Artificial Life (Computer based):

[SteveMcKay]

If you don’t know about Alife here is a brief description of what Artificial Life is that I shamelessly plagiarized:

“Artificial Life ("AL" or "Alife") is the name given to a new discipline that studies "natural" life by attempting to recreate biological phenomena from scratch within computers and other "artificial" media. Alife complements the traditional analytic approach of traditional biology with a synthetic approach in which, rather than studying biological phenomena by taking apart living organisms to see how they work, one attempts to put together systems that behave like living organisms.”- Chris G. Langton

So my basic question is: If a program simulates life in enough detail that it fulfills the following statement “If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck” should it be considered alive? Or does "life" have to be biological to be considered alive?

[SoylentGreen]

I may be wrong but, if it's life then it should be able to replicate.
It may walk, quack and look but can it fu....

[gela]

What if you started with life, then put a microchip in its brain so its organic body was completely controlled by a computer?

Technically it would be alive..

[SteveMcKay]

I may be wrong but, if it's life then it should be able to replicate.
It may walk, quack and look but can it fu....

LOL. Yes two "parent" Alife programs can exchange data to create a third program that has some characteristics from both parent programs. Does that count?

[Kuldeep]

Natural Duck has mind, which reacts to the situation around of its own having full spectrum of emotions depicting without any artificial progrmme fitted in it. A. Duck would have all the functions controlled from outside but from inside of its would not do anything. So A. Duck can never be considered as alive in reality.

[grandpa]

Natural Duck has mind, which reacts to the situation around
of its own having full spectrum of emotions depicting without
any artificial progrmme fitted in it.
A. Duck would have all the functions controlled from outside
but from inside of its would not do anything.

Does a Coke machine have a mind? To my knowledge, no. And the same with would be true of other electronics, unless something drastic happens and humans can create genuine emotions and thought for machines.

Grandpa h.

[SoylentGreen]

A computer that could run a program like that would probably be super fast. If it could think a thousand times faster than human then it would perceive us as we would perceive slow moving trees. IMO.
would it consider us intelligent?

stevemckay
Alife programs can exchange data to create a third program that has some characteristics from both parent programs.

It wouldn't have to go to all the trouble of mixing data /DNA. Single cell life forms self replicate, or with a modem there could even be a collective or hive mind controlling thousands of other computer life like ants or bees.

[Kuldeep]

Does a Coke machine have a mind? To my knowledge, no. And the same with would be true of other electronics, unless something drastic happens and humans can create genuine emotions and thought for machines.

Grandpa h.

Human does create emotions in fetus using sexual itercourse of male and female or artificially outside in testube/womb like environment using natural egg and sperm but may, never be possible to create in A.machines.

A computer that could run a program like that would probably be super fast. If it could think a thousand times faster than human then it would perceive us as we would perceive slow moving trees. IMO.
would it consider us intelligent?

Whatever that computer consider us but we would NEVER consider it ALIVE, which is the point of debate !!

It wouldn't have to go to all the trouble of mixing data /DNA. Single cell life forms self replicate, or with a modem there could even be a collective or hive mind controlling thousands of other computer life like ants or bees.

IT (A-machine) may do anything fantastic but cannot be considered alive untill, it is operated unaided from outside progrmme i.e. by mind like existing in any living being.

Somewhere else I went on to mention: plants which have been scientifically proved to be having life must have also a mind in the brain existing in their roots,??? No, it is my logical feeling

[grandpa]

Human does create emotions in fetus using sexual itercourse of
male and female or artificially outside in testube/womb like
environment using natural egg and sperm but may, never be
possible to create in A.machines.

But can a machine feel genuine pain or pleasure?

Grandpa h.

[SoylentGreen]

Kuldeep
Whatever that computer consider us but we would NEVER consider it ALIVE, which is the point of debate !!

Hmmm! do I sense a touch of xenophobia here? Some ancient lord muttering how slaves would NEVER be considered FREE.

by mind like existing in any living being

Oh goody now my turn to wrap your head around some existentialist mind warp.
How do you define MIND, and what is BEING?

