Newsgroups: comp.ai.alife
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From: cs0ral@isis (r.aler)
Subject: Re: Life vs. metalife?
Message-ID: <1994Sep18.160446.13661@newsserver.rrzn.uni-hannover.de>
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References: <yLe4Rc2w165w@alcyone.darkside.com> <billt.22.00030422@rmii.com> <34dpscINNfd0@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> <gripCvp9D6.L23@netcom.com> <1994Sep7.104309.21889@ktibv.uucp>
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 1994 16:04:46 GMT
Lines: 49

The Graphical Gnome (rdb@ktibv.uucp) wrote:
: grip@netcom.com (Lawrence E. Bryan) writes:

: >Theodore C. Belding (streak@counter.engin.umich.edu) wrote:

: >: How would you classify a bee hive or an ant colony?  Or a Portuguese 
: >: man-of-war?  Are these exceptions?  To say that a group is generally not
: >: alive seems to beg the question of "what is a group in contrast to an
: >: individual"?
: >: -Ted

: >I agree totally about ants (and probably bees). All one has to do is 
: >consider the nest as a whole and think about it as a single living entity 
: >and the obviousness of this be comes very compelling. True it is a very 
: >different form in so many ways such as, for example, locomotion. An ant 
: >nest doesn't change it's position readily. But it does twist around a 
: >locus, expanding and contracting to rhythms of food and danger.

: I do not completely agree with this. Look at moving ants. They have no
: fixed nest, but move around. You could say that that is a highly
: specialised living "thing" of about 20 kg (See Dawkins).

: The Graphical Gnome (rdb@ktibv.nl)

	If the question is 'when do we consider a group of living things
to be itself a living thing' I think the answer should be 'when those 
living elements have a restricted degree of freedom'. Examples:

	A group of amoebas is not a living thing because the behavior
of an amoeba is not restricted by the behavior of other amoebas.

	A human being is a living being because the behavior of a cell
is restricted by the behavior of other cells (cells don't divide when
they 'want', cells don't move where they want, etc).

	An ecosystem could be considered a living thing because the behavior
of some animals restrict (and control) the behavior of other animals.

	Of course, this is a gradual definition of life. The more integrated
the elements of a living thing are, the more alive that living thing is.

	I think theory of control and cybernetics should play an important
part in artificial life.

			Ricardo Aler.
			cs0ral@isis.sund.ac.uk
			U. of Sunderland (UK).

	
