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I’m surprised there isn’t more discussion of life as a kind of information processing. This would put life on a spectrum from viruses (very little or arguably n
by doctor_eval 4y ago
I’m surprised there isn’t more discussion of life as a kind of information processing. This would put life on a spectrum from viruses (very little or arguably no intrinsic information processing) to humans, which can process even abstract information. But it would also include the kind of life we might potentially find in Jupiter’s clouds, or in the layers of the sun.
Discussing life in terms of Darwinian evolution or chemical complexity seems to miss the point. I’d be happy to consider an AI or a cloud “alive”, even if (like a virus) it requires help to replicate.
- xwolfi 4y agoBut we are... the product of code, read by machines, processing input to produce decisions. How are not information processors ? Do you think computers are not a natural extension of us ? There is absolutely discussion of life as information processing, for instance Stanislas Dehaene is super interesting but I ve heard conferences in biochemistry explaining why all amino acid would work to code information, but the 4 DNA uses have chemical properties that help persist and clone it better and the like.
- doctor_eval 4y agoSorry, I meant that the article doesn’t talk about life as information processing. Perhaps I should have said, “I’m surprised there wasn’t”. Although I got about ¾ of the way through it so maybe I missed it. But at the time of posting, nothing in these threads either.