Somewhere else I went on to mention: plants which have been scientifically proved to be having life must have also a mind in the brain existing in their roots

brain? in the root?

[SteveMcKay]

Does a Coke machine have a mind? To my knowledge, no. And the same with would be true of other electronics, unless something drastic happens and humans can create genuine emotions and thought for machines.

Grandpa h.

Well a fly is alive and I assume thinks to a degree but it does not have emotions. Keep in mind I am talking about artificial life (AL) not artificial intelligence (AI). Now AI could be based on AL techniques (that is called the bottom up approach) but AL does not have to result in human level thought.

[Tim]

But can a machine feel genuine pain or pleasure?

Grandpa h.

I bet they could be programmed to feel physical sensations. Aren't feelings of pain or pleasure merely electronic signals picked up by sensors in the body and transmitted to the brain for interpretation? It seems like this could be replicated in a machine.

EDIT: Nevermind, I see that you were talking about emotions. In that regard, I think it would be far more complicated to program a machine capable of real emotions. Ultimately though, emotions are a reaction to a stimulus. In my opinion, emotions are way too complex to ever really replicate in a machine, but for what it's worth I don't know much about the subject.

[Kuldeep]

Hmmm! do I sense a touch of xenophobia here? Some ancient lord muttering how slaves would NEVER be considered FREE.

Not exactly in those terms dear ! I only meant the way we consider human, animals, birds, plants etc alive, we would NEVER be able to consider programmed A.Living machine alive. Probably I mean from emotion point of view.

Oh goody now my turn to wrap your head around some existentialist mind warp.

How can you do that when you are not aware what mind is ??? Since in your next sentence you asked me what MIND is !!!

How do you define MIND, and what is BEING?

I like such questions since while wrting my post I expect such questions.

Though, I have defined both the terms many times in my posts else where, I repeat for you as:

MIND is a metaphysical bridge between the physical stature of a living creature (Note: I have purposefully removed being since that I would define next) and BEING which turns living creature into an INDIVIDUAL.

BEING, also a metaphysical term, on ther other hand is the UNIVERSAL
CONSCIOUSNESS. which is the basic life force and is eternally existing all around...you may term it even God or anything else.

Elaborating a bit so that my clumsy looking definitions of MIND & BEING would be grasped to some extent by all....Look at the following reversible reaction

World Environment <===>Physical Body<===>MIND (Bridge)<===>BEING

Living creature interacts involving all the four reactants and products as you would call them as a chemist. While; Artifical Machine would always limit their interactions to first two reactants and products ( World Environment <===>Physical Body). Without elaboration the last two reaction and products [MIND (Bridge)<===>BEING] are responsible fior emotions, ego and feeling of existing as some individual.

brain? in the root?

This at present is just a hypotheisis. The way human and animal is not able to survive without the brain (existing in the head) but continues to live even if any limb, or any other internal or external organ is removed (with exception of some). Same way plants continue to live if its branches and leaves are removed but can never live if roots are removed. Based on this similarity based on logic funda I went to say plants brain must be existing in its roots if at plants do have brain, mind and are beings like humans and animals

[grandpa]

Well a fly is alive and I assume thinks to
a degree but it does not have emotions.
Keep in mind I am talking about artificial life (AL)
not artificial intelligence (AI).

Flies do have emotions, at least in the sense of "flight or flight." Other things, like protozoan flagella, most certainly exhibit life as well. Life, like intelligence, is not just one static thing, so one can define it in a wide variety of ways. In the most generally accepted sense, life means organic growth, metabolism and reproduction.

Grandpa h.

[grandpa]

I bet they could be programmed to feel physical sensations.
Aren't feelings of pain or pleasure merely electronic signals picked
up by sensors in the body and transmitted to the
brain for interpretation?

Well, I'd say they are slightly more complex than that. There is something to what you say, though. There have been many efforts to "program" people mentally, and in a purely clinical, scientific way. Some of it is with behavior research (like if someone has brain damage and doctors are experimenting), some of it is just indoctrination. The military is well-known for its "behavior modification techniques" and, frankly, it's the main reason I haven't joined military service. There's something cynical about trying to convert people into machines, or trying to convert machines into living things.

