h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hmmm...if you're looking for new sources of information, Douglas Hofstadter's _Godel, Escher, Bach_ has quite a few sections on AI, although it's kind of involved.

That's good to hear, but where would I find that exactly?
I'd prefer to find the info online, by the way... very convenient to link into, you know

Intelligent life or artificial life on machines we have created?
No I tell you, never can happen.
Never will be.
If we create them in our image.. they WILL be stupid.

I'm not talking about intelligent life... I'm talking about two things: Artificial Intelligence is one... Artificial life is another.
These two combined in ONE creation will most certainly bring hell to us. I'd agree with you on that account immediately.

Hi Festival,

Have you read Steven Levy's Artificial Life? If not it's an absolute must and will provide you with loads of background.

A mention of the various opinions about what constitutes a living system would probably be a good thing. What does something have to do to be alive? Until we answer that question it's impossible to say that we've created artificial life. Some say that any system capable of self replication and variation (and therefore be subject to selection) is alive.

IMO, it's not convincing unless it has self organised from extremely simple components. That said, when this happens, I think evolution and therefore co evolution and therefore ever increasing complexity are inevitable. Then you can drop the "Artificial" altogether.

There's a subset of ALife that you haven't yet mentioned: the simulation of biological processes - not whole organisms, just one or more sub-systems. For example, http://www.h2g2.com/P180208 details a program I'm writing to simulate genetically determined cellular growth.

Let me know if I can be any more help and good luck, it's a fantastic subject.

Some links:

http://www.webslave.dircon.co.uk/alife/intro.html
http://alife.santafe.edu/alife/index.html
http://www.calresco.force9.co.uk/

Hi Si,

This is a bunch of usefull data. Thanks.

As for the article you mentioned: I'll check it out and possibly put it in its rightful place in my article. The more input, the more useful the result, right?

I'll have to look for the book by S. Levy, although I believe the basics are already there. Anyway, it can't hurt to check him out.
(Only thing to worry about is the amount of time it may take)

Opinions on what life would be: That'll be almost as tough as the question "Do animals have souls?". I would say that something is alive only when:

a. it makes choices based upon own "reasoning" (instinct too), rather than hardcoded programming. That description in itself already asks for more explanation, I'm afraid. I'll have to consider this more closely.

b. it gathers the elements for sustaining itself, and for procreation/replication, and overcomes any obstacles like predators stalking it, or prey evading it. In other words, it must be successful in solving some practical problems.

These two factors added together already indicate that it shows the "WILL" to survive, or at least to insure continuation of the species, including "evolution" where necessary.
The fact that it reaches such a point in its development, does (IMO) NOT take away it's artificiality. Its ROOTS are artificial, and therefor the being itself is!

Alife at this time does not yet need such fine definitions, though. The "creatures" that are developed are mostly of such a simple "nature", that they're far from alive.

Then the subset of biological *processes* (as opposed to organisms):
a process IMO isn't a true lifeform, but merely a tool for some lifeform to use. Simplified: burning fuel (eating and digesting food) is a process that takes place in all lifeform, but it also takes place in a fire. Would you call fire a lifeform?

Before creating a lifeform, we must ofcourse *understand* the processes that underly/define it. Simulating those processes may be a way to gain the knowledge of exactly what we're trying to f**k around with. We must not, however, make the mistake of trying to classify the processes as "lifeforms".

I've checked your article P180208... mostly turkish chinese to me. I grasped only the basic english words, such as "the" and "a", the rest might as well be a random sequence of droodles! In that form it can't be of any value to me, alas.

I'm now curious how you regard the things I've said so far. What can we agree on, and what not.

Well...I'm sure you could find it in almost any library or bookstore...any store that doesn't carry it can easily order it...but online? That's another story. I seriously doubt it exists online, although one could do a search for it...or of course order it online!

> Opinions on what life would be: That'll be almost as tough as the question "Do animals have souls?".

Heh, much tougher, there's no such thing as a "soul". Soul is a misleading synonym for "mind".

> a. it makes choices based upon own "reasoning" (instinct too), rather than hardcoded programming. That description
> in itself already asks for more explanation, I'm afraid. I'll have to consider this more closely.

> b. it gathers the elements for sustaining itself, and for procreation/replication, and overcomes any obstacles like
> predators stalking it, or prey evading it. In other words, it must be successful in solving some practical problems.

These, I think, are a rough definition of 'intelligent' life, life should be simpler. Does an Ameoba reason to solve predator/prey problems? I agree with the first part of b. though - it must metabolise and replicate.

