Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Contradictions in definitions

Most of the definitions are focused on differentiating between living material and non-living material. Some new ideas were proposed in the years between 1980 and 1990. It is still not clear whether computer software exists that could be considered as alive. Some computer software shows certain resemblances with living organisms. It is not difficult, in an algorithmic sense, to create software which fulfills some base criteria (growth, reproduction, reaction to environmental changes, etc.).
Consider an artificial environment with certain properties (for example, a system which is calling the processes with different input). If a process is able to solve the problem (respond with a correct output) within a given time limit, it can survive; otherwise, the process is deleted. If the process solves the problem before the other processes, it gets higher part from the computer resources. This is a very simple model of an environment in which life has been simulated. More sophisticated environments can also be created. Although in most of the simulations the systems collapse relatively quickly (for example, none of the processes are able to adapt and solve the given problem), it has not yet been formally proved that such an environment can not exist permanently. Such an environment would meet all the criteria of simple life definitions.
If ever such a theorem could be formally proved, it will be necessary to reconsider the definitions or admit that the computer world is a good approximation of the real one.

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