Kai: "New forms of life"?

[Kai]

What is the concept of "life" even for, then?  Is it supposed to mean things that we can eat and/or fuck?

The concept of life is useful in the context of science, especially biology, which is the study of living things. Life is not a unit so much as a process, and if you define that process to include all sorts of non living things then it essentially becomes meaningless to talk about and investigate.

Its kinda like saying "nothing is true, everything is permissible" to every single question of reality and morality. It makes the whole idea of discussing and investigating reality and morality meaningless.

[Elder Iptuous]

But, Kai, you must admit that this is a particularly tricky term.  I can see why some people might throw their hands up, or simply say 'i know it when i see it'.
For instance, what about a gradual replacement thought experiment?  if you are unwilling to accept an intelligent robot as 'alive', when do you draw the line with slowly replacing someone with artificial parts?  (assuming we could replace the brain piecemeal, etc....)

[Jasper]

Iptuous,

Bicentennial Man (the BOOK, not the movie) is a good place to start.  It pretty much replicates the ethical questions that would be brought up in your thought experiment.

[Kai]

But, Kai, you must admit that this is a particularly tricky term.  I can see why some people might throw their hands up, or simply say 'i know it when i see it'.
For instance, what about a gradual replacement thought experiment?  if you are unwilling to accept an intelligent robot as 'alive', when do you draw the line with slowly replacing someone with artificial parts?  (assuming we could replace the brain piecemeal, etc....)

I think that alive and conscious need to be considered as two separate things. Both have different but somewhat similar moral obligations.

[Telarus]

What do they say-- every seven or so years we get brand new organs through cellular life and death? Considering that even though our forms tend to appear to look the same doesn't mean that we're using the same cells we used 10 years ago. 

I think the process of growth and decay is essential toward determining what is considered 'lifeform.'

Yeah, our organs cycle at different rates. Theres a few types of cells that don't cycle, like the pacemaker cells in the heart or neurons, but otherwise the body changes hands over time.

Even the cells that don't die have to constantly replace their constituent molecules over time.

something like every 12 years you have a whole different body in terms of atoms.

Which shows just how emergent consciousness is.

1) This validates the concept of "Mana" I got from Hawai'ian culture enough for me to use it as a working concept.

2) I _Love_ Theo Jansen's psuedo-animals. Hit-up youtube and search for "Animaris Rhinoceros", that's his big /weight-mover-animal/. So fucking impressive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7Z73HFx3CI

Theo knows his art isn't quite "life" yet, but he says he's been working out a way for them to replace parts and build new ones themselves.

What I find impressive, really, is the hip-joints he invented to make the things move. He basically re-invented the wheel (stable horizontal axis) so his creations could be more efficient on the sand.

http://www.strandbeest.es/strandbeest/theo-jansen/idea/

Legs prove to be more efficient on sand than wheels. Wheels have to work their way through the sand and shift relatively more of it as a result. Try pulling a cart through loose sand and it's hard work. The advantage of wheels, however, is that they don't lurch; their axle is at a constant height, which saves energy. But the legs of the strandbeest have this same advantage; they don't lurch either. The upper and lower leg parts move relative to one another in such a way that the hip joint (at the juncture with the upper leg) remains at a constant height, just as with the axle of a wheel. But they don't have the wheel's disadvantages; they don't need to touch every inch of the ground along the way, as a wheel has to. Legs can leave out patches of ground by stepping over them. Which is why you can better have legs than wheels on sandy ground.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GgOn66knqA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CufN43By79s

[Kai]

don't get me wrong, I'd love to see hydraulic based lifeforms, but until they can reproduce without our help they aren't really living. Biology necessarily requires that part.

Damn, hydraulic based organisms. So cool.

Still, I really don't believe that he can make them so they can survive on their own and reproduce.

[Vene]

Damn, hydraulic based organisms. So cool.

[Triple Zero]

don't get me wrong, I'd love to see hydraulic based lifeforms, but until they can reproduce without our help they aren't really living. Biology necessarily requires that part.

Damn, hydraulic based organisms. So cool.

