[PD] Re: Code Art

[Jerome Etienne]

On Sat, Dec 06, 2003 at 01:41:00PM -0500, Marc Lavallée wrote:
> I'm very reluctant to the idea that life could essentialy be a sort
> of computing process.

i like this sentence, it seems related to an idea which wander in
my mind. i would be interested by your opinion about it.

        an hypothesis,

but if we assume that the "complete life" is contained completly
in the body, another way to say it would be, if we assume their
is no soul, no immaterial stuff floating above us kindof ghostly,
then the life would be a physical process (with a lot of biology
and chemistry), i mean just a physical process, so life will
only follow the clear rules of physic at the atomique level. thoses 
rules can be expressed by equations and so could be computed by a 
computer, at least in theory. so a computer could be able to 
compute it... "it" is "a life"... so a computer could be able to
compute a life. a computer would be able to create life, a computer 
would be able to "give birth". 
in short, if we assume there is no soul, a computer would be able
to create life.
	-- the end.


i like this reasonment, it doesn't mean i agree with it, but
i find it interesting. it seems to demonstrate that if we
assume there is no soul, a computer would be able to compute
a life, even better a single computer could compute several
lifes. according the moores's law, the speed of computers
is doubled everything 18months... so the number of computed
life can be doubled 18months, so the population computed 
inside the computer will increase exponentially.

If all that is true, can a computer be alive ? the answer
is let as an exercice for the reader :))