Artificial Life

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Luke T.'s inability to grasp even the simplest consequences of technological developments. His argument implies that we shouldn't particularly care about any new breakthrough, as they've all been anticipated before they happen.

Barring a few of the outright trolls, Luke offers the stupidest arguments and positions of anyone I've seen on these boards. I can't decide whether he's more annoying as someone who posts just to get a reaction, or as a person who sincerely believes the tripe he inflicts on us all.

I think I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's just trolling.

 

[Luke T.]

Luke T.'s inability to grasp even the simplest consequences of technological developments. His argument implies that we shouldn't particularly care about any new breakthrough, as they've all been anticipated before they happen.

Barring a few of the outright trolls, Luke offers the stupidest arguments and positions of anyone I've seen on these boards. I can't decide whether he's more annoying as someone who posts just to get a reaction, or as a person who sincerely believes the tripe he inflicts on us all.

I think I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's just trolling.

In the 70s, there was a fellow who claimed he was "on the verge" of creating life in a jar using a recipe he cooked up which he believed accurately mimicked the "primordial soup." He figured he could zap it with some 'lectricity, and voila, LIFE! He made all the papers and magazines of the day. But it turns out Famous Amos came up with a recipe about the same time that had a much bigger impact on life as we know it.

And I as clearly demostrated with the links I posted above, there's been this "on the verge" talk for a while now. Hell, in Louis Pasteur's day, people thought they could create spontaneous life from dust particles. Abiogenesis. Pasteur did some simple experiments to debunk it.

So, Swarm, I am being, oh, what's the word I'm looking for?

Skeptical. Yeah. That's it.

I think when someone makes a claim that they are about to do something, before they actually do it, and start talking about how it is going to revolutionize the universe, and wax all philosophical, we should be skeptical, see. 'Cause a lot of the time it is all ego.

Some people like to see their name in the papers prematurely. Going for the Pulitzer instead of the Nobel. And they deserve ridicule. They make the whole scientific community look bad.

If they accomplish the construction of some nanomachines which can make a better sweater, that would be cool. But is it life? Or is it a mimic of life, like Asimo mimics a human? Saying you have created life is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary proof. So I'll stay calm and wait and see while you go coo-coo for cocoa puffs, mmm-kay?

 

[Luke T.]

News 10/12/99

Scientists in Rockville, Maryland, are on the verge of creating life, according to the magazine Science. The research team has been investigating the simplest free-living organism there is, Mycoplasma genitalium. This bacterium only has just over five hundred genes and the research team found that only three hundred to three hundred and fifty of them were necessary for life. The technique to discover this involved knocking out each gene in turn to find out whether this affected the bacterium’s growth. The head of the team said that a third of the essential genes for life had been unknown before.
Having discovered the basic genes, the researchers can now propose the creation of life using man-made genes and chromosomes. They would insert these elements into a chemical ‘soup’ in which the genes would create a new life form.

The question of what is human and what is not is put in question if all forms of life share the same set of basic genes.

This sound familiar?

 

[richardm]

News 10/12/99

This sound familiar?

Yeah. It would be nice to think that we've been moving steadily closer to the target, though.

It certainly seems more plausible as time goes by, and there doesn't appear to be anything fundamentally dubious (like, say, cold fusion).

If they can do it it would be quite a thing. I just hope that the first practical application isn't some sort of weapon

 

[Frostbite]

I'd be incapable of wearing a living shirt. I mean, what if you're exposed to some radiation, at the dentist or in an airport, and the shirt becomes a maniacal flesh eating shirt! Or what if I flush the shirt in the toilet and it ends up in radioactive waste, it would become an evil shirt and start replicating itself to make an army of flesh eating shirts bent on world domination! I wouldn't want the human race to be overthrown by mutant shirts.

Would you?

 

[wjousts]

If they accomplish the construction of some nanomachines which can make a better sweater, that would be cool. But is it life? Or is it a mimic of life, like Asimo mimics a human? Saying you have created life is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary proof.

