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From: vlsi_lib@netcom.com (Gerard Malecki)
Subject: Re: Thought Question
Message-ID: <vlsi_libD38v4E.qu@netcom.com>
Organization: VLSI Libraries Incorporated
References: <3gj2j4$11t@nyheter.chalmers.se> <3gjm63$q7q@cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 1995 00:38:38 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.ai.alife:2074 comp.ai.philosophy:25088 comp.ai:26911

In article <3gjm63$q7q@cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu> hpm@cs.cmu.edu writes:
>
>
>Cars reproduce via factories the same way worker ants reproduce via
>their queens.  The queens are incapable of fending for themselves,
>so the workers care, clean and defend them.  The workers are incapable
>of reproduction, so the queen makes more of them.
>
>In the case of cars and their factories, the return to the factory
>from the cars is indirect, via money made from car sales.
>
>There are symbiotic organisms (some of them called auto workers,
>management, salespeople, customers and construction workers) involved
>in the reproduction of cars and car factories.  Ant species also
>depend on other organisms to help with their growth and reproduction,
>from the digestive bacteria in their guts and the plants and animals
>they eat to (in some cases) the funguses they tend in their gardens
>and the other ant species they enslave to work in their nests.
>
>As factories and companies become more automated and self-controlling,
>the interpretation of economic objects as reproducing life forms
>becomes ever more compelling.  It is already very strong.
>
>		-- Hans Moravec   CMU Robotics
>
Is this the same as saying that when man invented stone age tools, he
also created a new species? According to me, it depends on how broadly
one interprets the term "reproducing life forms". If symbiosis is the
criterion, then atmospheric oxygen can be considered to be living (plants
depend on it and vice versa). Universities can be considered living
(they need PhDs, they also create PhDs). Clearly, a vague definition
like this serves no useful purpose, except in the context of
socio-economic systems. (A biologist would probably laugh if someone
tells him that atmospheric oxygen is living.)

Shankar Ramakrishnan
shankar@vlibs.com
