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One could argue that life is complex technology.
by alsobrsp 4y ago
One could argue that life is complex technology.
- hackernewds 4y agoOne could argue complex technology is indistinguishable from complex life.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoAre you arguing that an i9 is indistinguishable from a human?
- Zircom 4y agoHe clearly means sufficiently advanced technology.
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoIn that case, we have never seen a sufficiently advanced technology, so "Objection your honor. Assumes facts not in evidence."
- teitoklien 4y agoLawyers are complex technology for sure too. Defenders of Complex Justice.
- clouddrover 4y agoAh, and therefore humans are indistinguishable from magic.
- Gravyness 4y agoCareful as some religions might take offense on that sarcasm.
- clouddrover 4y agoThen some religions will just have to lighten up.
- blamestross 4y agoI think an i9 is distinguishable from an i7 and a human. All our artifice isn't meaningfully different than termite mounds in this sort of sense. So, a more prudent/understandable question is: just how alien do you need to be to unsure where to draw the "organism/not-organism" line on a termite mound+termites or as a counterpoint: on a snail or clam vs thier shell. Does the fact that the shell of animal was chemically changed by it's body give it some specialness? Or would an animal that constructed limb extensions on demand from wood or stone include those bits? What about brain extensions from bits of metal and glass?
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoThich Nhat Hanh: “Imagine, for a moment, a beautiful flower. That flower might be an orchid or a rose, or even a simple little daisy growing beside a path. Looking into a flower, we can see that it is full of life. It contains soil, rain, and sunshine. It is also full of clouds, oceans, and minerals. It is even full of space and time. In fact, the whole cosmos is present in this one little flower. If we took out just one of these “non-flower” elements, the flower would not be there. Without the soil’s nutrients, the flower could not grow. Without rain and sunshine, the flower would die. And if we removed all the non-flower elements, there would be nothing substantive left that we could call a “flower.” So our observation tells us that the flower is full of the whole cosmos, while at the same time it is empty of a separate self-existence. The flower cannot exist by itself alone.“
- blamestross 4y agoPull any single petal or leaf from the flower, and yet it still grows and thrives. We can see each of the petals and leaves are of a kind with the others, so perhaps their removability doesn't imply that lack of membership in the flower. In persuit of this mystery, we looked closely at the flower, found all the petals, stamen, and roots were in fact made of little plants themselves. Often these "cells" are of different shape shape and function in the flower, but chemical stimulation seems all it takes to coerce most to take on a different role. The truth perhaps, is that there isn't a flower, only a civilization of these "cells" but thier behavior, cooperation, and the structures of sugars that build around themselves are what makes up the "flower" and that it's current form was borne of millions of years of iteration and experimentation in form and function made it what it is today. From the outside, the termite mound (and all the termites inside) are reasonably all the body of one organism. Just as reasonably they are not functionality different than a human body or a human civilization. The only difference between an i9 and your bones is the story you tell yourself about it.
- mccorrinall 4y agoAn i9 might not, but technology has successfully imitated humans before, see Google Duplex: https://youtu.be/D5VN56jQMWM https://youtu.be/D5VN56jQMWM
- taneq 4y agoClearly an i9 is insufficiently advanced. ;)
- mjan22640 4y agoLife is a very advanced nanotechnology. No human created technology is anywhere near that level.
- Razengan 4y agoIf that i9 (or more realistically a more efficient M1) was powering a robot, who went on to learn and create other robots, and they eventually go to another planet, mine it’s resources, make more of themselves and teach other, would they, in their effects upon the universe and their interactions with others, be any distinguishable from any other “life”?
- visarga 4y agoIt all started with self replicating genes, and later with ideas. A self replicator would quickly conquer the available resources and then have to face competition to continue to replicate. We're what happens after billions of years of copying and pasting information under adversarial conditions. Technology is also a self replicator in the space of ideas and artefacts, and it also has limited resources available.
- Razengan 4y ago> A self replicator would quickly conquer the available resources No it wouldn’t, if it didn’t want to. Have we conquered our own solar system yet? Or even our own planet? (You’d be surprised how much space is still unpopulated) Unless you meant a perfectly automated replicator, but even then, like viruses, they would have limitations and face resistance from natural forces and distance, logistics etc.
- Thiez 4y agoMost of our solar system is pretty difficult to get to for humans (the overwhelmingly vast majority of those living today will never be in space), so why do you consider it as an available resource? It's like criticizing bacteria in a petri dish for failing to use the ample resources of a nearby supermarket.
- Razengan 4y ago> so why do you consider it as an available resource? It's like criticizing bacteria in a petri dish for failing to use the ample resources of a nearby supermarket. Congratulations! You just realized why the Fermi Paradox is self-assuming tripe, or the concept of “Von Neumann probes”
- spiralx 4y agoI personally think it's the discovery of Proof of Work algorithms leading to dismantling of solar systems to build Dyson Spheres that capture a sun's energy to power miners. Possibly constructed by Von Neumann machines thinking about it :)
- boomlinde 4y agoHow would you define life and technology such that life can be considered technology?