Suicidesoldier#1
(?)Community Member
- Posted: Fri, 07 Dec 2012 02:20:11 +0000
What is life? According to the generally contrived definition, the main basic components of life are:
Homeostasis
Organization
Metabolism
Growth
Adaptation
Response to stimuli
Reproduction
But what if we created a robot that could do all these things? Homeostasis, organization, growth, adaption, response to stimuli, and reproduction? We could theoretically create a robot with an advanced AI, capable as say, an insect, maybe even better, that could do all these things, including building new ones of itself, transforming the surrounding materiel around it.
But does life in fact require all these things? A parameter of life is often the presence of cells, single units capable of doing a tremendous amount of work. Does this require micro structures, and self contained units with organelles? Well theoretically, nanobots could do this. A nanobot formed structure could be just as intelligent or more intelligent as a human, and break things down at a molecular level, absorbing them, and then transforming things into new cells, essentially, and then make more of itself. It could even be programmed to change in response to it's environment, or it's offspring. Would this be life?
One could say that anything artificially created isn't life. But then we have to consider things like clones, or if humans say, replicated life in a laboratory, with the same general processes, or if they made a new creature from the ground up, such as a dragon, from raw biomass.
Suddenly this definition of life is too broad. Could a robot be life?
Or does life require the presence of organic components? Carbon for instance, just as with graphene and buckypaper, could be utilized to create nanobots, that would be almost entirely carbon based. This in turn, would still be "organic".
Is it carbon based life with homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction?
Or is there something more? What is life?
Homeostasis
Organization
Metabolism
Growth
Adaptation
Response to stimuli
Reproduction
But what if we created a robot that could do all these things? Homeostasis, organization, growth, adaption, response to stimuli, and reproduction? We could theoretically create a robot with an advanced AI, capable as say, an insect, maybe even better, that could do all these things, including building new ones of itself, transforming the surrounding materiel around it.
But does life in fact require all these things? A parameter of life is often the presence of cells, single units capable of doing a tremendous amount of work. Does this require micro structures, and self contained units with organelles? Well theoretically, nanobots could do this. A nanobot formed structure could be just as intelligent or more intelligent as a human, and break things down at a molecular level, absorbing them, and then transforming things into new cells, essentially, and then make more of itself. It could even be programmed to change in response to it's environment, or it's offspring. Would this be life?
One could say that anything artificially created isn't life. But then we have to consider things like clones, or if humans say, replicated life in a laboratory, with the same general processes, or if they made a new creature from the ground up, such as a dragon, from raw biomass.
Suddenly this definition of life is too broad. Could a robot be life?
Or does life require the presence of organic components? Carbon for instance, just as with graphene and buckypaper, could be utilized to create nanobots, that would be almost entirely carbon based. This in turn, would still be "organic".
Is it carbon based life with homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimuli, and reproduction?
Or is there something more? What is life?