Still, I really don't believe that he can make them so they can survive on their own and reproduce.

didn't click the link, but i assume these are the "strandbeesten".

my brother (studies Industrial Design) once went up to visit his construction yard, and played with one of the beasts. the artist himself wasnt in, btw, but the fence was open they figured they came all that way and just had to do it

anyway, it's more of an artistic thing, these beasts. and artists often need to make up cool sounding stories or talks about their art, and the discussion on whether it constitutes "life" is of course always an interesting angle (even if it obviously doesn't).

about the replacing parts, well I doubt he could pull it off, but on the other hand, these beasts are already super complex and it's amazing how they simply run on nothing but the wind on the beach.

[Elder Iptuous]

don't get me wrong, I'd love to see hydraulic based lifeforms, but until they can reproduce without our help they aren't really living. Biology necessarily requires that part.

Damn, hydraulic based organisms. So cool.

Still, I really don't believe that he can make them so they can survive on their own and reproduce.

'reproduce'.....
how trivial can this be before you give credit?
Presume you have an environment that is littered with robot 'halves' that are inert by themselves, but if assembled, are able to take two other halves and stick them together.  pretty trivial, but does it count?  If not, why?  does it have to be internal to the creature to count?  have some number of constituent pieces available in the environment?  constituent pieces have to be under some threshold of complexity?

Felix: Bicentenial man was exactly what i was thinking about in that post,...

[Vene]

Presume you have an environment that is littered with robot 'halves' that are inert by themselves, but if assembled, are able to take two other halves and stick them together.  pretty trivial, but does it count?  If not, why?  does it have to be internal to the creature to count?  have some number of constituent pieces available in the environment?  constituent pieces have to be under some threshold of complexity?

I think that's roughly how life started, what with the polymerization of nucleic acids, proteins, and all.*

*I know the question of abiogenesis isn't answered yet, but there are some damn good, evidenced, ideas.

[Kai]

Yeah.

The funny thing about THIS type of life is that it would be sorta backwards. We think polymerization and replication of nucleic acids happened first (reproduction) and that metabolism and interaction with the environment came second.

These things are coming from the opposite direction.



No, its NOT trivial. I've said it, I'll say it again, life is a PROCESS, and if we start including things that haven't come about by that or a very similar process the whole definition is meaningless.

[Xooxe]

'reproduce'.....
how trivial can this be before you give credit?
Presume you have an environment that is littered with robot 'halves' that are inert by themselves, but if assembled, are able to take two other halves and stick them together.  pretty trivial, but does it count?  If not, why?  does it have to be internal to the creature to count?  have some number of constituent pieces available in the environment?  constituent pieces have to be under some threshold of complexity?

If you have robots sticking other halves together to make more robots, then isn't that just a robot performing a predefined task? The structure of the first robot did not determine the one that it just assembled. There is also only one type which can possibly be made. You could have a completely different type of robot sticking the halves together too.

It seems to me that when we talk about reproduction, we are saying that the entity exposes information about its structure to the materials which will go into the process.

[Template]

Yeah.

The funny thing about THIS type of life is that it would be sorta backwards. We think polymerization and replication of nucleic acids happened first (reproduction) and that metabolism and interaction with the environment came second.

These things are coming from the opposite direction.



No, its NOT trivial. I've said it, I'll say it again, life is a PROCESS, and if we start including things that haven't come about by that or a very similar process the whole definition is meaningless.

In what sense similar?  Is there an objective test for similarity?  How much analogy can we use?  Can something life-like exist in computer-space (ie, a digitally-rendered universe)?  Is a self-replicator within the game LIFE alive?

Are there living minds?  Minds can be said to metabolize and build themsellves from information/ideas/memes.  Are there also minds that, by my definition, do not live?

Simply put, should I consider life to reside in the chemical/physical plane only?

[Kai]

Yeah.

The funny thing about THIS type of life is that it would be sorta backwards. We think polymerization and replication of nucleic acids happened first (reproduction) and that metabolism and interaction with the environment came second.

These things are coming from the opposite direction.



