Comment Re:Definitions of Life (Score 1) 823
> 2. Metabolism - The uptake of food, conversion
> of food into energy and disposal of waste
> products
Electricity in, heat out.
That cannot equate to the metabolism of 'virtual' life. We could simulate such a creature in a virtual world running on an electric computer, but to say that 'Electricity in, heat out.' represents a real metabolism for the creature is a fallacy - for there is no real metabolic process involved in the real world related to the virtual creature. The creature may exist in a discrete, virtual world with a virtual metabolic process, but not in the 'real' world with a metabolic process that is actually involved in the formal definition of the creature. The virtual creature is only an formal system executing on a computer and the constraints of real world physics need not apply to it.
For example, a virtual physical system in a virtual physical world does not have to comply to the laws of thermodynamics, although the actual device upon which it is running (the computer) does.
> of food into energy and disposal of waste
> products
Electricity in, heat out.
That cannot equate to the metabolism of 'virtual' life. We could simulate such a creature in a virtual world running on an electric computer, but to say that 'Electricity in, heat out.' represents a real metabolism for the creature is a fallacy - for there is no real metabolic process involved in the real world related to the virtual creature. The creature may exist in a discrete, virtual world with a virtual metabolic process, but not in the 'real' world with a metabolic process that is actually involved in the formal definition of the creature. The virtual creature is only an formal system executing on a computer and the constraints of real world physics need not apply to it.
For example, a virtual physical system in a virtual physical world does not have to comply to the laws of thermodynamics, although the actual device upon which it is running (the computer) does.