So what is you definition of life? If we can make molecules that can replicate them selves with the potential for some variation to creep in how is that any different from the very early stages of life on earth? Self replicating RNA has been demostrated in the lab so it could be argued that we have already recreated the very first steps of life on earth.
I'll agree that there is a lot of hype around this and the self-repairing sweater with the potential for world domination is still far off, but the original point was:

Labs say they have nearly all the tools to make artificial life

And that is probably true. We could quite easily put together a crude lifeform that will reproduce itself. It won't be in the slightest bit useful and will probably sit as a piece of slime in a petri dish, but it would be completely artifical. It would be many more years before we could engineer an artifical life form to do something useful, but that's a whole different question. When scientists talk about their work, especially to lay-people they need to put it into context and talk about where it's heading because the lay-person won't otherwise see the point of the work the scientist is doing right now. I think that is all that is happening here with the talk of self-repairing sweaters.

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Luke T.

Some people like to see their name in the papers prematurely. Going for the Pulitzer instead of the Nobel.

People doing exciting work may tend to get a little excited. Journalists tend to like to spice things up a little. The results of the latter interviewing the former may not be a completely accurate picture of what is actually taking place. Relying on popular media to stay informed of happenings at the vanguard of science carries this risk, and a healthy dose of skepticism is certainly in order. But that doesn't mean nothing of substance is going on; there is a large, qualified, and dedicated nanotech community, and they do appear to be making progress.

It seems to me that either:

1) There are fundamental reasons why artificial cells are not possible in principle.

2) For practical reasons, this technology will never be anything more than a curiosity.

or:

3) It is simply a matter of when this technology arrives.

 

[Luke T.]

So what is you definition of life? If we can make molecules that can replicate them selves with the potential for some variation to creep in how is that any different from the very early stages of life on earth? Self replicating RNA has been demostrated in the lab so it could be argued that we have already recreated the very first steps of life on earth.

Well, a current dictionary definition (dictionary.reference.com) for "life" is:

The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.

I'll agree that there is a lot of hype around this and the self-repairing sweater with the potential for world domination is still far off, but the original point was:



And that is probably true. We could quite easily put together a crude lifeform that will reproduce itself. It won't be in the slightest bit useful and will probably sit as a piece of slime in a petri dish, but it would be completely artifical. It would be many more years before we could engineer an artifical life form to do something useful, but that's a whole different question. When scientists talk about their work, especially to lay-people they need to put it into context and talk about where it's heading because the lay-person won't otherwise see the point of the work the scientist is doing right now. I think that is all that is happening here with the talk of self-repairing sweaters.

I agree the first man-made lifeform will probably be a few microscopic cells who refuse to grant an interview to Geraldo, which will make them smarter than most politicians. When that actually happens, I imagine my heartbeat will pick up a bit. But as I have shown, science has been making this promise for so long, I just can't get excited about it until the day it actually happens.

The first man-made lifeform will come to you on TV as a photo of a glass slide with some funny looking dots on it. Or maybe a photo of a metal spider blown up one million times.

 

[wjousts]

Well, a current dictionary definition (dictionary.reference.com) for "life" is:

The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.

Okay, and that is certainly within our reach. Now what do you consider artifical? Since we can easily produce any arbitrary sequence of DNA we could remove the DNA from a virus or a bateria and put in our own code. The only trick is finding a code that will actually work (other than the original). Would that work for you? What if instead of starting from scratch we took the original DNA that was in the cell and just monkied around with it a bit. Say we changed 50% of it, is that artifical? What if we only change 10%? Those types of experiment we could certainly do TODAY. What if we took the DNA from a bateria and threw it in a test tube with all the bits it would need to create a cell. If the cell self assembles does that count as artifical life?

 

[Luke T.]

Okay, and that is certainly within our reach. Now what do you consider artifical? Since we can easily produce any arbitrary sequence of DNA we could remove the DNA from a virus or a bateria and put in our own code. The only trick is finding a code that will actually work (other than the original). Would that work for you? What if instead of starting from scratch we took the original DNA that was in the cell and just monkied around with it a bit. Say we changed 50% of it, is that artifical? What if we only change 10%? Those types of experiment we could certainly do TODAY. What if we took the DNA from a bateria and threw it in a test tube with all the bits it would need to create a cell. If the cell self assembles does that count as artifical life?

I imagine that a lot of the DNA sequences you find in a virus or bacteria is probably already in our DNA.

And taking DNA from a bacteria and throwing it in a test tube with all the bits it would need to create a cell, which would then self assemble. Hmmm. Gives me an idea on how to build an airplane...

 

[hammegk]

It seems to me that 1) There are fundamental reasons why artificial cells are not possible in principle.

