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I assume by "spreading" you mean that the Pikachus can reproduce? Can they mutate? If so, then they satisfy all four boxes and they count as life. If the Pika

by tbabb 7y ago

I assume by "spreading" you mean that the Pikachus can reproduce? Can they mutate? If so, then they satisfy all four boxes and they count as life. If the Pikachus are made of cells, they'll certainly mutate/vary, since their heritable material is DNA, which is quite fragile. Really, it's hard to imagine having "reproduction" without "mutation" in the imperfect physical world where errors are possible— I can't imagine any copying process, even a technological one, which succeeds with perfect fidelity and 100% probability. So if you have #1, #3 is basically going to be a given, because the universe is imperfect. I don't think "what material they're made of" matters much, except that by definition flesh has to be alive, since it's made of things (cells) that tick all four boxes. If the Pikachus don't reproduce themselves, and/or are created with perfect fidelity every time, then yes, I would call them technology and not life. We certainly wouldn't say that iPads (Pikachus) coming from a factory ("mother creature") are alive.

Razengan 7y ago
> I assume by "spreading" you mean that the Pikachus can reproduce? No, they're all created by the mad scientist but can think, reason, communicate, teach, interact, invent and construct perfectly fine on their own. > I don't think "what material they're made of" matters much ... If the Pikachus don't reproduce themselves, and/or are created with perfect fidelity every time, then yes, I would call them technology and not life. So, to distill your criteria for life, it comes down to: • Species must consist of "individuals" who join in pairs to produce another individual. • New individuals must be slightly different from the individuals who reproduced them. In other comment [0] you say that you could consider software to be alive: > Note that "alive" by the given definition doesn't imply "conscious" or "intelligent" > We certainly wouldn't say that iPads (Pikachus) coming from a factory ("mother creature") are alive. But if an iPad had a software process that connected to another iPad, and they both commanded the factory to create a new, slightly different iPad, would they be considered alive? :) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21231043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21231043
- tbabb 7y ago
  > Species must consist of "individuals" who join in pairs Where did you get pairs from? If the Pikachus reproduced by binary fission (splitting in half and then growing a new half, like cells do), or had 18 genders, they would still evolve. They only have to make copies. Doesn't matter how. > No, they're all created by the mad scientist but can think, reason, communicate, teach, interact, invent If they can't reproduce (and/or aren't made of stuff that can reproduce), I would say complexity of behavior is irrelevant. For example, the identical iPads coming off the factory line are still technology, whether they are loaded with simple software or complex software. The complexity could go all the way up to AI, but they would still be technology. Note that we are used to "intelligent" meaning "alive", because the only intelligent thing we know of at this point in history (us) is alive. But I think it is perfectly valid to suppose that non-living things could be intelligent or even conscious. > So if an iPad [...] created a new, slightly different iPad, would they be considered alive? Yes, under those conditions they would certainly start evolving, and I think that's a perfectly reasonable line to draw between technology and life. In this new example, the "phenotype" of the iPads would change in a self-sustaining way, emergently, independent of any design or intent.
  - Razengan 7y ago
    Alright: An individual of an species has to initiate the production of another individual of that species, and the new individual must have some differences from the preceding individual. Do I have it correct?
    - tbabb 7y ago
      Yes, but it's not everything. You've got two and a half of the original four criteria there: > An individual of an species has to initiate the production of another individual ️^ reproduction > of the same species It depends on what you're defining to be "the same species", but if we take that to mean "shares traits with the original", then that's "inheritance". > new individual must have some differences ^️ mutation The one you're missing is "selection"— that the future success at copying depends on the traits you inherited. If you have variable traits, but they don't at least indirectly result in either more or fewer copies, then there is no cause for some traits to become more prevalent than others in the population and evolution won't occur. You'll just get a jumble of random traits without any trend toward fitness (aka more efficient copying). It is a fact of nature/mathematics that those four rules are necessary and sufficient for evolution to occur. If you set them up, evolution will happen, guaranteed. Those rules constitute an algorithm, carried out by the laws of nature on the substrate of physical matter, whose result is evolution— a trend toward increasing reproductive fitness.

by tbabb 7y ago

Razengan 7y ago

> I assume by "spreading" you mean that the Pikachus can reproduce? No, they're all created by the mad scientist but can think, reason, communicate, teach, interact, invent and construct perfectly fine on their own. > I don't think "what material they're made of" matters much ... If the Pikachus don't reproduce themselves, and/or are created with perfect fidelity every time, then yes, I would call them technology and not life. So, to distill your criteria for life, it comes down to: • Species must consist of "individuals" who join in pairs to produce another individual. • New individuals must be slightly different from the individuals who reproduced them. In other comment [0] you say that you could consider software to be alive: > Note that "alive" by the given definition doesn't imply "conscious" or "intelligent" > We certainly wouldn't say that iPads (Pikachus) coming from a factory ("mother creature") are alive. But if an iPad had a software process that connected to another iPad, and they both commanded the factory to create a new, slightly different iPad, would they be considered alive? :) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21231043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21231043

tbabb 7y ago
> Species must consist of "individuals" who join in pairs Where did you get pairs from? If the Pikachus reproduced by binary fission (splitting in half and then growing a new half, like cells do), or had 18 genders, they would still evolve. They only have to make copies. Doesn't matter how. > No, they're all created by the mad scientist but can think, reason, communicate, teach, interact, invent If they can't reproduce (and/or aren't made of stuff that can reproduce), I would say complexity of behavior is irrelevant. For example, the identical iPads coming off the factory line are still technology, whether they are loaded with simple software or complex software. The complexity could go all the way up to AI, but they would still be technology. Note that we are used to "intelligent" meaning "alive", because the only intelligent thing we know of at this point in history (us) is alive. But I think it is perfectly valid to suppose that non-living things could be intelligent or even conscious. > So if an iPad [...] created a new, slightly different iPad, would they be considered alive? Yes, under those conditions they would certainly start evolving, and I think that's a perfectly reasonable line to draw between technology and life. In this new example, the "phenotype" of the iPads would change in a self-sustaining way, emergently, independent of any design or intent.
- Razengan 7y ago
  Alright: An individual of an species has to initiate the production of another individual of that species, and the new individual must have some differences from the preceding individual. Do I have it correct?
  - tbabb 7y ago
    Yes, but it's not everything. You've got two and a half of the original four criteria there: > An individual of an species has to initiate the production of another individual ️^ reproduction > of the same species It depends on what you're defining to be "the same species", but if we take that to mean "shares traits with the original", then that's "inheritance". > new individual must have some differences ^️ mutation The one you're missing is "selection"— that the future success at copying depends on the traits you inherited. If you have variable traits, but they don't at least indirectly result in either more or fewer copies, then there is no cause for some traits to become more prevalent than others in the population and evolution won't occur. You'll just get a jumble of random traits without any trend toward fitness (aka more efficient copying). It is a fact of nature/mathematics that those four rules are necessary and sufficient for evolution to occur. If you set them up, evolution will happen, guaranteed. Those rules constitute an algorithm, carried out by the laws of nature on the substrate of physical matter, whose result is evolution— a trend toward increasing reproductive fitness.