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Author
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Topic: AL (Artificial Life) and the people who love it
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Message 13 of 185 (417595)
08-23-2007 12:14 PM
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Reply to: Message 12 by riVeRraT
08-23-2007 12:00 PM
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Re: You beat me to it!
riVeRraT writes: I want to say, that they aren't making life from scratch, like God did. Look at them goalposts run. Do scientists have to make their own atoms before their homemade life counts? That's like saying your supper isn't really supper unless you grew all the food yourself.
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
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| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 12 by riVeRraT, posted 08-23-2007 12:00 PM | | riVeRraT has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 15 by Taz, posted 08-23-2007 12:21 PM | | ringo has not replied | | | Message 16 by riVeRraT, posted 08-23-2007 12:41 PM | | ringo has replied |
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Message 18 of 185 (417608)
08-23-2007 12:51 PM
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Reply to: Message 16 by riVeRraT
08-23-2007 12:41 PM
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Re: You beat me to it!
riVeRraT writes: God made everything from nothing, that has always been the goalpost, we will never be able to do that... No, that's never been the goalpost. The goalpost is "Can we create life?" Whether or not it has been created before by gods or monsters is completely irrelevant.
quote:
That's like saying your supper isn't really supper unless you grew all the food yourself.
That is a bad analogy, I won't even debate it. If you don't debate it, it stands. 
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 16 by riVeRraT, posted 08-23-2007 12:41 PM | | riVeRraT has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 19 by riVeRraT, posted 08-23-2007 1:12 PM | | ringo has replied |
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Message 21 of 185 (417621)
08-23-2007 1:27 PM
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Reply to: Message 19 by riVeRraT
08-23-2007 1:12 PM
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Re: You beat me to it!
riVeRraT writes: My belief's in God coincide with, where did the whole universe come from to begin with anyway? Not, let's build so called life in a petri dish. It's the same thing, really.
Define "create". For all intents and purposes, create = make. Forget that ex nihilo crap.
Tell me something, if this life made in a petri dish, never reproduces, or evolves, is it life? That's a very interesting question. If it doesn't evolve, is it really life? If they can make it reproduce perfectly, they can prevent it from evolving.
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 19 by riVeRraT, posted 08-23-2007 1:12 PM | | riVeRraT has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 23 by riVeRraT, posted 08-23-2007 1:53 PM | | ringo has replied |
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Message 24 of 185 (417629)
08-23-2007 2:10 PM
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Reply to: Message 23 by riVeRraT
08-23-2007 1:53 PM
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Re: You beat me to it!
riVeRraT writes: quote:
For all intents and purposes, create = make. Forget that ex nihilo crap.
Not to me, when it comes to this subject. There you go then, you're setting your own goalposts. You're setting up the requirements so that science can't win.
quote:
If they can make it reproduce perfectly, they can prevent it from evolving.
Somehow, I just doubt that. I bet you it will be a mule. Oh c'mon. Even I know more biology than that.
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 23 by riVeRraT, posted 08-23-2007 1:53 PM | | riVeRraT has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 30 by riVeRraT, posted 08-24-2007 6:37 PM | | ringo has not replied |
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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riVeRraT is wrong.
Catholic Scientist writes: He is saying that what god created is life and that what humans created is something-very-close-too-but-not life, because they didn't start with the same materials. Life is the end product. The starting materials are irrelevant. If you build a house out of bricks, is it less of a house than one built out of wood? Do you have to make the bricks yourself for it to be a house? You need a kind of Turing test to answer the question, "Is it life?" If you can't tell life created by God from life created by man, you can't claim that life created by man isn't life.
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Catholic Scientist writes: If you live in a cave, can you say you built your home? seems more like his position, IMHO. How is that even remotely like his position? We're talking about building something out of building blocks. riVeRraT's objection to human creation of life is that we didn't build the building blocks (atoms). My brick house analogy is much, much, much, much, much more like his position than your cave analogy.
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Catholic Scientist writes: You don't have to make the bricks yourself for it to be a house, but you do have to have made the bricks to say that you created the house (ex nihilo). Even the idea that God created life ex nihilo is pretty iify, so it shouldn't be used to distinguish His creation from ours.
Sometimes people are using the word create with the implication of ex nihilo and sometimes they are not. For the record, I personally will never imply ex nihilo because I think it's a useless concept. If riVeRraT can't keep his terminology straight, you shouldn't be defending it.
