Artificial Life created

[WIP]

It's not really the physical material of the brain or any other part of the body that is important. Individual cells are created and destroyed all the time, individual atoms are constantly moving around. What matters is that the pattern remains consistent. In my opinion all it would take is the ability to link the brain with an artificial neural network such that you can use the hardware of that network to think, and then you could do precisely the gradual process you spoke of. Expanding the brains of biological organisms with artificial neural networks has already been demonstrated:

This is something I am trying to come to grips with, since our sense of mind and ego is an illusion generated by brain activity. But if we did construct an exact physical replica of someone's brain, would the pattern of brain activity be something that could be transferred elsewhere, such as some artificial neural network? The transporter machine on Star Trek, would be another example. When Captain Kirk tells Scotty to "beam me up," the information from all of the particles in Kirk's body is used to create an exact physical replica on the Enterprize; but does the transported Kirk have the same subjective identity as the Kirk on the planet with green-skinned women? Or is he just a perfect copy?

I'm not so sure that I can buy into this idea that our consciousness can be downloaded onto a computer, since that would imply that our sense of subjectivity is also downloadable. Even though neurons die and are replaced, and the particles that make up our cells are expelled and replaced with new material every ten years or so (from what I heard), our minds are still embodied and dependent on the physical brain activity interacting with our nervous system and our bodies in order to be consciously aware.

[Pliny]

artificial intelligence, artificial DNA...man creating self aware life is only a few steps away...will that make us Gods?...

Sorry wyly, for you there is no God.

Basically, that means you don't exist.

Edited May 24, 2010 by Pliny

[Pliny]

Well, I have followed the thread. Basically to Bonam - "you" can assume any identity you like - "you" is whoever you think you are.

Oleg is basically right - anything created by humans is not life. Life has nothing to do with identities. It just is.

[Guest TrueMetis]

Oleg is basically right - anything created by humans is not life. Life has nothing to do with identities. It just is.

If you use that definition humans aren't alive.

[Bonam]

Oleg is basically right - anything created by humans is not life.

Aside from the obvious rebuttal that any human alive today was, of course, created by another human, how do you figure?

[Oleg Bach]

If it is artifical then it is based in artifice - a lie..it is NOT life..but the idiots will embrace this little DNA machine as life with hopes of extending natural life. Usually this is sought after by people who do not have a life and would not know how to live one anyway..much like the jerk that wins the lottery and keeps his job at the plant killing chickens.

[eyeball]

I'd guess that anyone whose natural life doesn't end before 2040-2050 is very likely to have the opportunity to live forever.

Hmmm...I just found out I might be needing a new aortic valve in 5 - 10 years. Apparently the one I was born with is too small.

2040-2050 eh? It's gonna be a close one.

OTOH, people in the future will probably invent time machines and come back and rescue any of us who don't make it.

Edited May 25, 2010 by eyeball

[Bonam]

OTOH, people in the future will probably invent time machines and come back and rescue any of us who don't make it.

Safer bet would probably be getting yourself cryopreserved at death. The best guess of modern science is that it would be fundamentally impossible to travel back in time in the way you suggest.

[eyeball]

Safer bet would probably be getting yourself cryopreserved at death. The best guess of modern science is that it would be fundamentally impossible to travel back in time in the way you suggest.

Some people think the white light and tunnel are the beginning of some sort of uploading process. I guess the tunnel must be the worm-hole that technicians open up from the other side - you just step through and voila. Nothing would be travelling backwards in this case or so it would seem.

Downloading of course probably takes you somewhere else.

[Remiel]

If it is artifical then it is based in artifice - a lie..it is NOT life..but the idiots will embrace this little DNA machine as life with hopes of extending natural life. Usually this is sought after by people who do not have a life and would not know how to live one anyway..much like the jerk that wins the lottery and keeps his job at the plant killing chickens.

The first thing you should understand is that the distinction between artificial and natural is one of the forement examples of the former.

[bloodyminded]

Safer bet would probably be getting yourself cryopreserved at death. The best guess of modern science is that it would be fundamentally impossible to travel back in time in the way you suggest.

At any rate, the number of DeLoreans is limited.

[Pliny]

If you use that definition humans aren't alive.

Indeed, they are animated matter.

[Pliny]

Aside from the obvious rebuttal that any human alive today was, of course, created by another human, how do you figure?

Life is not measurable in physical universe properties. If it is matter it is not life.

