> hi. i've been away a week, and maybe someone's already make the
> following point after jeff's posting. that is, electronic ecologies
> now exist, there's papers and symposia on this topic, and creeping
> technology has already gotten us to the point where some (me, for
> instance) conclude that AL (artificial life) has been formally
> created, conplete with footnotes and references and compressed files
> that can be downloaded off the MechEng BBS (or bought at your local
> computer/software store, i'd guess) to create said electronic
> ecologies on your own personal computer.
>
What does any of this have to do with organic life? Why broaden the
use of a word we've had the devil of a time defining in the first
place. On the otherhand, if all material systems are alive, the
problem goes away, I guess.
As a biologist, I find the distinctions we are trying to make
meaning ful. I wish they would have chosen other, less misleading
language dfor these other things. Once again, here's where Rosen and
others have been a great help in focusing on the distictions.
In biology, everything somehow rests on taxonomy, which when it works,
rests on dichotomous classification. These notions have not lost their
usefulness have they? It seems like the naming game easily lapses into
newspeak if we are not careful. But that's just one person's
prejudice I guess.
Best wishes, Don Mikulecky