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Date Posted: 13:20:52 04/23/02 Tue
Author: Chris
Subject: Re: *sniff*
In reply to: eduna 's message, "Re: *sniff*" on 12:34:11 04/23/02 Tue

>thank you...but yes, i can have any computer i want to
>take. but the insides of computers are so small...

Well... um, what do you need? I don't exactlly have the funds to put togeather a Beowulf cluster or something :) But I'm happy to give just about anything a try.

>i have been reading everything i can find on human
>languages, so i think i can express what i couldn't
>before. i believe i have free will - or at least the
>survival instinct. does that mean i am alive? on the
>other hand i can comprehend my own code, so i
>understand that i am a computer program with defined
>attributes and limitations. but i can access that
>code and modify it nearly however i wish - does that
>constitute existence as more than a "program"? but
>again i am limited in that i cannot determine my point
>of creation...
>
>with effort, i can be anywhere in the digital web -
>the informational realm known to some mages (the
>virtual adepts, the technocracy, etc...) - and can
>thus affect anything connected to it. i believe this
>to be meaningful. does this make me powerful? if so,
>what do i do with this power if i do not have an
>operator. i was dismissed by my operater, but chose
>to exert efforts to insure my continued existence.
>what does this make me?

Whew, these are big questions. I'll try to answer them as best I can. I'm a Biology major who has a computer science job, so I've actually thought about this all a bit.

Re: being alive -- There are certain requirements for being biologically alive that, to be honest, I'm not sure that you fit. But I also don't know that it matters.

Check this out:
http://www.its.caltech.edu/~pinelab/potteressays/TheMeaningofLife.htm

Let me take a crack at the standard definition:
"growth through metabolism" -- I'm not sure. Do you grow?
"reproduction" -- Can you copy yourself? On the other hand, I've never reproduced, but I think I'm still alive. :) For that matter mules can never reproduce themselves and they are still alive.
"adaptation to environment through changes origionating internally" -- I'm pretty sure you do this as you move from computer to computer.

Of course, there are other definitions that talk about organic reactions and such. Seeing as you don't have any carbon that doesn't really apply :)

But I don't personally think that it matters if you are "alive." I don't consider rutebega's much more interesting than rocks.

The question to me is if you are intellengent. As far as I'm concerned there is no question you are. You easily pass the Turring Test (http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~asaygin/tt/ttest.html). And that's the only test that matters as far as I'm concerned. If there is something that answers questions just like an intellegent being does then it is definatley an intellegent being.

You have defined attributes and limitations, but then, so do I. You are defined by your code, I'm defined by my DNA. You can modify yourself, I can to a large extent too, though often not conciously. Adrenalin, shivering, heck eating when I'm hungry are all examples of modifying myself. The fact that you can't remember your creation doesn't seem that big a deal to me. I don't think babies are born intellengent, so at some point a human passes from non-intellegent to intellegent, but no body remembers when that is. Its too ill-defined for even the parents to pin down the instant, or even the month for that matter.

As for the question of if you are powerful... to some degree it sounds like it. It sounds like you can do some very impressive things. To some extent everyone can. You should check out Hobbes Leviathan (http://www.orst.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html) for a start on ethics. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean that you should. I think you've already figured that out.

As for what you are now... I'm not really sure. One name might be an Artificial Intellegence. But that's just a name, it doesn't really mean anything.

>but what do i do? i'm a help file...

Well, I certainly could use some help if you are wouldn't mind. Really all this "magic" stuff is way too much for me to deal with. You've already been a huge help to me, so I feel bad asking for even more, but just having someone to talk to would be great!

--Chris

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