Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ub.d.umn.edu!cs.umn.edu!spool.mu.edu!think.com!kurt From: kurt@think.com (Kurt Thearling) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: computer life? Keywords: Survival, instincts Message-ID: <1991Mar13.225321.14042@Think.COM> Date: 13 Mar 91 22:53:21 GMT References: <2179@cluster.cs.su.oz.au> <1991Mar11.165932.19507@news.larc.nasa.gov> <4149@aipna.ed.ac.uk> Sender: news@Think.COM Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA Lines: 43 In article <4149@aipna.ed.ac.uk> cam@aipna.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm) writes: >In article <1991Mar11.165932.19507@news.larc.nasa.gov> kludge@grissom.larc.nasa.gov ( Scott Dorsey) writes: >>In article <2179@cluster.cs.su.oz.au> carsup@extro.ucc.su.oz.au (Fisher Library support) writes: > >>>Has anyone any Proof that life itself was not designed? I think not. > >> We don't have any proof that life wasn't designed, but we do have proof >>that it does evolve. It's possible that random evolution isn't completely >>a random process, but if so this is something that Man can't duplicate (owing >>to not being omnipotent, etc.) So it's not something we can discuss >>intelligently. > >Only if you presume that if life was designed, then it must have been >designed by an omnipotent omniscient supernatural being. This seems a >hugely unnecessary presumption, especially given that it seems within >the bounds of possibility that it might (on the other hand) have been >"designed" by evolution, i.e., a natural process. > You might be interested in "Self-Reproducing Automata and the Origin of Life," Robert C. Newman, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 24-31. In this article the self-reproducing automaton designed by Chris Langton is analyzed to show that life is designed. From the abstract: "... Langton's very simple self-reproducing automaton is described in detail. The complexity of Langton's automaton strongly suggests that life is designed rather than accidental." Newman computes the time to required consider all of the possible designs for such a self-reproducing automaton. This time is (in his estimate) 3 * 10**139 years. He then assumes that the universe is 20 billion years old to determine that the probablility of producing the self-reproducing automaton via random formation is 10**-129. kurt ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Kurt Thearling Thinking Machines Corp. 245 First Street kurt@think.com Cambridge, MA 02142 -----------------------------------------------------------------------