Hello! I think I met you at an ESA or somesuch science meeting some years back. Maybe same one which H.T. Odum spoke at? Can't remember just now. You helped me by email after that...late 90's I think...oh well, maybe it will come back to me. Had to do with some software, like swarm or something...my brain is getting old :-)
By very short way of answering or returning your valid and challenging questions (I mean, maybe Rosen and the well-read of his works know/show the answers as closed issues, but I am still grappling with it all), this question came to mind:
Could you design, create, imagine a machine that could truly surprise you (open realm of behavior)? And can you imagine a life form that would never surprise you (closed realm of behavior)?
Lastly, a short quote from an article I just got today by Michael Conrad:
"...evolution is an open process that could always recruit previously untapped physical phenomena for information processing in a full scale molecular computer. As a consequence, a true molecular computer will always be able to undergo the most fundamental form of learning - learning to defy whatever closed user's manual we could ever write for it. "This ability, taken alone, distinguishes a true molecular computer from a classical machine."
Hello! I don't think I've posted here before; but, I've lurked for quite some time and this is an interesting thread. But, I have a blind spot that you guys don't seem to have. Perhaps you can help me fill it in.
First, to set the context, the role of the mad scientist in sci fi is all about the lack of full coverage of the madman's teleology (or perhaps we could say what makes them mad is their myopia with respect to the causal entailment of their artifacts -- and the processes that produce the artifacts). So, it seems to me that this horse has been fully beaten. ;-)
What I don't understand is this distinction between "machine" and ... well, "non-machine". What do you mean by "life is no machine"? Similarly, what is the real (by which I mean _practically_ useful) distinction between "mechanistic" or "reductionist" thought or methods and ... well, whatever else there is? I ask this, here, because it seems to be a frequent accusation on this list.
To set a little more context for the above question, I'll add that I think of something like von Neumann's self-reproducing automaton as both a machine _and_ an artifact that attempts to tacitly demonstrate a common theme in Rosen's writings. (Or, I should say "what I infer as a theme from my limited understanding of Rosen's writings".)
That automaton (specifically that one, not the many impoverished reformulations) seems like it directly addresses the issue of a dynamical process being embedded in a logical ontology, where the logical ontology is rich enough to support causal entailment beyond the original prescription present in the automaton, but simple enough to prevent the automaton from "breaking" or evolving into something wholely different. And in so doing, it broadened the definition of "machine" to include at least one, if not two, of the properties of living systems that had been part of the popular distinction between machines and living systems.
My point is that entailment seems to be more about the structure of explorable possibilities than about any particular system doing the exploring. So, by asking my question above about "machines" and the denigrating way in which that term is used, I'm asking those of you who _feel_ a tacit difference between a living organism and a machine to talk about the key elements of the distinction you make.
I honestly can't make the distinction. A living organism seems very much like a "robust machine" to me. By "robust", I mean it is capable of persisting (in full dynamism) in manifold contexts. So, the problem of engineering (not science) is to find ways to increase the robustness of our artifacts. And we look to biology for help.
Thanks for your indulgence and I apologize if these points are too pedestrian. Feel free to tell me to RTFM. ;-)
-glen
Dan Fiscus wrote:
This is the fabrication issue that Rosen warned about, upon us now. What could we say about this or how events might play forward? My immediate and first hunch which I think would be compatible with Rosen (not sure) is that whatever goal, purpose, function etc. Venter and fellow would-be creators of life may have for their creations, these goals will not likely be met, achieved, gained or under their control.
I say this since, again following Rosen, life is no machine. If Venter's bacterium were a machine - no problem to assume one can design, expect, achieve, control the outcome and the goal/pupose/function/results/effects of the creation. But if the bacterium is alive, then almost by definition it will also embody and entail and create its own goals/purposes/ functions/results/effects/development/growth/evolution, etc. There could be no way to expect, determine or control that these goals endogenous to the life form would in any way match up to the exogenous goals of the creator. A "good", realistic, humble creator, perhaps, would not be attached to the outcome or results, but would be detached and know that the life form would literally "take on a life of its own". The surprises may be nightmarish or happy, but they seem to me guaranteed to be unknowable and truly surprising. And as such, very hard to make any profit off of, unless one billed the process as a freak show or adventure, like Russian roulette maybe...