Newsgroups: comp.ai.alife
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From: whipp@roborough.gpsemi.com (David Whipp.)
Subject: Re: LIFE? (was Evolvable Code....)
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Organization: GEC Plessey Semiconductors
References: <SB0781.94Sep1233658@eve.albany.edu> <billt.21.000930EB@rmii.com>
Date: Thu, 8 Sep 1994 12:18:07 GMT
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In article <billt.21.000930EB@rmii.com>, billt@rmii.com (Bill Trowbridge) writes:
> In this case, the definition of a living individual would be something like:
> A PROCESS ENCAPSULATED AND DISTINCT FROM ITS ENVIRONMENT.
> That SEEMS way too general, but how else would you describe those first
> little cells, unless you overspecify by getting into the biological
> details -- cell walls, cytoplasm, etc?  Isn't something alive if and only
> if it ingests, excretes, and has "life processes" going on inside?

This definition seems like a reasonable starting point, but it misses
one vital feature that messes up every definition of life I've ever
seen.

The common definition of life is : <...> AND ITS NOT MAN MADE. The
<...> can represent any definition you like. It will still fall down
because of the unreasonable bias of humans when trying to define life.

If the definition of life was merely concerned with encapsulated
processes, self determined goal structures, interaction with the
environment, etc.  then the definition would have been made years ago.
Unfortunately we find that any generalised definition that covers all
organic life will also include many man-made things. Perfectly good
definitions are therefore rejected out of pejudice. (As well as racism
and sexism, we also find chemistryism :-)).

To get a meaningful definition of Alife, I beleive that we will need to
develop criteria that exclude some simple carbon entities that are
currently considered to be alive, and to include some of the more
complex man-made entities that are not considered alive. Such a
definition might not be useful to most members of the human race, but
in talking about Alife we need to be able to identify a set of
attributes that we regard as essential.

-- 
                    David P. Whipp.            <whipp@roborough.gpsemi.com>
Not speaking for:   -------------------------------------------------------
 G.E.C. Plessey     Due to transcription and transmission errors, the views
 Semiconductors     expressed here may not reflect even  my  own  opinions!
