Bio freck Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 What is life? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 What is life? A self replicating collection of chemicals that is separate from it's environment and capable of Darwinian evolution... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phi for All Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 ! Moderator Note You have opened two threads in the same section with the same name. To avoid confusion, and since the OP is more interested in a definition of life, I'm going to change the title. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bio freck Posted March 22, 2012 Author Share Posted March 22, 2012 A self replicating collection of chemicals that is separate from it's environment and capable of Darwinian evolution... Only darwinian evolution don't you think heredity has something to do with that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phi for All Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 Only darwinian evolution don't you think heredity has something to do with that? Do you understand what evolution is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ophiolite Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 Only darwinian evolution don't you think heredity has something to do with that? Bio freck, the point Phi for All is making is that Darwinian evolution is achieved through the medium of heredity. I am also interested to know if you understand that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharonY Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 A self replicating collection of chemicals that is separate from it's environment and capable of Darwinian evolution... I would counter that no a priori definition of life exists. All working definitions are based on descriptive parameters of things that we say are alive. Including borderline things like viruses and other mobile genetic elements. But as mentioned in basically all threads of this kind, biology is full of useful but not stringent distinctions that are not necessarily reflecting nature with absolute accuracy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
questionposter Posted March 22, 2012 Share Posted March 22, 2012 (edited) What about "artificial" life? It could technically be considered alive, yet it wouldn't undergo evolution nor necessarily self-replicate. Edited March 22, 2012 by questionposter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 What about "artificial" life? It could technically be considered alive, yet it wouldn't undergo evolution nor necessarily self-replicate. That is a problem but by definition to be alive it must be able to reproduce by a method that allows variation, anything else is just a complex chemical system... at least that's what I understand... I would counter that no a priori definition of life exists. All working definitions are based on descriptive parameters of things that we say are alive. Including borderline things like viruses and other mobile genetic elements. But as mentioned in basically all threads of this kind, biology is full of useful but not stringent distinctions that are not necessarily reflecting nature with absolute accuracy. Yes, i was loosely using the definition used by NASA but of course there are things on the edge that really don't fit... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
questionposter Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 (edited) That is a problem but by definition to be alive it must be able to reproduce by a method that allows variation, anything else is just a complex chemical system... at least that's what I understand... So wouldn't that imply consciousness is a separate entity if artificial life was in fact able to display all the "signs" of consciousness? Edited March 23, 2012 by questionposter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 So wouldn't that imply consciousness is a separate entity if artificial life was in fact able to display all the "signs" of consciousness? Consciousness is not life... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
questionposter Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 Consciousness is not life... So can something be conscious without having a physical body? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 So can something be conscious without having a physical body? I don't know... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
questionposter Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 I don't know... Well if consciousness and life are two different things, why would they not be able to exist independent from each other? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delta1212 Posted March 25, 2012 Share Posted March 25, 2012 Well if consciousness and life are two different things, why would they not be able to exist independent from each other? You can have life without consciousness, therefore they are not the same thing. We don't know if you can have consciousness without life. Artificial life, to be considered artificial life, will need to be able to reproduce. It will very likely not display any signs of consciousness. You're putting the cart before the horse and asking about the creation of an artificial being that is conscious but not alive. That wouldn't be artificial life. That would be artificial intelligence. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
questionposter Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 (edited) You can have life without consciousness, therefore they are not the same thing. We don't know if you can have consciousness without life. Artificial life, to be considered artificial life, will need to be able to reproduce. It will very likely not display any signs of consciousness. Can we prove that if something is alive that it doesn't always have this undefined thing we call consciousness? Edited March 26, 2012 by questionposter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 Can we prove that if something is alive that it doesn't always have this undefined thing we call consciousness? Yes we can, bacteria are alive but are not conscious... I am both conscious and alive but I cannot reproduce... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
questionposter Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 Yes we can, bacteria are alive but are not conscious... I am both conscious and alive but I cannot reproduce... But how do we know that bacterium don't have consciousness? If consciousness and life are separate things, then you don't necessarily even need a brain to have consciousness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 But how do we know that bacterium don't have consciousness? I think that first we need to define what consciousness is, complexity of thought has to be one measure of one attribute. If consciousness and life are separate things, then you don't necessarily even need a brain to have consciousness. I would have to agree with this... but I would also assert you need complexity to have consciousness. But how do we know that bacterium don't have consciousness? I think that first we need to define what consciousness is, complexity of thought has to be one measure of one attribute. If consciousness and life are separate things, then you don't necessarily even need a brain to have consciousness. I would have to agree with this... but I would also assert you need complexity to have consciousness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delta1212 Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 But how do we know that bacterium don't have consciousness? If consciousness and life are separate things, then you don't necessarily even need a brain to have consciousness. Life isn't magic. It's also a somewhat arbitrary categorization. If everything that we classify as alive is conscious, and nothing else is, it is either a massive coincidence, or else one of the requirements we have for determining whether something is alive is responsible for consciousness, also coincidentally since we don't intentionally include consciousness in our definition of life. Based on everything we've observed, the brain is inextricably linked with our own experience of consciousness. Changes to the brain change our state of consciousness. Based on the available evidence, it's fair to say that it is exceedingly unlikely that anything without a brain, or at least a rudimentary nervous system, experiences anything we'd call consciousness. If they did, it would legitimately make me wonder if rocks were conscious, or pocket calculators at the very least. Until we know more, we have to say that consciousness requires something brain-like in complexity, if not an actual brain. It's very unlikely that bacteria are conscious, but it may be possible to be conscious without, strictly speaking, a brain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
questionposter Posted March 26, 2012 Share Posted March 26, 2012 Life isn't magic. It's also a somewhat arbitrary categorization. If everything that we classify as alive is conscious, and nothing else is, it is either a massive coincidence, or else one of the requirements we have for determining whether something is alive is responsible for consciousness, also coincidentally since we don't intentionally include consciousness in our definition of life. Based on everything we've observed, the brain is inextricably linked with our own experience of consciousness. Changes to the brain change our state of consciousness. Based on the available evidence, it's fair to say that it is exceedingly unlikely that anything without a brain, or at least a rudimentary nervous system, experiences anything we'd call consciousness. If they did, it would legitimately make me wonder if rocks were conscious, or pocket calculators at the very least. Until we know more, we have to say that consciousness requires something brain-like in complexity, if not an actual brain. It's very unlikely that bacteria are conscious, but it may be possible to be conscious without, strictly speaking, a brain. While I don't think your actual "consciousness" is altered by mere experience, I guess we just have a lot more to figure out... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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