3. The difference between animal and machine has long been debated. What makes a machine? We tend to think of them as something artificial, manmade, like a hammer or a car. The definition seems to be somewhat less clear-cut though: “A machine is any device that uses energy to perform some activity. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work.”
What then prevents an organism from being a machine? Don’t they use energy to perform an activity? The definition of organism is: “A living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently.” Cannot a machine can act or function independently? It seems the only thing preventing a machine from being classified as an organism is the quality of being alive. How do we define life? It seems the official definition is simply: “A characteristic state or mode of living.” Such a simple definition of something so complicated implies that life is such a basic concept that all beings can understand it. I have also heard life defined as the quality of having metabolism. This definition, however, excludes viruses, which do not metabolize and are therefore not technically alive. If they are not alive, what are they? And how do they differ from a machine?
Life Extreme raises more questions. If a machine is to be defined as manmade and designed to use energy for a purpose, how is something classified that has those characteristics and is also alive? An animal that is created by humans seems to blur the line between living and mechanical. The Semi-Living Worry Dolls on page 90 are an example of this. Are they alive? Can something be “semi-living?” What would a machine constructed out of living parts be referred to as? E-coli can be engineered to produce beneficial drugs, in essence becoming a machine. Does that mean it is not alive?
The splices of Ribofunk force us to look at how comfortable we are with referring to ourselves as animals. If something is partially animal, partially human, and all manufactured, what is it? Human? Animal? Machine? Is there a distinction between animal and human? They are treated as machines, trained and bred to have certain core responses to external stimuli, but it is clear that they have very human emotions; anger, fear, betrayal. Postsingular seeks to ask the question from a different angle; is it possible for a machine to become alive? Does the quality of being conscious mean that something is alive? Does the quality of being conscious make something human? Obviously, all that is sentient is not literally human, which suggests that, if animals other than humans were self-aware, we would cease to be unique. Therefore, humans are simply animals that happen to be self aware.
I read an article a while ago about how there is no structural or molecular difference between a dead body and a living body. One is simply alive and the other is simply not. Both are constructed entirely of non-living parts, of atoms no different from the atoms inhabiting non-living matter. In essence, an animal is a construct of non-living particles organized in such a way as to be alive. If all there is to life is the order in which non-living parts are assembled, then how is a machine any different from a living creature? A sentient or semi-sentient computer would be made out of non-living parts that would make it capable of autonomous action and thought.
Is the manner of a creature’s creation what determines if it is alive? Does it matter that it was manmade as opposed to evolved? Of course not. It is arrogant to assume that the quality of being made by human hands creates an entirely different class of matter. Artificial and alive are not mutually exclusive. A mechanical animal/human is a very real possibility.
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