Can We Create Artificial Life?
If you really think about it, life truly is a miracle. In a sense, it is a way for the universe to know itself. That's because we are all made of star dust and since we are conscious as humans, we can ponder about the universe.
But it's not just us human beings that are special. All life is special in my opinion because ultimately our existence dates back to that first single celled organism that came alive.
This is also what boggles my mind. How can something, that is purely made up of non-living elements, suddenly come alive and start functioning as an intelligent system?
This got me thinking even more. What if we were someday able to create the perfect replica of the human body? I mean the bones, muscles, blood, everything down to the perfect detail. What would happen then? Would that body just come alive?
Think About It
I don't know whether or not you have thought about this but I have spent hours upon hours pondering endlessly what makes 'life' happen! How is it that a bunch of non-living matter is able to act so magnificently as if they had been programmed?
We are already beginning to develop 3D printing for human organs and one day we might very well be able to create an artificial human body that would match the real thing perfectly.
What happens next is the interesting part. If the artificial body is healthy, would it come alive? Or would we be missing a piece of the puzzle? Most people would say that the missing piece is the soul.
I won't pretend to know the answer because I don't. I really don't know what it is that animates a body. I mean, when a person dies, at the instant of death, he is just alive one second before and dead the next. What changes?
A Mind-Bending Mystery
It's ironic how life's greatest mystery is life itself. We still don't know how life started on the planet and when and the most important part - how some elements like carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitroge, decided to come together and become "alive"!!
It really is a mind-bending mystery. I said that because my mind feels like bending whenever I think too deep about this and I haven't even touched on the topic of consciousness!
Bringing something to life is one thing but making it conscious and intelligent (like us) is a whole different game. I wonder what happens at the molecular level for that to be even possible!
I can only hope that we can find the answers to all these questions within this century because I truly want to know these answers within my lifetime. I just have to know.
Very great topic you bring up. To add on your valuable content... AI is also a breakthrough technology that is around the corner. Google attempts to replicate an assistant that could interact with humans is mind-boggling. What's also shocking to me is how the mimic of a human's brain incorporated into Artificial intelligence would be a huge benefit to technological advancements such as autonomous driving, robots, drones, etc.
THE POTENTIAL OF TECHNOLOGY IS AMAZING!
I have always been amazed by what technology has managed to achieve. It always seems impossible until its done and is definitely like magic to people only a few decades ago!
Life really is a mystery. A mystery that remains a mystery till we die. Isn't it? There comes many chapters in our life that remains unexplored and we can do nothing about it. Sometimes, I feel so damn pissed off with the unexplored stuff but then I know I really can't help it and I have to let the things happen as they are happening.
Yeah, it pisses me off to not knowing about these mysteries but as always we have no option but to be patient.
awesome post
very great topic...
i like..
I we can create artificial life, I doubt what it should be called. Is it worthy of calling "life"?
that's one of the questions that is needed to be answered.
I suppose we all start our journey as single cell beings in some way (egg or sperm) and go through the entire evolutionary process, from having fins to fingers, in our mum's womb. I think if we create a perfect replica of a human the biggest missing link will be experience of life. We are shaped by our experiences and our response to them constantly changes who we are and how we see the world. I think the trouble is we don't have any exact correlation between event and it's consequences because there is choice involved. So how do we choose which experience to expose our perfect human replica to? Mind bent 😂 I can no longer continue!
You bring up a really good point. Each baby born has the genetic information required that help in multiple ways (including the experiences of the parents in many ways). And if we create life artificially in a lab, that would surely be missing (unless they find a way around it).
I think we still don't understand how exactly life functions and what factors affect it the most and what parameters there would need to be for us to be able to create it artificially. hehe mind bent here too!
I have been more and more curious about this type of pondering. To ask a little plainly.... what about it would be artificial?
Artificial Intelligence I can grasp a little more plainly, thinking of it more as a smart program vs actual intelligence. However, if we as a race were able to create life... I can't view life as anything but life.
Ugh... i want to go on and on about this (so maybe a post inspired). I would say artificial advanced life may be awhile coming, but we consider a single cell organism to be alive, and I can't imagine we are far from matching the simple actions of this with a simple robot.... Enjoy the read and the though provocation. Thank you
"what about it would be artificial" the fact that it would be created by us humans in a lab, and not through the natural process of birth that nature has designed.
I would love to read about your thoughts on this matter. The more the merrier hehe. Yeah, I think that we are not too far from creating a very simple life form, perhaps like the one that started it all.
There are many more things in the world which are not known to us.We know only that much,what we have seen.The world is 2part of water and 1 part of Land.We are living on the land only and we know about that part which we can see through the light,the dark side ia yet to know and it will be unknown for ever.
I think that we have only just begun on our journey as human beings to know the universe and reality itself and there a ton of mysteries left to solve and I think when we answer one question, we open up even more questions.
life is indeed full of mystery, it is difficult for us to solve, are humans who lived before we've been trying to solve this mystery? but he can't afford, and best wishes as you would expect, this living mystery will soon be solved by people who want to think
We have been trying to solve the mystery of life for ages. Soon, I hope, we will have some answers.
the mind/personality is a standing wave resultant of the aggregate of a gawd-zillion tiny tiny electrical nerves impulses in the brain.
The body doesn't have a whole lot to do with consciousness..
Consciousness sure seems like a product of the brain (the zillions of electrical nerves), but the brain is also a part of the body, no?
with some people...not so you could notice.
I'm a trucker...I know these things.
trust me.
haha I am sure lol
Yeah me too. I want the answer. How come a cell mutation create organism and how about consciousness... too many things we don't know.
It sure keeps me awake sometimes! lol