Chess has been played by people vs. computers for some time and the humans did not always win. Can we say that the computer has intelligence in this case,although it does not have the general intelligence we are accustomed at people?The Turing test was developed in this purpose: it says that a machine is as intelligent as a human being if based on their actions you can’t decide who is who. I think this definition is pretty anthropomorphic as it doesn’t take into consideration the possibility of a machine outsmarting a human being.
Robots are far from being as intelligent as people because they do not understand what they execute, but does a bacterium with no brain understand how its genetic code works? We all agree that bacteria are organisms, but is it because they reproduce or because they use the same type of chemistry as us? A bacterium is considered a living being while it is stupid while a robot can beat people at chess and they are considered things. Why is that?
Meanwhile I have read a book called “What is life” by Schrödinger which is written by a physicist and not a biologist and this is what makes it so unique.This way I got to the conclusion that a form of life is an assembly of molecules that get exterior energy in order to decrease their internal entropy.
So where is the line between things and organisms? Are robots considered things because they do not reproduce by themselves as organisms do and because they are not a product of reproduction like sterile organisms are? If yes then this is a shaky definition as a robot can recreate one alike. Mechanical self-replication of machines does already happen and it will improve by time.They can obtain materials, manufacture the parts, provide the energy and do all the testing. These assembler robots represent the future of nanotechnology. Computer viruses are also able to self-replicate so how come they are not considered alive?
It seems as ?life as we know it? is different than ?life as it might be?.
P.S. You can read the book at this link:
http://whatislife.stanford.edu/Homepage/LoCo_files/What-is-Life.pdf
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Interesting post. I was not aware of Schrödinger’s book and intend on reading it sometime. Your question “So where is the line between things and organisms?” is right on the mark. To me, “life” and “intelligence” are not properties with binary values – they cover a spectrum of increasing complexity.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments as well on my site and I wish you luck on your blog!
so you say that intelligence covers a broad spectrum and that things and living beings are not opposite but rather there are a lot of degrees between them?
I think that being “intelligent” is not a true or false property. A dog is more intelligent than an ant, which is more intelligent than a bacterium and both of these are less intelligent than chimpanzees. I think a similar analogy exists for life. Being able to reproduce can’t be the sole criteria to be “alive” as in your computer virus example. Memes also reproduce and evolve through natural selection.