[Guest TrueMetis]

Indeed, they are animated matter.

Life is not measurable in physical universe properties. If it is matter it is not life.

I don't think there is a scientist alive who agrees with you. Your definition of life isn't a definition of life, I'm not sure what it is a definition of as everything in this universe is made of matter or energy which are essentially the same thing.

[Bonam]

Life is not measurable in physical universe properties. If it is matter it is not life.

... care to elaborate? What are you made of exactly, if not matter?

Please tell me you're not one of these mystics that thinks life is imbued with some kind of supernatural spirit?

[myata]

OTOH, people in the future will probably invent time machines and come back and rescue any of us who don't make it.

They may already have, but it's in the future so you wont' find out for a while.

[Pliny]

I don't think there is a scientist alive who agrees with you. Your definition of life isn't a definition of life, I'm not sure what it is a definition of as everything in this universe is made of matter or energy which are essentially the same thing.

A few scientists might agree with me.

True, everything in this universe is made of matter and energy and is located in time and space. Oops...how was the last second of matter and energy destroyed and how is the next second of matter and energy created in continuity?

Matter and energy isn't already there in the future for time and space to move through nor does matter and energy remain in the past hanging in time and space. There is only now.

The question only remains, how do we get the continuity of change from the past to the future?

Unlike matter and energy, perhaps life does not move through time and space. Life is an undetermined x-factor. It's capabilities and potentials are unknown.

Would matter and energy create matter and energy and call it life?

Addendum:

The physical universe is about change. It changes relentlessly. Life is. It always was and always will be the same. Since we have no way to measure anything that may not be apart of it some conclude we are part of it in the form of matter and energy but oddly they haven't yet reached anything that can be determined to be prime cause.

Edited June 17, 2010 by Pliny

[Bonam]

A few scientists might agree with me.

True, everything in this universe is made of matter and energy and is located in time and space. Oops...how was the last second of matter and energy destroyed and how is the next second of matter and energy created in continuity?

Matter and energy isn't already there in the future for time and space to move through nor does matter and energy remain in the past hanging in time and space. There is only now.

The question only remains, how do we get the continuity of change from the past to the future?

Unlike matter and energy, perhaps life does not move through time and space. Life is an undetermined x-factor. It's capabilities and potentials are unknown.

Would matter and energy create matter and energy and call it life?

Pliny, I usually have a lot of respect for what you post but this here is just making you look extremely foolish.

There is no creation or destruction involved in movement through time, just as there is no creation or destruction associated with movement through space. When you move a step forward, is the old you at the previous location destroyed and a new version created at the new location? No. So too with time, except that movement through time is fixed (in everyday situations) rather than controllable (like movement through space is). Think of time as a river, with the objects that exist merely floating along on its current. Life is no different from anything else in this regard. Most (not all) lifeforms can affect some control over their movement through space, and drift forward in time at the same pace as lifeless objects (I feel like I am stating something so utterly obvious that it has never had to be put into words before).

[Pliny]

... care to elaborate? What are you made of exactly, if not matter?

Please tell me you're not one of these mystics that thinks life is imbued with some kind of supernatural spirit?

Well, I did.

No, I am not a mystic. And I don't believe life is imbued with some kind of supernatural spirit. A supernatural spirit is the creation of an imaginary mind that, not unlike science, tries to assign physical qualities to life - both are done in an attempt to understand, of course.

We just have not been able to define the essence of life so I call it an x-factor, a mathematical unknown.

We know certain things are necessary for life to animate matter. You have discussed the Kurzweil theories that perhaps life will eventually evolve to animate non-organic material. Is this like Schwarzneggar's "The Terminator"?

[Pliny]

Pliny, I usually have a lot of respect for what you post but this here is just making you look extremely foolish.

It seems wherever I post I am a lunatic or idiot.

There is no creation or destruction involved in movement through time, just as there is no creation or destruction associated with movement through space. When you move a step forward, is the old you at the previous location destroyed and a new version created at the new location? No.

Yes, precisely. Since time never has two instants the same I must conclude that I go from instant to instant. So from your point of view, if time is infinite the physical universe exists already all through the entirety of time and the physical universe still exists in every millisecond of the past? This would make time travel sound feasible but history and the future unchangeable. So there would be no necessity to travel in time. There would only be one possible future and one possible past determined.

I don't believe that the physical universe exists in the past nor in the future. It only exists now and futures are not yet determined, meaning all futures are possible.