Like I said, though, opinion is divided.

> The fact that it reaches such a point in its development, does (IMO) NOT take away it's artificiality. Its ROOTS are
> artificial, and therefor the being itself is!

We differ here. If it lives, it lives, regardless of the substrate. It's own percieved reality will be just as real to it as ours is to us. It's "roots" or 'given starting conditions' will not be alive. The system as a whole will be, though, and without our intervention.

What's the difference between an emergent digital universe and ours?

> Then the subset of biological *processes* (as opposed to organisms):
> a process IMO isn't a true lifeform, but merely a tool for some lifeform to use. Simplified: burning fuel (eating and
> digesting food) is a process that takes place in all lifeform, but it also takes place in a fire. Would you call fire a
> lifeform?

No, but then that's not what I said. A key part of ALife research is the creation of an artificial (alternative would be a better word) biology. Having said that, you might want to consider whether an individual cell is alive.

> Before creating a lifeform, we must ofcourse *understand* the processes that underly/define it.

The best examples of ALife run contrary to this - the systems' designers don't have any idea why they work. Surely that's the point. If we understand how they work before we create them, what's the point in creating them? Today's ALife systems are written to "help" us understand how they, and their biological counterparts, work.

The simplest definition is that any living thing must have three general properties:


metabolism
growth
reproduction
For example, a rock isn't alive because it does not reproduce or metabolize, though it can grow by the addition of deposits to its surface. The physical structure of a university exhibits both growth and metabolism (taking in students and money and spitting out degrees and the unemployed), but it cannot reproduce.

The cell is the fundamental unit of life. The cell theory, put forth in the middle of the 19th century, states that:

Cells are the fundamental units of life, because a cell is the simplest unit capable of independent existence.
All living things are made of cells.

This theory still holds true, with the minor caveat that viruses are only alive while infecting a cell.

That's pretty much the way I see it. Why do you include growth? A drive for increasing complexity is a property life as a whole, but individual participants only increase in complexity when demanded by coevolution. AFAIK, Ameoba are no more complex now than they were billions of years ago.

Levy:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140231056/qid=940584961/sr=1-1/026-4966143-3720265

Just what I'd learnt at school. I don't think it is growth in the evolutionary sence, but growth within that cell's organisms life cycle.

I get you now - it's the process that takes an organism from birth to reproduction - the bits that go on in "the generation gap"

OK. It gets a bit muddy through. I you look at our single celled friends again, that growth process is just metabolism (which we've already included in our list of prerequisites) - genes dip their toes into the cell's internal chemical soup and decide whether or not to add their twopence thereby switching on and off other genes. Eventually they shout, "Divide!"

A stone does not live?
it is the most high form of life/being according to hinduism or any other religion that believes in reincarnation.

A stone does not live?
it is the most high form of life/being according to hinduism or any other religion that believes in reincarnation.

That may be true, Osi, my Friend. But WHY is it so high a lifeform in their perception? Their highest form of life does not strife to do anything, to know anything. That's not very scientific, is it?

Well yes, that might be so, but understanding life may not have to do anything with science. And to understand it you need to study it. Science after all you say, but no..It never can be understanded in my point of view, you can only be in a sort of stasis of peace with it. Wether that you being a human, plant or a "lifeless" form as Merkin said...

in OUR (human) view, science IS understanding how things work.
To understand something, we must indeed study it, just like you said.

You show without a doubt that you understand how this message system works, right? Well, other people understand other things. Maybe we (as a people) will never understand EVERYTHING, but we sure are trying.

Living at peace with the thing around us may be good for those that do not wish to understand, but those that are inquisitive and eager to learn, will never be content with just "living in peace with it".

"lifeless objects" don't show any desire to do anything, as far as WE can see. Therefor in OUR perception, they are not of great importance, except as objects that need to be understood.

"plants" do something, but we still can NOT prove that they KNOW what they are doing. If they have an opinion about anything at all, we can't take that opninion into account, because we can't prove that it exists.

We humans each have an opinion, and when you tell me your opinion, I can understand what you're talking about. With that information at hand, I can decide whether I agree or disagree. But at least, I can pretend to know that you do indeed think.

The fact that I can see that difference between you and a plant or a stone, should say enough )

We can try to find out. But will our findings be of any meaning? I think in the end we will be where we started. IF our human minds can go that far. In "the meaning of life" (Monty Pyton) was said that we cant grasp the true meaning because we get distracted to easely.
But maybe this discussion is really a diffrent one than that we are having right now (see: I got distracted)