creating self-replicating nanobots capable of manipulating matter at the atomic scale. Our ability to transform matter (and are ability to destroy ourselves) would be virtually unlimited.
I think it's reasonable to assume that human technology will reach this stage, and by implication any other technologically savvy life forms should also be expected to do so as well. What I think is interesting about this is that it returns us to the issue about colonization. Colonization is the natural escape route from self-destruction or indeed natural catastrophe so there are many good motives for conscious attempts to spread beyond a single planet or star system. Given the ability to manipulate the elemental components of life it would seem inevitable that once intelligent life appears in a universe, it would spread to wherever it could.
Which takes us to the Fermi paradox. If alien technological civilizations exist, why have we not seen evidence of their existence such as Von Neumann probes or such? The article referenced above goes through a lot of the pros and cons of this argument though I found this especially interesting:
Should alien artifacts be discovered, even here on Earth, they may not be recognizable as such. The products of an alien mind and an advanced alien technology might not be perceptible or recognizable as artificial constructs. Exploratory devices in the form of bio-engineered life forms created through synthetic biology would presumably disintegrate after a point, leaving no evidence; an alien information gathering system based on molecular nanotechnology could be all around us at this very moment, completely undetected. Clarke's third law suggests that an alien civilization well in advance of humanity's might have means of investigation that are not yet conceivable to human beings.
Speaking of Clarke, as anyone who is familiar with "2001: A Space Odyssey" would know, the possibility exists that advanced aliens are already "playing God" with us. Indeed, its possible that the Bible may be correct when it says "Let us make man in our image" but it may not be a metaphysical being that we are being modeled after!

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Post #54

Post by QED »

Theists would probably grow impatient with such speculation -- yet the principles are sound enough for it to be true -- and in that case how could we, even in principle, tell a "supernatural God" from a natural one :-k

If they can't answer this question satisfactorily then isn't it obvious that theists ought to own-up to the possibility now that it has been pointed out to them?

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Post #55

Post by Metatron »

QED wrote:Theists would probably grow impatient with such speculation -- yet the principles are sound enough for it to be true -- and in that case how could we, even in principle, tell a "supernatural God" from a natural one :-k

If they can't answer this question satisfactorily then isn't it obvious that theists ought to own-up to the possibility now that it has been pointed out to them?
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for theist to admit this possibility. I guess will just have to wait for someone to dig up a Monolith in their backyard.

(You don't suppose that golden tablet that Joseph Smith found could be...........:shock: )

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Post #56

Post by Cryopyre »

Yeah, I once wrote, or attempted to write, a prose on humans being the failed experiment of an ant-species recreating their evolutionary path, needless to say the story failed, but I do like the idea, however long it has been around.

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