Re: [life] Machines and wholeness - a speculative hierarcy

["Tim Gwinn" <***>]

Hi Jeff,

I would agree that there is more than one necessary condition for life. And
I would agree that only material systems, and not formal systems, could be
"alive", in Rosen's sense of "life". There are probably a myriad of
necessary conditions.

(I don't think you were suggesting the following, but I thought I'd mention
it for others.) The larger problem is that no matter how many necessary
conditions we can identify, it does not get us to "life". The combining of
necessary conditions is essentially the approach Rosen called "mimesis"; the
idea being that if you can create a system that mimics an original system
*enough*, then the new system will actually *be the same kind* of system as
the original system. This is also the basis of the Turing Test.
Unfortunately, successful mimicry does not entail any commonality of
underlying causal structures. Necessary conditions are thus helpful in the
clues they gives us, but stacking them together as a way of ascertaining
life leads us down the path of mimesis.

Regards,
Tim

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:*** Behalf Of Jeff
> Pridaux
> Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 1:27 PM
> To: ***
> Subject: Re: [life] Machines and wholeness - a speculative hierarcy
>
>
> As for the question of whether "closed to efficient cause" is a sufficient
> condition to identify life... or mearly a necessary condition....
>
> Perhaps there is second necessary condition as well.  The entity must also
> have mass.
>
> With this extra condition, closed to efficient cause systems like
> mathematics or religions would not be condsidered alive (just complex).
>
> Only things containing mass would be considered alive if they also were
> closed to efficient cause.