Legion Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 Can (Non-Biological) Life be created de novo? From... http://www.biokemi.org/biozoom/2006_3/bz_0306e.htm The “essence of life” has fascinated people through all times. What is life, how did it arise or where did it come from? Scientifically, much research and speculation has been devoted to the question of the origin of life on Earth, whereas less attention has been focussing on the prerequisites for life and the possibilities of creating “artificial life” in the laboratory. In two ambitious, newly started, “intercontinental” projects, a European-US consortium is exploring routes that may eventually lead to non-biological artificial life. When I read this article I wanted to change the phrase “non-biological life” into something else, like... “fabricated organisms.” Rasmussen and company are a bold crew in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 Well... yes... we're here, so life did crop up de novo. The question is, can we do something similar or parallel.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted June 7, 2007 Author Share Posted June 7, 2007 The question is, can we do something similar or parallel.... If you had linked to the article Gramps you might have seen that it addresses this question. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 It seems to me to view life as artefact, not process. In terms of electronic life, there has to be an element of deus ex machina programming of the parts. Unless I've missed the point og the article. Life didn't (couldn't) originate from already complex preformed components o fthe level of complexity required by an android 'life' form. Self replicating materials are already extant in nature, in crystalline form (both organised and amorphous) and in terms of carbon-hydrogen-oxygen compounds (Prions 'breed' by changing the isomer form of inert molecules for instance) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted June 8, 2007 Author Share Posted June 8, 2007 I have grown somewhat dubious of the efforts to simulate organsims. But these people are also trying to create actual organisms. And from their perspective then life is to be their artifact. It seems to me that they are in fact trying to engineer a complex open ended process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted June 13, 2007 Author Share Posted June 13, 2007 One of the things that I find interesting about Rasmussen’s approach to fabricating an organism is that at its heart there resides a triad (or trinity if you will). He proposes that it is necessary to functionally couple the operation of 1) genes, 2)metabolism, and 3)container to create an organism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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