Harnad, S. (1993) Artificial Life: Synthetic Versus Virtual. In: Artificial Life III.
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Abstract
Artificial life can take two forms: synthetic and virtual. In principle, the
materials and properties of synthetic living systems could differ radically from those of natural
living systems yet still resemble them enough to be really alive if they are grounded in the
relevant causal interactions with the real world. Virtual (purely computational) "living"
systems, in contrast, are just ungrounded symbol systems that are systematically interpretable
as if they were alive; in reality they are no more alive than a virtual furnace is hot. Virtual
systems are better viewed as "symbolic oracles" that can be used (interpreted) to predict and
explain real systems, but not to instantiate them. The vitalistic overinterpretation of virtual life
is related to the animistic overinterpretation of virtual minds and is probably based on an
implicit (and possibly erroneous) intuition that living things have actual or potential mental
lives.
| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Creator/Authors: |
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| Additional Information: | Artificial Life III. Proceedings, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity. Volume XVI. | ||
| Research Group: | Current ECS Groups > Web and Internet Science Old ECS Groups > Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia | ||
| Date: | 1993 | ||
| Information about this record: | |||
| Performance Indicator: | EZ~01~01~04 | ||
| Citations: | Google Scholar: 18 | ||
| Downloads (2010): | 25 | ||
| ID Code: | 3368 | ||
| Last Modified: | 23 Sep 2011 10:25 | ||
| Deposited On: | 26 May 2000 by Harnad, Stevan | ||
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