Hello PH! They would not be alive. For “aliveness” is a natural phenomenon. To put this observation into relief, compare the living system with a “classic” example of the von Neumann probe: the self-replicating obelisk of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The seemingly unbridgeable gap that separates them is that one – the living system – is a natural phenomenon (as A-G has already pointed out), and the other – the obelisk – is a human production (a kind of “poetry” in its way…).
Which is not to say that a human construction will always be an “unnatural” one. Man is, after all, “natural” -- part of and participant in nature. It is only to say that the human construction would be a derivative one, derived from principles transcending the human builder/designer/author/artist/architect/poet/scientist/engineer/etc., etc. A human product is not directly a product of “Nature”; rather it is the result of a “mimicry” or “hypostatization” of Nature and Nature’s laws.
Which is to say, the von Neumann probe is the model of the finest construction that an intelligent mind, in possession of the largest amount of information available about the universe at the given time, can construct. It is not a natural, but an abstract production – “abstracted” from the order of an already given, ultimate Nature.
Nature is a riot of life, of abundant and seemingly irrepressible and unending emergence of diversity and beauty. We don’t have to worry a whit about von Neumann probes coming “alive” anytime soon; because their human designers can’t imagine – at least not yet – how to get a handle on the “complexity problem” involved, let alone figure out a way to translate that into structures formed of inanimate matter that might, like Frankenstein, come “alive” and stride the world by means of purely human auspices some day.
To say there is no “clear and present danger” is not to say, however, that von Neumann probes can’t pose problems for humans any time soon. I believe the reverse understanding was the point of The Terminator series….
I myself I am already “messed with” and “tortured by” machines, every day of my life. So to speak. So I already know that sort of thing can happen! The real question is: On what scale??? :^)
Sorry to go so “Hollywood” on you tonight, Patrick. Good films are usually successful films, and the truly great ones are successes for what they truthfully tell us about ourselves, our societies, “the human condition” at large….
600 (had to do it!)