Adiest (oh - and welcome to A2K, BTW) - I'd say AI - fully sentient AI, were it to come about, and be ametabolic, would be just that - Artificial Intellifence, and not possessed of the atribute of life, sentience notwithstanding. That of course would call for some consideration of the role of intelligence as relates to life, and would pose significant headache potential for those given to religionist fairytales.
Personally, I see as little reason to subscribe to the Gaian philosophy as to the Flying Spaghetti Monster philosophy or to anything related to the Abrahamic Mythopaeia or any other such religionist nonsense.
Capra has always "overreached" and given attributes that sound too much like "new age" healy-feely stuff. He misses the points where we should be assigning life attributes at its beginnings. For example life can be described well enough from where it is first recognized. In that sense a virus is non life whereas a rickettsia or bacterium is life.
Capra has always missed the point that life is not only that which is the familiar carbon based system we see here on earth. We can have Iron based life, Silicon based life, Phosphorus based life , etc etc.
Life is an ordered array of molecules that respond to a particular environment, derive nourishment from the environment and reproduce. All other attributes like specific responses or tropisms or motility, etc are "Tweaks".
Adeist,
The ecological perspective from which we see interdependent networks of life forms gives no particular "moral" directive, but does give a directive in terms of "expediency". So to answer your question about dogs and ants, because we empathize with more cognate lifeforms or their human companions we act to avoid our own remorse. Similarly it may be expedient to "save rain forests" because we anticipate problems for us.
As far as I can see, the only way we can bring in "morality" is if we evoke some sort of "wholistic consciousness" which is actually "responsible" for what can now be explained by the mechanisms of spontaneous structural evolution. By this I do not mean a "deity" but something of which we are an integral part. However I am now inclined to believe that "consciousness" is in essence an epiphenomenon of living systems, despite a personal leaning towards meditation and "higher levels of consciousness".
farmerman,
I can't quote you a specific reference but I pretty sure that Capra does not delimit "life" to carbon based structures. Indeed the "elegance" of autopiesis lies in application to tranditional "life forms" and micro and macro structures beyond traditional consideration.
I agree that Capra may overstate the case for ecology, but his request for a move away from anthropocentric control is philosophically significant in its own right.
doesnt capra dwell on corporations and organizations in his use of autopoesis?
Timeberlandko,
My only concern with your metabolism definition is that I think science will find examples of "life" very different structurally and physiologically then that which has been seen as of yet. I think responses and interactions with the environment are a more accurate definition. Furthermore, a community is a collection of individuals with metabolism in much the same way that a person is a collection of cells and organs with metabolisms. So one might say that a community is as alive as a person. Yet this runs counter to the scientific connotation of life in which a community is notably absent. A more stringent definition, i think, is needed.
Farmerman,
My understanding and definition of life falls closest to yours.
Fresco,
My philosophy is based around respect for Hume's "is ought gap". You are correct that ethics can't be derived from a structure and result of evolution. Additionally,consciousness, while natural in my opinion, is not an epiphenomenon.
However, i would defend AI as life if it reached a certain likeness to what now constitutes life regardless of its material organization/state . This has been my train of thought for the last couple posts. I brought up ethics, because it is a likely arena to debate the reasoning behind a person's definition of life- to discover cracks
Concise version:
Structure, physical characteristics/manifestation, and organization=not important
Responses and environmental interactions=important
(by physical manifestations i don't mean spiritual)
farmerman,
You are correct about Capra's emphasis on social organizations in "The Hidden Connections" 2002, but not in "The Web of Life" 1995 (which seems more relevent here).
Adeist,
The "systems approach" as outlined above attempts to transcend traditional divisions between "mental and physical" and replaces the division "structure-function" with the trio "structure-pattern-process". With these difference we have the essence of a radical epistemological shift and that is the arena in which "importance" might be evaluated.
Fresco,
The definition you propose is thus:
1. Open systems that are able to maintain their life processes under conditions of non-equilibrium.
2. Characterized by continual flow and change in its metabolism, involving thousands of chemical reactions.
3. Living organisms continually maintain themselves in a state far from equilibrium.
4. The same overall structure is maintained in spite of the ongoing flow and change of components.
Isn't every one of these an observation of a typical life form we have seen? For instance, what if a organism from a comet uses an evolved photovoltaic cell (not just photosynthesis) for energy to drive its processes? This would be an organism that would fail definition requirement 2. Yet if it passes the other three definitions, would it still be a life form? I say material organization and structure will change drastically if life is evolved in a alien environment different from ours. So it shouldn't be a main part of a definition, just a auxiliary one.
What is your definition of metabolism? (Sum of the physical and chemical changes that take place in living organisms or processing of environment to derive energy for processes?)
Just came to me from reading around. A star could fit some of your definition. A star maintains a kind of stability under a relative non equilibrium state (tremendous pressure). It has a metabolism of hydrogen to helium to sustain itself. And its structure is very stable.
Adeist,
In addition to 4.(above) you also need to account for the potential to evolve into a new structure. A star may do this but does not appear to maintaining itself by an exhange across a boundary with "context". (This aspect is missing from 2.)
These interactive factors leading to evolution or learning are similar to the idea of assimilation-accommodation put forward by Piaget. The structure in state 1 "sees" the context in state A and an exhange takes place such that the structure moves to state 2 "seeing" the context in state B....etc. This a nondualistic paradigm which transcends the concept of an "independent" metabolism. Context and structure are co-existent and constitute a mutual reality.
Adeist wrote-
Quote:2. Characterized by continual flow and change in its metabolism, involving thousands of chemical reactions.
No.I'm sorry."Thousands" hints that you might have something of a grasp of it which is a form of self flattery.I agree it isn't infinite but that's as near as makes no difference to the reality.
I'm starting to think we are arguing over a definition, and probably won't agree anytime soon.
My argument is this: soon we science will encounter life like systems, which do not fit our traditional definition of life. Whether this is nanotech machines, artificial intelligence, or life like molecules in space. All three of these potentially will be vastly different in physiology and system interactions from any life we know of and yet likely will display characteristics of life.
However, i will concede that "life" has already been defined and can't just be redefined. Furthermore that the definitions similar to Fresco's definition are rather widely accepted.
-But i think this definition will change when something very life like is found that doesn't fit the definition.
(and i said thousands of chemicals quoting another post)
fresco. I have to admit my last reading of "Web..." was quite a few years ago and in a context relating to paleobiology. Ill have to bone up on the book. (Im more a Margulis fan cause I dont quite feel comfortable with sociobio without molecules). I know Ive got some notes on it around here somewhere.
