[betty boop]

"[The late] Robert Rosen, a student of Nicholas Rashevsky and a product of the Mathematical Biology program at the University of Chicago started one line of research that grappled with the question [of discriminating organisms from machines] in the late 1950s. It is worth examining the progression, which lead Bob Rosen to realize that he was dealing with a poorly posed question and that when rephrased, the question had an earthshaking answer."

I found Mikulecky's article an absolutely astounding and valuable read — FWIW!

[betty boop]

Question: Do we have a potential "paradigm shift" on our hands here?

What do you think?

[bill1952]

The question is ridiculous.

Why is air different than dirt?
Who is Spain?

[Paladin2]

Organisms are mushy and machines are not.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[freedumb2003]

Yikes!

This is a heck of a read! Perhaps you can distill the point of the article?

[mysterio]

Machines can't get drunk?

lol

Anyway, I have been thinking about this a lot lately. One could argue that we are bio-mechanical robots. And one could argue that we are not. I'm not diving into that debate, though.

[mc5cents]

Is this sort of like mortal man trying to explain the immortal? Can we ever understand creation? I don’t think so, but then again I could be wrong for I am just a mortal man. :-)

[onedoug]

WHY ARE ORGANISMS DIFFERENT FROM MACHINES?

Because (intelligent) organisms build machines and not the other way around.

[NeoConfederate]

Does this mean SUV’s have a right to life?

[tentmaker]

It may become one of the most important and hotly contested issues of this century.

[Centurion2000]

bump and book mark for later reading. And yes i’d like that word article too. :)

[budwiesest]

What's strange is, we may not possess all of the 'sensory' apprati necessary to completely understand 'reality'.

Machines seem to be an extension of our senses- fine tuned to deliver informantion that would otherwise be impossible for us to see, hear, etc.(x-rays)

There may be other stimuli (or forces) at work in nature that, due to our 'insensitivity', we're incapable of measuring. That we never developed a 'receptor' for it was because it wasn't paramount to our survival.

Fear of the Unknown is the blanket treatment we've developed for just such things. Have you ever wondered why you picked up something to read and found it addressed something you've been acutely interested in? Or changed a channel to something that again, hit the mark? Or maybe you've been in a life threatening situation and came out unscathed and wondered, "How did I survive this?"

There may be nothing at all to these 'observations' but, building machines capable of 'sensing' them would be neat. If, these are true 'forces', and we could discover where to look for them, that is. It'll probably happen by accident if it happens at all.

[webschooner]

Why not? (if we are going to ax silly questions)

[calex59]

Because they are organic and alive and machines are not. Next question.

[Lancey Howard]

"Why are organisms different from machines?"

[P.O.E.]

Was out zotting a carpenter ant nest in the shed, and within a few days they had flyers out by the dozens.

Talk about a microprocessor. How do it know?

[TChris]

What do a fish and a laser beam have in common?