Hi Magnus On 11/07/2010 21:09, Magnus Berg wrote:
Yes, when you start thinking in these lines, you get to a point where there's simply no way out, without adjusting the levels as described in Lila that is. Pirsig for example says that the border between the inorganic and biological is drawn by DNA. Stuff that has DNA is biological, stuff without it is not. Ok, simple enough, but way too simple. Because that would mean that only stuff with DNA can become intellectual, and would make any attempts at AI futile. But is that really so unthinkable, that we some day learn what makes the human brain so smart, and make ourselves a similar device? Then what? When that happens, we must rethink the biological border, but why not do that now? What's the harm? The DNA border is soo arbitrary, earth-centric. Should really a universal metaphysics contain such local processes. Isn't it very presumptuous to assume that all life in the entire universe is based on DNA?
DNA is information about life - it's not life itself. Biological patterns are self-replicating perpetuating patterns which emerge from inorganic patterns so I don't see any reason why life can't exist on a computer. Carbon based life uses DNA to transmit information about how to build and replicate living entities from the simplest single-celled creature up, so there is no reason to suppose that other alternate life-forms (not necessarily based on carbon) can't use something similar to DNA to transmit information about how build and replicate alternate forms of life.
Cheers Horse -- "Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid." — Frank Zappa Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