The fault of your analogy is that the building blocks of life can form life on their own while you couldn't have a pile of bricks turn into a house without placing each brick by hand. You're missing the point. We're not talking about the assembly or whether the assembly requires intelligence. You're trying to defend riVeRraT's claim that it isn't really life unless we create all the building blocks ourselves. Where the building blocks came from is irrelevant and how the building blocks were assembled is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not it's life. If it's life, it's life, regardless of the process that created it. The definition of life is not dependent on the process.
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Catholic Scientist writes: Its relevant to distinguish what the scientist have done from normal reproduction. Normal reproduction is even more irrelevant than where the building blocks came from. You really don't think this topic has anything to do with normal reproduction, do you?
quote:
The definition of life is not dependent on the process.
The process is what makes it Artificial Life. Whether or not it's "artificial" life is the question, not the answer. If you can't tell "artificial" life from "real" life, how can you call it "artificial"?
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Catholic Scientist writes: quote:
You really don't think this topic has anything to do with normal reproduction, do you?
Well, that's how life normally comes about. Its the standard for comparison. No, it's not the standard for comparison. The three ways that life can arise are: - Created by God.
- Created by man.
- Created by normal reproduction.
In this topic, we are comparing only the first two.
quote:
If you can't tell "artificial" life from "real" life, how can you call it "artificial"?
Its artificial because its man-made. That doesn't answer the question. If I show you two bacteria under the microscope, how can you tell which is man-made and which is not? If you can't tell, you have no basis to call one of them "artificial".
Its artificial by definition. You can't define it as "artificial" if you can't tell it's man-made.
But this topic is: How do creationists react to the development? The answer appears to be: irrationally.
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Catholic Scientist writes: The third one has been discussed as well. When did you get to decide what the rest of us are comparing? I didn't decide, the topic did. In a nutshell, the OP says:
quote:
What arguments might a creo offer as explanation for the inevitable evolution-in-a-petri-dish.
Where ordinary reproduction has been mentioned, it's off-topic.
We know it is man-made a priori, it doesn't matter if we can tell afterwards or not. Wrong. In my example, you don't know which is which. You have to look at two bacteria and determine which (if either) is man-made. If you can't do that without a priori knowledge, you have no basis to say we've done less than create life. On the one hand, we have life. On the other hand, we have life. If you can't observe any difference between the two - without knowing their provenance - you can't claim any fundamental difference.
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Catholic Scientist writes: But one of them is still artificial if we can tell it or not. There's still a fundamental difference even if we don't know it. How utterly unscientific. The evidence indicates no difference - like two photographs of the same person - yet you claim there is a difference. And not only do you claim there is a difference but it's a "fundamental" difference. If there's no detectable difference, the only difference is in your mind. That's called "delusion". You might as well say that the #5 bus is an ordinary bus but the #6 bus is trying to steal your thoughts.
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Message 130 of 185 (419073)
08-31-2007 5:33 PM
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Reply to: Message 129 by jar
08-31-2007 5:24 PM
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Re: the difference
If we can create life, we should be able to fake the trademark too.
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 129 by jar, posted 08-31-2007 5:24 PM | | jar has not replied |
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Catholic Scientist writes: I think that you are assuming too much about me. I have no problem calling this life. And yet you have a problem recognizing that there is no difference when there is no detectable difference.
Even identical chemicals can be distinguished as synthetic or natural because of the way they were processed, yet they are chemically identical. That makes no sense. How could they be distinguished if they were chemically identical?
If one of the photos was digital and one was, uhhh, came from film... (is that analog?), but you didn't know that and you couldn't tell the difference, we could still say that the photos are different because one is digital and one isn't. This is getting old. The principle still applies: if you can't tell the difference, you can't claim that there's a difference.
I don't really have any ramifications for this difference in the two life forms. They are both life, its just that one was created by man and one wasn't. How can you say that that is not a difference? Show me the difference and I'll stop saying there's no difference.
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Catholic Scientist writes: Are you saying that there cannot be differences that are unable to be recognized? I'm saying that if we don't recognize a difference - if there's no evidence of a difference - it's unscientific to claim there's a difference. Just saying you know there's a difference means nothing unless you can actually point to evidence of a difference.
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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ringo
Member (Idle past 443 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: 03-23-2005
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Catholic Scientist writes: quote:
if there's no evidence of a difference
The evidence of the difference is the fact that it is man-made. If there's no evidence, how can you call it a "fact"?
“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place” -- Joseph Goebbels -------------
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation.Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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