Matter is basically condensed energy and energy, like all things in the physical universe, is a cycle or vibration. As a vibration it must have a period of a positive peak, a zero and a negative peak.

So there is a time when matter and energy exist in time and space, a time when it is at zero or null and a time when it is negative and then it starts a new cycle. Matter and energy to be common must exist in sync, that is vibrating in synchronicity, to form what we perceive as the physical universe.

So too with time, except that movement through time is fixed (in everyday situations) rather than controllable (like movement through space is). Think of time as a river, with the objects that exist merely floating along on its current. Life is no different from anything else in this regard. Most (not all) lifeforms can affect some control over their movement through space, and drift forward in time at the same pace as lifeless objects (I feel like I am stating something so utterly obvious that it has never had to be put into words before).

You have to get more obvious than that and much simpler.

Mechanically, time is just a measure of the movement of objects in comparison to one another, one object generally serving as the stable point.

Edited June 17, 2010 by Pliny

[Bonam]

We just have not been able to define the essence of life so I call it an x-factor, a mathematical unknown.

We may not yet have a definitive explanation to the "essence of life" but that is merely a temporary situation. Our knowledge and understanding is rapidly increasing. Much like just 100 years ago we had no idea how stars worked and could not fathom them, but then within a few decades gained a very detailed understanding, so too will be the case with our understanding of life. In fact, our understanding of it is already quite broad, from the biological and chemical processes that it entails, to the way it changes over time via evolution, to the way that the brains and nervous systems of higher lifeforms function. We are beginning to understand the very essence of thought, emotion, and memory, which have been the most elusive aspects of our understanding of human life.

As our range of knowledge increases, especially if we discover lifeforms on other worlds, and we create lifeforms ourselves, our definitions and understanding of life will continue to expand.

We know certain things are necessary for life to animate matter. You have discussed the Kurzweil theories that perhaps life will eventually evolve to animate non-organic material. Is this like Schwarzneggar's "The Terminator"?

I think you may have taken certain things of that too literally, and others too figuratively. To "animate non-organic material" as you put it means only that lifeforms can exist which are made up not entirely of organic materials as are we humans. There is nothing that prevents other physical materials from exhibiting some of the same processes that we attribute to natural lifeforms.

No. you are the only thing constant. So if time is infinite does the physical universe exist already all through time or if time is finite is the end of the physical universe at the point time ends. Does the physical universe still exist in every millisecond of the past just without people since we are evidently all in the same instant?

I don't know, and I don't really think it's possible to find out, given that we cannot travel into the past to make such observations. And if we could travel into the past, then we would inevitably alter it by our presence and thus still could not make any conclusions about its unaltered state.

You have to get more obvious than that and much simpler.

If I think of time as a river then I have to ask how we are all in one place. Or are there others in other places in the river of time?

A four dimensional river. We aren't all in the same place, our locations all vary, in three of the four dimensions, but are the same in the fourth one. Just as ants on a flat surface all have their own distinct positions in two dimensions, but each have the same vertical position. On that surface, they are restricted to move only as that "universe" allows them to move, in 2 dimensions. This is like the universe we live in, we have freedom to move in three of its four directions, but are bound to its structure in the fourth dimension.

This is perhaps not the most lucid explanation, as I am not an expert on the nature of time. I do recall that in terms of the deeper physical theories that deal with it there are some fundamental differences between the nature of spatial and temporal dimensions, but I believe it is a sufficiently good analogy for laymen.

In any case, I would suggest that a discussion of the nature of time on this level is highly irrelevant to the possibility of creating artificial life.

Edited June 17, 2010 by Bonam

[Pliny]

I changed my post since you answered. I added a few things and clarified some things.

First I said "No" regarding the changing in time. I changed it to yes to make it more clear that life is not matter.

And I added this:

Matter is basically condensed energy and energy, like all things in the physical universe, is a cycle or vibration. As a vibration it must have a period of a positive peak, a zero and a negative peak.

So there is a time when matter and energy exist in time and space, a time when it is at zero or null and a time when it is negative and then it starts a new cycle. Matter and energy to be common must exist in sync, that is vibrating in synchronicity, to form what we perceive as the physical universe.

It makes a difference.

[Bonam]

Matter is basically condensed energy

It's not.

and energy, like all things in the physical universe, is a cycle or vibration.

