What is life?

[duordi]

I am interested in responses from both the creation based and evolutionary based perspective to the following scenario,
first to discover if anyone has a solution and secondly to determine if solutions offered will be identical or different for individuals with different perspectives.

I will define "life" as a beings ability to be aware that it is thinking.

Considering the above definition.
When would a computer program be considered alive?

Suppose a computer program did achieve life as defined above.

What question could be asked a computer program, and what information must the computer program given in return,
which would prove that the computer program was indeed alive?

If you ( your being ) were in a computer program, how could you prove that you were alive.

How do you know everyone around you is alive as defined above?

Feel free to address one or more of the questions above.
Please include a statement about your preferential belief as to the origin of life.

Duane

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I will define "life" as a beings ability to be aware that it is thinking.

why would you define life this way?
comatose patients die then regain life when they awaken?
sentience is a hard thing to show. what do you achieve if you define this as alive rather than the usual self-aware or sentience?
so a baby isn't alive until what 2?
and an alzihmer's patient dies when exactly? the full day after losing sentience, or is it 2 days?
doesn't appear to be very useful

 

[Gracchus]

Most definitions of life would include cabbages, mushrooms, and bacteria.

Life is the chemistry of imperfectly self-replicating molecules.

 

[duordi]

I will define "life" as a beings ability to be aware that it is thinking.

why would you define life this way?
comatose patients die then regain life when they awaken?
sentience is a hard thing to show. what do you achieve if you define this as alive rather than the usual self-aware or sentience?
so a baby isn't alive until what 2?
and an alzihmer's patient dies when exactly? the full day after losing sentience, or is it 2 days?
doesn't appear to be very useful

My definition of life is specific to humans to allow the distinction of humans from animals and plants etc.

This is necessary to consider if a computer program will attain this ability.

Duane

 

[birdan]

You might want to read up on the Turing Test:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/

 

[duordi]

Most definitions of life would include cabbages, mushrooms, and bacteria.

Life is the chemistry of imperfectly self-replicating molecules.

I am not interested in a computer program that can replicate itself imperfectly because I have no moral obligation to a imperfectly self replicating computer program.

Duane

 

[fromdownunder]

My definition of life is specific to humans to allow the distinction of humans from animals and plants etc.

This is necessary to consider if a computer program will attain this ability.

Duane

Your'e OP asked "What is Life"?

Now you have defined life to limit it to humans as opposed to every other "living" thing.

I would suggest that you redefine your question along the lines of self-awareness (although this would not necessarily be accurate - I am certain that many other life forms are self aware).

I suspect you need to rethink your entire OP.

Norm

 

[:æ:]

You're not talking about life, you're talking about consciousness, and more specifically, you're talking about human consciousness.

Then, of course, you must contend with solipsistic difficulties. Can you demonstrate rigorously that a putative individual is actually aware of himself?

 

[duordi]

You might want to read up on the Turing Test:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/

I have read the discussion and it hinges around the idea that a machine could never match us.
The idea of evolution dictates that living things are a progression of small steps ending in us.
If this is the case however, someone could ask is there something in us which can not be imitated.
Although a computer could be caused to act like we do in every way would it actually think?
Or would it be unaware of its existance and just be acting in accord with the programers direction?
Would the machine be independent of the programer or exist without the programers existance.

Duane

 

[duordi]

You're not talking about life, you're talking about consciousness, and more specifically, you're talking about human consciousness.

Then, of course, you must contend with solipsistic difficulties. Can you demonstrate rigorously that a putative individual is actually aware of himself?

You restate the question very well.

Duane

 

[duordi]

Your'e OP asked "What is Life"?

Now you have defined life to limit it to humans as opposed to every other "living" thing.

I would suggest that you redefine your question along the lines of self-awareness (although this would not necessarily be accurate - I am certain that many other life forms are self aware).

I suspect you need to rethink your entire OP.

Norm

The question concerns when a computer program has life, and therefore we would have a moral obligation to continue its existence.

You may disagree with the semantics but it is necessary to impose a moral obligation.

