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Sat Sep 8 10:47:38 EDT 2007
artifical life
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There is a big buzz about the creation of artificial biological
life, which is in fact an attempt to copy some of the most basic
forms of biological life.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/sep/06/2
This is neat and all, but I think it is becoming obvious that the
mechanisms that facilitate the functionality required for "life"
need not be biological in nature. It has been well know for a
long time that there are some basic functions that need to be
available have a "living" system: membrane/boundaries, the abili-
ty to reproduce, and the need to consume energy.
I am not suggesting /intelligent/ life, but merely the ability
for discrete "bundles" of energy converting units (i.e., biologi-
cal organisms, plasma blobs, etc) to "live", "die", and "repro-
duce".
The article I posted a few back outlines the discovery of some
interesting dynamics in the universe that outlines some inorgan-
ic, interstellar dust clouds that interact in "lifelike" ways. I
don't doubt this, and more importantly it hints that the mecha-
nisms which drive life are not limited by scale. I am not saying
that our universe is sitting under the finger of some giant be-
ing, but it is interesting to consider that the same distributed
interactions that allow us to live may be available on a limit-
less scale.
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