Re: Toward synthetic life?

[Dan Fiscus <***>]

Tim,

Yeah pretty remarkable but maybe still the
180 degree wrong direction...as in you can't
get there (life) from here (artificial anything,
protein factories, piecemeal assembly, external
agency like a machine, etc. etc.) The catch-22
I don't think they get is that if you start with a
machine (with external goal that a designer creates
and hopes to control and exploit like protein
manufacture) but then somehow "along the
road" achieved life (with internal agency,
self-created goals, etc. etc.) then at that very
point of seemingly great achievement (life) you
would lose your original intent (machine,
controllable, protein factory, etc.), for in order
for the thing to be alive it would have to have
internal purpose and agency and thus would
likely try in various ways to defy external
control. As in the movie 2001 Space Oddysey
when the rogue AI computer, Hal, in the
announcement of his sentience = autonomy told
the astronout, "I'm sorry, Dave. I can't do that."
Or the Frankenstein story, or a few others. I
think life is only ever authentic, never artificial,
and the root of that authenticity includes
internal purpose and self-determination. If one
is to "create" life I think it will have to be on
egalitarian terms and the designer will have to
submit to equality with its creation, not mastery
or control, and also to live with the creation
for better or worse. To try otherwise is to
create a monster...maybe...in either the creation
or the creator or both.

Same thoughts on it...

Dan


Tim Gwinn wrote:

> This still involves the method of piecemeal assembly, but it is a 
> remarkable accomplishment, it seems to me.
>  
>
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>     Artificial cells take shape
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> Bacterium-sized 'protein factories' are a step along the road to 
> synthetic life.
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>  
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