Sculpture or Artificial Life?

Comments (2)

This is one of the coolest things I have seen recently. Found this on the blog “The Four Ages of Sand”. This is very unique approach to creating artificial life. If you watch the entire 8 minute video, you will see he is making brains for these things. This is like a sci fi dream for sure.

Seeing this underscores the idea that life is computation, and computation can be performed in many ways including mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, chemical, electrical, electromagnetic, genetic/DNA/molecular, quantum, cosmological, universal, virtual, etc. Essentially anywhere you have some form of energy and a means of managing it there is the possibility of life…software is instructions and hardware is energy management. Because computation is a feature of the universe maybe life is too. So maybe we will eventually find it in some form everywhere we look. It does not matter whether we look in outerspace, innerspace, or cyberspace. Add to this our expanding view of what intelligence is and how it emerges from complexity, and the universe almost seems understandable.

By the way, “The Four Ages of Sand” is a thought provoking speech by the one and only Douglas Adams. You can find it here: www.douglasadams.se

© Copyright 2009 Keith Sherwood

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