Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #02281
To: beam@corp.sgi.com
From: Steven Bolt sbolt@xs4all.nl
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 21:48:15 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: CPU again? (was Beam genome)
On Tue, 13 Apr 1999, Terry Newton wrote:
---8<---
> Actually computers are too sequential and deterministic to achieve
> the necessary decoupling from reality to become "alive" in any normal
> sense of the word.
---8<---
*De*coupling from reality? It's coupling you want. The difference
between life and machine is the level, the bandwith, the tightness
of the link between anything alive and its world. A living entity
smells, breathes, tastes, eats and shits its environment, feels it
with its entire body. Compare that to the pitiful tactile switches,
photodiodes or even videocamera's of our robots. Their brains'
determinism isn't in the way. Most `lower' life forms are pretty
deterministic, adapting only or mostly when the genetic algorithm
steps in from one generation to the next. What machines need to
reach alivehood is being *much* tighter coupled with reality...
Best,
Steve
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# sbolt@xs4all.nl # Steven Bolt # popular science monthly KIJK #
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