Duane

 

[joey444]

http://ckjcwf.ytmnd.com/


Wait... life?

 

[Chalnoth]

The question concerns when a computer program has life, and therefore we would have a moral obligation to continue its existence.

You may disagree with the semantics but it is necessary to impose a moral obligation.

Well, I don't think a computer program can ever have what we usually think of as life. I think the terminology you should be using is sentience.

Anyway, I personally think that for the simple reason that computers process information in such a dramatically different way than humans do, when computers first become sentient, we won't notice it as sentience. And I fully expect that at some point in the future, it will be possible for a computer to become sentient.

 

[JohnR7]

I will define "life" as a beings ability to be aware that it is thinking.

Life is being able to respond to the invironment. Non life is non responsive or non interactive.
People who are in a coma can think, but it is difficult for them to communicate what they are thinking with others.

 

[fromdownunder]

Duane, the major issue here to me is how do we define life. You seem to have limited your definition to people and perhaps, at some point in the future, computers, which as far as I can tell, you are defining as that at some point computer intelligence may reach a point of self-awareness (and as I have been owned by cats in the past, I am absolutely convinced that they, as one animal at least, are self-aware .

This is where I am running into the tree that prevents me from making a meaningful contribution to your discussion, and I do wish to, because it is a subject which has interested me for over 20 years.

I really would like to understand how you define your initial "what is life", as you seem to have denied life to anybody except people and (potentially) computers.

So, to try another angle, what would you suggest that would make a computer/computer program "alive" that would potentially make it immoral to turn the program off, or pull the plug out?

Norm.

 

[BVZ]

In truth, there is no way to define 'life'

The probem is our common sense. The words 'living' and 'dead' are created because they are useful. In science, they are not that useful.

For instance, lets look at the following definition of life, used by Richard Dawkins:

We know that any system needs energy to function.

We also know that energy usually 'wants' to spread out evenly.

When a system actively attempts to prevent energy from spreading out evenly, and so increases the time the system remains funcitoning, the system can be considered to be alive.

This defintion works.

But according to this defintion, a robot that uses solar power, and has a mechanism for following light sources around, is also alive.

Now think about this... why is this robot not alive? The answer is simple: because out common sense sais so. Scientifically, the robot could be considred alive depending on the parameters we chose for the scenario.

In the end, our common sense seems to betray us when trying to define 'life'.

 

[BVZ]

Life is being able to respond to the invironment. Non life is non responsive or non interactive.
People who are in a coma can think, but it is difficult for them to communicate what they are thinking with others.

This definition does not work at all.

Why?

Because EVERYTHING responds to the environment. If an object does not respond to its environment, it would (for all intents and purposes) not exist. It would be invisible, and completely undetectable.

If something reflects visible light, it is responding to its environment (the light). This makes objects visible.

According to you definition, all detectable things are alive.

 

[duordi]

Life is being able to respond to the invironment. Non life is non responsive or non interactive.
People who are in a coma can think, but it is difficult for them to communicate what they are thinking with others.

John, if your thinking abilities existed as a computer program how could you convince me that you are indeed thinking and aware?
A dolphin can communicate but it is not aware.

Duane

 

[duordi]

This definition does not work at all.

Why?

Because EVERYTHING responds to the environment. If an object does not respond to its environment, it would (for all intents and purposes) not exist. It would be invisible, and completely undetectable.

If something reflects visible light, it is responding to its environment (the light). This makes objects visible.

According to you definition, all detectable things are alive.

Not so.
I have the ability to love while hated.
This is not a response to my environment but a choice of my will.

 

[Chalnoth]

Not so.
I have the ability to love while hated.
This is not a response to my environment but a choice of my will.

That's still a response to your environment. This just says that you have, a) learned that hating back does no good, or b) come to a moral belief that hating back is wrong, or both. Put simply, you cannot help but respond to your environment in some way.

A simple example is cold: if you go out in the cold, you either go back inside, put on a jacket, or shiver. No response at all is, quite simply, not a possible choice.

Even ignoring a person can be considered a response, because if you are consciously aware of them, then you have made a conscious decision on how to respond to them.