Life and none life, where is the boundary. (advance, material, virus)
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I knew a guy who defined life as having at least one six-pack and non-life as being sober and having to work.
A follow-up question: Why is there any need to define a boundary? I suspect religion or philosophy trying to intrude.
I agree!
To the OP - last I looked, there is controversy about whether there is a sharp division between life and non-life. The discovery of viruses upended a lot of apple carts. The discovery of prions hasn't helped either.
My own view is that, as with a lot of science, dualism actually doesn't work that well past a first approximation for the purpose of sorting. There does not appear to be anything physically special about "life" - what we recognize as life does not require a vital force, it appears to be simply an emergent property of matter - just another way that matter/energy organizes itself - because our universe's physical laws allow it to do so.
I have to say, though, that I don't spend a lot of thinking about this. It seems kind of - trivial. I think it makes more sense to spend more time delving into the phenomena around us than trying to make those phenomena fit into rigid categories. The universe is simply not obligated to care about our traditional divisions.
To the OP - last I looked, there is controversy about whether there is a sharp division between life and non-life. The discovery of viruses upended a lot of apple carts. The discovery of prions hasn't helped either.
My own view is that, as with a lot of science, dualism actually doesn't work that well past a first approximation for the purpose of sorting. There does not appear to be anything physically special about "life" - what we recognize as life does not require a vital force, it appears to be simply an emergent property of matter - just another way that matter/energy organizes itself - because our universe's physical laws allow it to do so.
I have to say, though, that I don't spend a lot of thinking about this. It seems kind of - trivial. I think it makes more sense to spend more time delving into the phenomena around us than trying to make those phenomena fit into rigid categories. The universe is simply not obligated to care about our traditional divisions.
I find that hard to believe , life isnt special?
I say if life isn't special there would be nothing beyond rocks , liquids and gas.
That self sustaining, self replicating forms arose and proceeded to a form that ponders the universe is mind blowing.
That is arises from or can be mathematically modelled by simple formula, I mean where the hell is your sense of wonder.
Nature by numbers. https://youtu.be/kkGeOWYOFoA
I find that hard to believe , life isnt special?
I say if life isn't special there would be nothing beyond rocks , liquids and gas.
That self sustaining, self replicating forms arose and proceeded to a form that ponders the universe is mind blowing.
That is arises from or can be mathematically modelled by simple formula, I mean where the hell is your sense of wonder.
Nature by numbers. https://youtu.be/kkGeOWYOFoA
"Special" has a lot of meanings.
Life isn't miraculous, it is an ordinary manifestation of matter/energy in certain conditions. Just as rocks, liquids and gas are.
My sense of wonder is quite intact, thank you. Especially about the biological world, which is why I have a degree in it.
I find that hard to believe , life isnt special?
I say if life isn't special there would be nothing beyond rocks , liquids and gas.
That self sustaining, self replicating forms arose and proceeded to a form that ponders the universe is mind blowing.
That is arises from or can be mathematically modelled by simple formula, I mean where the hell is your sense of wonder.
Nature by numbers. https://youtu.be/kkGeOWYOFoA
1. All you are saying here is that maybe you don't think liquids are special from rocks, and that gas is special from liquid. I think they are all special from each other, and behave in special specific ways. That would include living and quasi-living organizations of particulates.
2. The Sun, for example, is largely self-sustaining. And life isn't as self-sustaining as you'd think. Heterotrophic life (animal life) needs outside energy through oxygen gas (included in the air we breath) helping suck it up from other types of more complex molecular matter (included in the food we eat).
3. Self-replicating, on the other hand (like was mentioned previously), applies to some "lifeless" proteins (prions) all by themselves --when they find the appropriate "material sources" to replicate with/on (other specific proteins as a "food source" let's call them).
Now, that things can "ponder" is still indeed a mystery, especially in the philosophical/self-evident "qualia" aspect of thought, cognitive experience, and imagination. And we might never know because we can't leave our own subjectivity.
But once robots become indistinguishable from humans (or demonstrably more "advanced" in terms of seeming to truly think, experience, or imagine), then we can begin to say that as Robots are not magical, neither is higher-level thought and emotion (which is destroyed by brain injury and I would assume can be wiped clean in brain rehealing).
Remember though, there were many humans denying the humanity in other tribes of people. So that might also happen with androids and other types of modeled sentience processors.
I love mathematics and look at it with wonder, I don't just love life and find it and only it wonderous from afar. So then life explained by math is twice as wonderful. It's really just life up close and better understood.
"But once robots become indistinguishable from humans (or demonstrably more "advanced" in terms of seeming to truly think, experience, or imagine), then we can begin to say that as Robots are not magical, neither is higher-level thought and emotion (which is destroyed by brain injury and I would assume can be wiped clean in brain rehealing). "
[...]
But once robots become indistinguishable from humans (or demonstrably more "advanced" in terms of seeming to truly think, experience, or imagine), then we can begin to say that as Robots are not magical, neither is higher-level thought and emotion (which is destroyed by brain injury and I would assume can be wiped clean in brain rehealing).
[...]
So you believe robots can be made sentient.?
Yes, but only if physicalism is wholly true in application to sentient beings. And I wouldn't be devastated if it wasn't. Still, as an example, I already think that dogs and cats can experience sensory "qualia", and can imagine for themselves (dreams, plans, etc), and they do seem to think in order to remember or figure something out.
With the right connections, the robots should feel as if though they can think for themselves, imagine for themselves, experience sensory "qualia," etc.
Such an advancement would also (a bit later?) allow for the possibility of transhumanism, and exchanging "hardware" bodies.
Yes, but only if physicalism is wholly true in application to sentient beings. And I wouldn't be devastated if it wasn't. Still, as an example, I already think that dogs and cats can experience sensory "qualia", and can imagine for themselves (dreams, plans, etc), and they do seem to think in order to remember or figure something out.
With the right connections, the robots should feel as if though they can think for themselves, imagine for themselves, experience sensory "qualia," etc.
Such an advancement would also (a bit later?) allow for the possibility of transhumanism, and exchanging "hardware" bodies.
The universe has been around for 13+ billion years. If sentient, immortal machines are possible, then why isn't the universe overrun by them?
The universe has been around for 13+ billion years. If sentient, immortal machines are possible, then why isn't the universe overrun by them?
Could be because sentient machines are only possible at 14-15 billion years, and can only begin to seem to overrun the ever-expanding universe at 25 billion. Just throwing a probability-guess out there as you did.
Also, neither sentience nor mechanics are immortal. They are both fundamentally based on inconstancy and live in impermanence.
I think you meant "perpetual" sentient machines, rather than all the baggage that the word "immortal" can entail for the egoists.
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