It's true that people can artificially create life, in the sense that all manmade things are "artificial." But the idea that a robot would be truly alive is questionable.

Grandpa h.

[Derek Wolff]

Computers have to run on its programming solely, it has no free will, therefore no matter how real it is not alive. Maybe when articifial intelligence is invented we can have this argument.

[Thanatos]

Computers have to run on its programming solely, it has no free will, therefore no matter how real it is not alive. Maybe when articifial intelligence is invented we can have this argument.

Insects are considered alive, and their neural architecture does not leave much room for free will. Unlike us they have an inflexible set of responses that closely resemble the programming of your computer. For example, moths are programmed to fly towards the moon and if they see another light source that matches their definition they will fly towards it no matter what. This is why you see insects banging themselves against sodium lamps at night until they die.

Computers cannot produce digital life equal to humans at this time. Unlike a moth our neural architecture continually remodels itself and is hundreds of thousands of times larger. Even emulating a mouse-sized neural network is cutting edge.

IBM's BlueGene L supercomputer simulates half a mouse brain - Engadget

[SoylentGreen]

Kuldeep
Probably I mean from emotion point of view.

That has a way of coloring our reasoning.

How can you do that when you are not aware what mind is

I should note that I define existentialist as anything I read twice and still go "What did he say?":)

MIND is a metaphysical bridge between the physical stature of a living creature ...
and BEING which turns living creature into an INDIVIDUAL.BEING, also a metaphysical term, on the other hand is the UNIVERSAL

That's Eastern philosophy for you.
I would say MIND is the by product of the physical stature of a living creature, and BEING is self awareness, there is no other hand.

CONSCIOUSNESS. which is the basic life force and is eternally existing all around...you may term it even God or anything else.

And this is where we part company, the only difference between MIND and CONSCIOUSNESS is the spelling. There is no evidence to suggest that CONSCIOUSNESS is external n or eternal.

This at present is just a hypotheisis

A bad , bad hypothesis.
A brain has no function without a nervous system and a nervous system requires a cerebral cortex. Trees have been dissected and examined by the millions and not one sign of any of these organs.
Any indications of awareness of surrounding that have been reported in trees can be explained through vibration effects on cell structure.

[SoylentGreen]

Computers have to run on its programming solely, it has no free will, therefore no matter how real it is not alive. Maybe when articifial intelligence is invented we can have this argument.

The problem is that the only real understanding of free will that we have is metaphysical. If we can't pin point exactly what it is then at what stage can we accept it in a computer.
In a metaphysical sense a computer is using a measure of free will when it's programming allows it to adjust it's software without the need of human input.

[Kuldeep]

That's Eastern philosophy for you.
I would say MIND is the by product of the physical stature of a living creature, and BEING is self awareness, there is no other hand.

It is not question of eastern or western. It is question of approaching factual reality.

Mind can never be only by product of the physical stature of a living creature, since there is a hairline difference between a living and a dead creature. Brain functions due to ample blood supply from heart and heart functions due to proper nervous function of the brain. Which of the two starts initiating, nobody till has known. If you feel there is no third party involved that is your choice to be away from the reality. But go and see literature on reincarnation and memories from past lives, you would get an idea of third THAT party, the metaphysical mind and super consciousness SELF, which have carried forward past memories of physical mind to next physical brain/body.

Again BEING is self awareness of whom ??? That whom is the real BEING !!!

So, there is other hand, which is metaphysical. to repeat

A bad , bad hypothesis

Give few redings to understand my logic that I put forth the hypothesis before hastly terming it bad.

What you said about brain of human or animals is what is now established. Plant consciousness and its mind is not yet even to be imagined so it too early to mention my hypothesis bad or good. Please just ty to understand what is my point I have mentioned therein. Let me reat for your ready reference:

Living animals die when head (brain) is cut but not when other parts are cut. Same way plant dies when roots are cut but when other parts are cut. S I deduce plant's bain must lie in the roots.