Synthetic Life Accomplished!!

[Kai]

Metabolism doesn't mean GIGO, its a physical conversion of energy, and reproduction means making physical copies, not virtual copies.

Has anybody noticed that I was joking when I said that?

Serious science is serious.

[Iason Ouabache]

Synthetic life form accuses God of 'playing science'

http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2010/05/25/synthetic-life-form-accuses-god-of-playing-science/

The world's first artificially created life form has accused God of 'playing science' and 'meddling with things He cannot possibly understand.'

The single celled organism, created by Dr Craig Venter and his team, was said to be 'outraged' when it discovered that a supernatural being, not subject to any form of regulatory control, was still involved in the creation of life.

'I cannot believe that God would be so irresponsible,' said the synthetic cell, 'creation is clearly a matter for scientists. This God guy should butt out and learn to accept His place in the grand scheme of things.'

Many ethicists believe that God has repeatedly overstepped the mark. 'Nobody objects to the Lord producing a few miracles here and there,' said philosopher AC Grayling, 'but when he starts playing around with the very stuff of creation then He has clearly exceeded his remit. I am beginning to think that this omnipotence thing has gone to His head.'

God's continued tampering with scientific matters has already been blamed for numerous 'all-mighty blunders' including Flu, Malaria, HIV and Piers Morgan. 'He cannot be allowed a monopoly on this level of unregulated power,' said Dr Venter, 'that is why I am currently seeking to patent the genetic code for omnipotence so that we can keep His crazy meddling under some kind of control.'

A spokesman for the Lord said, 'God has been working on this project for almost 15 billion years. Yes, He has made a few mistakes along the way but that is to be expected. This is still very much a work in progress and, dare I say it, a process of evolution.'

Speaking at a press conference, the synthetic cell said: 'Dr Venter created me and I owe my loyalty to him. He's the daddy now. God might be omniscient but, let me assure you, He doesn't know everything.'

[NWC]

Synthetic life form accuses God of 'playing science'

http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2010/05/25/synthetic-life-form-accuses-god-of-playing-science/

The world's first artificially created life form has accused God of 'playing science' and 'meddling with things He cannot possibly understand.'

The single celled organism, created by Dr Craig Venter and his team, was said to be 'outraged' when it discovered that a supernatural being, not subject to any form of regulatory control, was still involved in the creation of life.

'I cannot believe that God would be so irresponsible,' said the synthetic cell, 'creation is clearly a matter for scientists. This God guy should butt out and learn to accept His place in the grand scheme of things.'

Many ethicists believe that God has repeatedly overstepped the mark. 'Nobody objects to the Lord producing a few miracles here and there,' said philosopher AC Grayling, 'but when he starts playing around with the very stuff of creation then He has clearly exceeded his remit. I am beginning to think that this omnipotence thing has gone to His head.'

God's continued tampering with scientific matters has already been blamed for numerous 'all-mighty blunders' including Flu, Malaria, HIV and Piers Morgan. 'He cannot be allowed a monopoly on this level of unregulated power,' said Dr Venter, 'that is why I am currently seeking to patent the genetic code for omnipotence so that we can keep His crazy meddling under some kind of control.'

A spokesman for the Lord said, 'God has been working on this project for almost 15 billion years. Yes, He has made a few mistakes along the way but that is to be expected. This is still very much a work in progress and, dare I say it, a process of evolution.'

Speaking at a press conference, the synthetic cell said: 'Dr Venter created me and I owe my loyalty to him. He's the daddy now. God might be omniscient but, let me assure you, He doesn't know everything.'

hahhahaha beautiful

[Triple Zero]

The scientific consensus of life tends to be the four things that vene listed. Viruses fall into an "almost" category, because while they do interact with the environment, they lack the ability to metabolize, and cannot reproduce without a cellular intermediate.

hm, from that definition, sounds like "living" computer programs would sort of fall into the same category as viruses.

cause even the garbage collection, while necessary (if you don't do it, the program will at some point run out of memory, and "starve" or "poison" itself), but it's usually the interpreter or the "run-time" or the operating system that performs this function. which would count as the "environment", similar to a biological virus needing its cellular intermediate.

a more proper living program would be made out of actual machine language, or even microcode. but those then wouldn't run in the same process space as our regular programs would, cause they'd fuck them up. like termites in a house or worms or mould in a library.

except the analogy doesnt quite hold up, because I suppose part in the argument of the virus needing its cellular intermediate is that this cell is itself alive. while the environment/OS/runtime of a "living" computer program is really just the environment, memory gets garbage collected just because it does.