No, its NOT trivial. I've said it, I'll say it again, life is a PROCESS, and if we start including things that haven't come about by that or a very similar process the whole definition is meaningless.

In what sense similar?  Is there an objective test for similarity?  How much analogy can we use?  Can something life-like exist in computer-space (ie, a digitally-rendered universe)?  Is a self-replicator within the game LIFE alive?

Are there living minds?  Minds can be said to metabolize and build themsellves from information/ideas/memes.  Are there also minds that, by my definition, do not live?

Simply put, should I consider life to reside in the chemical/physical plane only?

Yes.

Minds aka consciousness is an emergent property of neurology /as far as we know now/, because no one has found a mind outside of that context. If you found some other way to come about that, then you should consider it possibly. No, minds do not metabolize information. Metabolism is energy transfer, not information transfer. Different level of emergence, different system, different language to describe said system.

Life is a process, a very specific process, a very physical/chemcal process, and outside of that context it doesn't even make sense to talk about it. Biology is not just a string of useless observations, its a massive framework all tied together by common descent and evolution.  Dobzansky said "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution", and Agassiz said "Facts are stupid things until brought into connection with some general law." When you start adding things to systems that don't belong in the taxonomy of those systems, you get the sort of polyphyly that cladists STILL have trouble with, even years after Henning. Biology, like all good science, is testable, is question inducing, is hypothesis based. You wouldn't include the fishes in the arthropods in a classification scheme, so why would you include things in biology, the study of life, that don't belong there? It becomes useless and scientifically meaningless to talk about life outside these ideas.

[Template]

Yeah.

The funny thing about THIS type of life is that it would be sorta backwards. We think polymerization and replication of nucleic acids happened first (reproduction) and that metabolism and interaction with the environment came second.

These things are coming from the opposite direction.



No, its NOT trivial. I've said it, I'll say it again, life is a PROCESS, and if we start including things that haven't come about by that or a very similar process the whole definition is meaningless.

In what sense similar?  Is there an objective test for similarity?  How much analogy can we use?  Can something life-like exist in computer-space (ie, a digitally-rendered universe)?  Is a self-replicator within the game LIFE alive?

Are there living minds?  Minds can be said to metabolize and build themsellves from information/ideas/memes.  Are there also minds that, by my definition, do not live?

Simply put, should I consider life to reside in the chemical/physical plane only?

Yes.

Minds aka consciousness is an emergent property of neurology /as far as we know now/, because no one has found a mind outside of that context. If you found some other way to come about that, then you should consider it possibly. No, minds do not metabolize information. Metabolism is energy transfer, not information transfer. Different level of emergence, different system, different language to describe said system.

Life is a process, a very specific process, a very physical/chemcal process, and outside of that context it doesn't even make sense to talk about it. Biology is not just a string of useless observations, its a massive framework all tied together by common descent and evolution.  Dobzansky said "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution", and Agassiz said "Facts are stupid things until brought into connection with some general law." When you start adding things to systems that don't belong in the taxonomy of those systems, you get the sort of polyphyly that cladists STILL have trouble with, even years after Henning. Biology, like all good science, is testable, is question inducing, is hypothesis based. You wouldn't include the fishes in the arthropods in a classification scheme, so why would you include things in biology, the study of life, that don't belong there? It becomes useless and scientifically meaningless to talk about life outside these ideas.

My apologies.  I needed to get it through my thick skull that "life" is a technical term for you.  I'm in a technical field, too, and posess a good liberal-arts-style vocabulary to boot, so I also have to remind myself to not fucking the whole internet over word-usage (much less grammar).  I now see that I was asking the wrong things from you.

I doubt that cellular automata has reached complexity enough to leave computer science.
Memetics is memetics.
I hope you have a spot in the template for non-Earth life, to recognize it.

It becomes useless and scientifically meaningless to talk about life outside these ideas.

May I interpret this as, "Biology is defined to work within the territory defined in Biology"?  I will recognize an exclusive claim to one definition-but not all definitions-of life.  Biology may be the best to describe the dance of self-animated dust, ash, and wet; but I would not consider it an appropriate tool for understanding my life and how to live it.