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From: eomu01@castle.ed.ac.uk (Hall)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: computer life?
Message-ID: <8617@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 20 Feb 91 11:31:31 GMT
References: <1991Feb14.135220.7790@vax1.tcd.ie> <1991Feb19.130832.9715@shiva.sci.com> <1991Feb19.163133.8664@news.larc.nasa.gov>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 43

The actual biological definition of a living organism can be described
by the mnemonic "MERRING".

Movement - O.K. so I suppose some computers (more formally robots) can
	   be said to be able to move.

Excretion - I hardly think that a computer is able to excrete metabolic
            waste products from itself (unless you count the endless
	    reams of garbage that I seem to be able to get out of them)!

Respiration - This is the breaking down of some form of chemical energy
   	      source. Whilst a computer may be said to require energy
	      not many can be said to be able to make their own.

Reproduction - This subject has already been touched on. It only remains
(at some       for me to say that I doubt that it can be said that
point in its   computers making other computers can be called
life-cycle.)   reproduction.

Irritability - In other words a response can be produced by doing
	       something to it that it doesn't like. O.K. so here is
    	       another criterion (sorry if it is spelt wrongly) that is
	       satisfied by computers since I seem to be able to get a
	       response quite easily (usually in the form of error
	       messages).

Nutrition - Can a computer be said to feed itself? I think not.

Growth - I fail to see how a computer can be said to grow during the
         period of its life. At lest I have never seen a computer
	 change in size even over several years. Have you?

This may seem to be a simple form of classification, but that fact
remains that for an organism to be considered to be alive (and hence a
life form), it must fulfill all the above criteria (with relatively few
exceptions and even then only an exception in perhaps 1 or 2 of them at
a time). Above, we can see that computers fail on 5 out of the required
7 criteria, therefore I would strongly conclude that computers cannot be
said to be true life-forms in any stage of development. However, people
always make mistakes, so perhaps in years to come we will all be
replaced by our more efficient, robotic models...who knows...?

:An ardent philosopher and scientist.