Building the artificial cell should be doable. Do you predict every effort to succeed in a "lifeform"? If some attempts fail, perhaps the attribute called "life" just chooses not to occupy & animate the structure you provided?

How will science determine which is the case?

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

If they accomplish the construction of some nanomachines which can make a better sweater, that would be cool. But is it life? Or is it a mimic of life, like Asimo mimics a human?

Idiot. If they put together a living cell from organic, synthesized parts, it's as alive as any other cell. Gee, is a double-membraned nucleus surrounded by cytoplasm and with all of the machinery necessary to synthesize proteins alive, or does it just look alive?

Are the viruses formed from putting synthetic bits of virus in a bottle and shaking it real viruses, or do they just mimic the viruses that they are identical to in every way? If we put together a jigsaw puzzle from many pieces, is it a real jigsaw puzzle or just a collection of small bits arranged in a certain way?

You're not just asleep, you have your head lodged in some interesting places, too.

 

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Behold the JREF moderator who can't distinguish between experimental models of abiogenesis, nanotechnology, and synthetic cells!

Tell us again how smart you are, Luke, before you make us forget all over again.

 

[Luke T.]

Behold the JREF moderator who can't distinguish between experimental models of abiogenesis, nanotechnology, and synthetic cells!

Tell us again how smart you are, Luke, before you make us forget all over again.

Wrath, I am starting to enjoy watching your temper run away with you. Where did I say these are all the same? What I am saying is that each has made the claim they are on the verge of creating life for quite a while now, and therefore each new claim should be met with skepticism. Save the excitment for if/when it actually occurs. Otherwise you run the risk of "settling" for what you accept as "life."

 

[Luke T.]

If they put together a living cell from organic, synthesized parts, it's as alive as any other cell.

IF.

 

[wjousts]

I imagine that a lot of the DNA sequences you find in a virus or bacteria is probably already in our DNA.

That doesn't make any sense. Who said anything about our DNA? How is that even relavant?

And taking DNA from a bacteria and throwing it in a test tube with all the bits it would need to create a cell, which would then self assemble. Hmmm. Gives me an idea on how to build an airplane...

So have you never heard of self-assembly in chemistry? Have you never seen a soap bubble? Soap will self-assemble into bubbles because they have hydrophilic heads and hydrophobic tails. The lipid bilayers that make up cell walls are similar. So if you don't think cell membrane lipids can self-assemble into micelles then I'd imagine you must be totally stunned every time you take a bubble bath that these soap bubbles suddenly form in the water. Perhaps you think there are invisible pixies pushing them around?
Your airplane comparision just demostrates your ignorance of chemistry.

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by hammegk

Building the artificial cell should be doable. Do you predict every effort to succeed in a "lifeform"? If some attempts fail, perhaps the attribute called "life" just chooses not to occupy & animate the structure you provided?

How will science determine which is the case?

As a scientific hypothesis, that could be defeated by a single positive result. But it could never be verified by negative results, no matter how many trials were performed. As a philosophical hypothesis, it is as incoherent as any other.

 

[Luke T.]

So have you never heard of self-assembly in chemistry? Have you never seen a soap bubble? Soap will self-assemble into bubbles because they have hydrophilic heads and hydrophobic tails. The lipid bilayers that make up cell walls are similar. So if you don't think cell membrane lipids can self-assemble into micelles then I'd imagine you must be totally stunned every time you take a bubble bath that these soap bubbles suddenly form in the water. Perhaps you think there are invisible pixies pushing them around?
Your airplane comparision just demostrates your ignorance of chemistry.

I would only be surprised if the soap bubbles got up and got my towel for me.

If life were that simple to create, it would have been done already.

 

[Luke T.]

As a scientific hypothesis, that could be defeated by a single positive result. But it could never be verified by negative results, no matter how many trials were performed. As a philosophical hypothesis, it is as incoherent as any other.

So how many negative trials does it take to come to the conclusion we are "on the verge?"

 

[Dymanic]

Originally posted by Luke T.

So how many negative trials does it take to come to the conclusion we are "on the verge?"

Maybe we are on the verge of discovering whether or not we are on the verge.

I have to say (with all due respect) that I find the logic of this statement somewhat elusive:

"If life were that simple to create, it would have been done already."

Was that a joke?