Creating life

If you accept the definition of life as I presented in my previous posts, we can use it to create 'life'. Life can be created at two levels: software simulation and hardware (live robots). Since both of them are related, i.e., robots too will be driven by software, we could simply concentrate on software. The definition given in the earlier post can be conceivably implemented in software.

The first part of this effort will be about defining environment that will host the life in terms of all its chemical and physical properties. It is roughly like defining an environment in a Playstation game. Then, at the same time, we need to define the implementation of our artificial life -- the living being. We have to define what is this being made up of, what is its structure and how does it remain functional (Remaining functional should be a core part of definition of life and it is mentioned in my definition by reference to life's self organising properties. Anything that is not functional can't be alive.)

Let me deviate for a moment to say something about being functional. This gets a little philosophical. The question is, what should be the being functional for? It should be functional towards what end? My definition of life says that the function of life is nothing but to sustain itself. Take any living being and examin various functionalities within that being, such as blood circulation system, digestive system, reproduction, foraging, socialising, etc. All these functionalities do nothing but help the being sustain itself and continue its existence -- the survival instinct. That way, if we are creating a life on our own, the issue becomes cyclical like chicken and egg problem. Life must have at least some functionality and that functionality must be to sustain itself.

Coming back to defining life functionality, we could pick up any arbitrary functionalities that help keep our living being functional. We could perhaps start with the form -- choose the shape and colour of this being and then see what functionalities are needed to develop and maintain that form over this being's life cycle. The functionalities of this being need to be in sync with the environment, i.e., the functionalities should be able to take sustenance from various cycles in the environment (like day/night, seasons, etc.) and supplies made available.

What is Life? (Part 2)

Continuing from definition of life in my previous post...

There are two things that need to be explained for the definition to make sense. One, what is meant by such phenomenon, if life is to be defined as one. Two, how does that definition cover complex facets of human life -- can our emotions, desires, consciousness, etc. be covered in such a lifeless definition?

Let me take the first aspect first. If you notice, the life phenomenon as described in the post, is a highly self organising phenomenon. This is to be noticed because one would expect that most processes and effects should degenerate into chaos when they run on their own. I will leave out a discussion on the second law of thermodynamics but let me say that in our universe there are other self organising phenomenon (from disorder to order) as well. Consider matter around us. It started as nothing but a hot soup of protons and electrons. As it cooled, rather than electrons and protons just clumping together, they formed atoms of 100 elements or so with complex properties. Those atoms then settled into crystals, combined with each other, created cycles and processes (e.g., seasons, ages, ocean currents, monsoon, and many such cycles even on other planets) and eventually created a highly evolved universe as we know it, even if you don't count life. All this from disorder to order.

Why such a counter-intuitive (non-life) organisation took place? No one knows, but it happenned and so was created this universe. Creation is a self organising phenomenon. Since life needs an environment as per my previous post, this environment got created from which arose life. One could consider life as just an extension of this phenomenon -- a relentless persuit of higher and higher levels of organisation, or spawn of a new phenomenon, or possibly say that universe itself is living by extending the definition to the environment itself.

Let's come to the second aspect mentioned above -- the correlation between the definition and human experiences. The characteristic of continuity in the definition translates into survival instinct (survival of self and offsprings) of the species, whether humans or bacteria. Based on what I understand from evolutionary psychology, survival instinct is the most powerful force that has guided human evolution. A lot of things can be explained through this -- people's fears, why women doll up, power, money, attraction, parental love, and so on. In other words, things that improve or assure your chances of survival make you happy. You have a good day at work, and you feel truly happy. Feelings of happiness and sadness are the result of chemicals, which are generated in the brain in such situations. The chemicals drive people's mind, not something abstract.

In other words, our ability to think and feel is nothing but a menifestation of a complex response system of a highly developed neural system, DNA and neuro-chemicals -- all physical things. At the basics, it is nothing but one's reaction to the heat of fire, one senses heat and automatically learns to move away to survive. This is what bacteria do, animals do and humans do.

Is the definition of life in my previous post starting to make sense? If yes, in my next post I will explain how we could perhaps create life, and other implications of that definition.

What is Life?

A very fascinating question!

This is also a very important question which leading thinkers and scientists are trying to answer. Advances in space research (search for life), robotics, computing, biology, etc. have now reached those frontiers where it is becoming necessary to be able to define life. See some current approaches to understanding of life here.

Does life has to be like that of humans? Does it have to be intelligent (What's intelligence?)? Does it have to have feelings (What are feelings?)? Does it have to have DNA? Does it have to be based on carbon or organic chemistry?

As you answer surely or tentatively 'No' to these questions, you slowly start becoming uncomfortable and ask, then what is life at its core?

While no one knows for sure how to define life, everyone can recognise life when they see it. It is easy to see that a single cell bacterium is live but a complex computer chip is dead. All known living beings are made up of carbon and have DNA (again, made of carbon) but there is a realisation that life doesn't have to be based on carbon. Could it be silicon? If yes, could some computer chip some day be taken as live? Here is my definition of life that I think is helpful.

Life is a phenomenon within the context of an environment. A unique characteristic of this phenomenon is that it simply strives to continue (or you may say, survive and sustain). It derives sustenance from environment and the same environment threatens its continuity in different ways. In turn, by virtue of its characteristic of continuity, the phenomenon adapts its "implementation" (the living beings) or manifestation to give it newer forms and survival tactics. Another distinguishing characteristic of this phenomenon (to distinguish from other non-life continuing phenomena) is that it moves from the state of disorder to order over time in its local environment.

An important pre-condition that I may add here is that the environment must be natural, i.e., an environment with pre-set rules (like laws of physics which do not change for life to sustain) and randomness, not a controlled environment (like a man-made environment where humans can interfere and change conditions). It's not natural in the sense that humans can't create it but it must meet above criteria.

At first sight this definition might appear too simplistic and even silly to many but in next few posts I will build more arguments around this and will hopefully show this definition as an underlying thread behind all life we know, including ourselves. For the time being, the take home from here is that the purpose of life is just to sustain itself. In the meantime, do some reading on evolutionary biology...