I agree -- before we can begin to tackle the meaning of consciousness, the "self", "self-awareness", "free will" and so on we need to get on firmer ground of what we mean by even more fundamental things such as the meaning of "life" and of "living". Only when we have a much better understanding of both our own DNA life and of the abstract fundamentals of any life -- no matter what physical underpinning it is based on. But it is more fun to race ahead and try to tackle the ineffable :) -Chris
________________________________ From: Russell Standish <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, September 11, 2013 5:19 PM Subject: Re: Question to Russell On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 05:42:45PM -0400, John Mikes wrote: > Dear Russell, > based on my 2-decade long reading of your posts I have a question, if you > don't mind: > I guess you are still interested in AL, so "L" is includable. > What is " L I F E " in your view? One of the reasons for studying AL is to get a better handle on what we mean by "life". Obviously it has something to do with information processing, emergent phenomena, complex systems and evolution, so all these topics come under scrutiny. I don't think it is as quite a hopeless question as what is consciousness (or even what is pornography!), but it is still a difficult beast, and one that will take a few generations more of scientists before there can be some agreement. > you said: biocomplexity, This doesn't sound like me... :( Context? what raises the > question in my mind: wat is that "bio" we know so little about, but speak > so much about? I am all for complexity - the infinite one beyond our > 'model' we live in and by, of which we have but precious little information > beyond that model. > So do you have a restriction of complexities we should call life? > (Then we may try to identify how to reproduce such artificially. Maybe a > lot more difficult than identifying AI without a clear definition of "I"). > > John Mikes > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics [email protected] University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