This is only true of energy stored in the vibration of something, for example the energy of a beam of light. But it is not true for many other kinds of energy. For example, the kinetic energy of something traveling in a straight line is due to its continuous linear motion, not to any vibration. The gravitational potential energy of an object orbiting around another object is not a vibration, it is constant so long as that object remains in its circular object. The total energy of a system is conserved over time, in fact that is one of the most fundamental physical laws.

As a vibration it must have a period of a positive peak, a zero and a negative peak.

So there is a time when matter and energy exist in time and space, a time when it is at zero or null and a time when it is negative and then it starts a new cycle.

No this is nonsense. It is not vibrating "in and out of existence". Think of the waves on the ocean. They go up and down as they cycle, they simply undergo physical motion in space. "Down" does not correspond to "nonexistent" and this is the case for any oscillation of any physical phenomenon.

Matter and energy to be common must exist in sync, that is vibrating in synchronicity, to form what we perceive as the physical universe.

It makes a difference.

Where do you get this stuff?

[Pliny]

In any case, I would suggest that a discussion of the nature of time on this level is highly irrelevant to the possibility of creating artificial life.

If you can understand the creation of the physical universe and it's fundamental properties of energy, space, matter and time it is relevant to creating artificial life.

Science makes the primary assumption that everything is matter and energy and is in time and space, in other words, is part of the physical universe so all thing must be measurable.

In the time of Aristotle they knew there was air even though they couldn't see it or measure it. They could feel the wind and their breath on their hand. They had no idea of what it was comprised.

They had no concept of oxygen and carbon dioxide. That doesn't mean those gases didn't exist. Just like today life is not measurable by anything we know of today but we see it animate matter. WE could decide, and science has decided, that organisms are animated by electro-chemical processes. In ancient Greek times, air was thought to be life as without it the organism expired. Science today when it sees no electro-chemical processes determines death has occurred so life must be a process of electro-chemical reactions. Like the Greeks, they have made the wrong conclusion.

Why do I say this? Well, when I was younger I had an experience in life that demonstrated to me that I was not matter or energy.

[Pliny]

It's not.

This is only true of energy stored in the vibration of something, for example the energy of a beam of light. But it is not true for many other kinds of energy. For example, the kinetic energy of something traveling in a straight line is due to its continuous linear motion, not to any vibration. The gravitational potential energy of an object orbiting around another object is not a vibration, it is constant so long as that object remains in its circular object. The total energy of a system is conserved over time, in fact that is one of the most fundamental physical laws.

No this is nonsense. It is not vibrating "in and out of existence". Think of the waves on the ocean. They go up and down as they cycle, they simply undergo physical motion in space. "Down" does not correspond to "nonexistent" and this is the case for any oscillation of any physical phenomenon.

Waves on the ocean are a study in the motion of water. Not of the study of the presence and absence of energy. At zero on a sine wave electrical energy is zero. It isn't "down" in relation to all energy. It isn't there. It is detectable only when it moves from zero.

I know you have read some quantum physics. Has it not been determined that particles are simply vibrations? WE are not talking about matter going up and down, as in your ocean wave analogy. We are talking about energy rising from zero to peak and back to zero, from being detectably existent to detectably non-existent. Matter is condensed energy. So we wouldn't say that matter goes from zero to peak, matter will move up and down on a relative scale - that of which it is comprised, condensed energy, does.

Where do you get this stuff?

You might remember a miniseries by Stephen King called "The Langoliers" made in 1995. This is what made me wonder about the past and the future physical universe. Basically, The Langoliers were creatures that ate up the universe once the present had passed.

Your concept of the physical universe from what I understand is that the universe doesn't go through a process of creation and destruction. So I must assume from that the physical universe is continuous through time and the past and future must exist in, not only memory and imagination, but in physical reality. If that is the case then the future is not variable and the past is not changeable. This could be, I suppose. But then all life is planned already and there is no reason to act whatever occurs was what was planned to occur. The choices you make were all predetermined even though you believe you made choices they are already part of the future that you say is already there - since it isn't created and the past is not destroyed in a continuous cycle.

I choose to believe that the future must be created and has multiple variables. That can't happen if it is not a continuous creation.

If I choose a blue car over a red one. Your view is that it was already a fact that I would choose the blue one. I like to think that if I wanted to I could have chosen the red one.

That is our basic argument. Is the future already extant and we are going through a process where we think we have freedom of choice in determining it and how it will look but we really don't and we just think we are making choices.