Sunday, May 14, 2006

My unified theory of so-called living and non-living

This might be a bit interesting for you. N yeah, this is not at all for you in case you beleive in souls. So, in case you dun beleive in souls, can you tell me whats the difference in a living and a non-living thing? I studied biology till 10th, and also in my first semester here in BITS, /* yeah, we engineering students do hav to study bio, one sem*/. So, dere i studied a few so-called requirements for a thing to be called as living. So, lemme try to remember them, dey ver, adaptation ( irritability/individual/population); growth and reproduction; metabolism; proper structure. yeah, i m missing mayb a couple of them rite now, but i had thot over all of dem. So, fine, i m creating a big big robot, wid huge arms, dat are continuosly digging the earth, at one place to extract petroleum, vich it vil purify and use as its fuel, or u can say food /* metabolism*/ ; another to dig out iron and other material, vich it vil use to create more machine of such kinds and to repair itself as well /* growth and reproduction*/ . N yeah, it has all kinda sensors, so dat it can sense all its surroundings /* adaptation*/ . Now i just want to find one of the criteria vich my mega bot is not fullfilling. N yeah, as far as thot process is concerned, i mean u say dat v living beings can think, i can explian u dat thing also. But dat later on, for the time being, lemme just compare my bot vid sum simple living form, say plants. N i think, dat my bot is a lot better dan plants. K, it is a lot bigger, but still better equiped vid sensors, driven by a better program dan dat stored in the plant's dna. I mean, now vats the difference in the two. How can one say that plant is living n bot is non-living.??? N in case u say dat my bot doesnt grow, so, i programmed it to make up his own parts, n also to repair dem. vel, one thing vich i was thinkin was how vel adaptation is done in d bot. As per d definition of adaptation, it is changing, permanently o emporarily, to fit to the surroundings. This my bot vil also do, for eg, control the speed fan on the processor according to the outside temp. Ok, now d thinkin part. Vat i 'think' bout dis is dat, first of all, i think dat v dont think. V just do actions accordin to sum pre-pogrammed algo or sumtin. Vel, i dun say dat it happens so, but it cud. Just like our involuntary muscles, vich work vidout our intervention, i sumtimes think dat all our actions r also involuntary, dey r just affected by the events happenin in the surroundins. N yeah, in case v consider dis to b true, dis wud certainly mean dat v can calculate our fture actions. it vil need a lotta computations, but it can b done. So, many a times i think dat ders no need to call a thing living or non-living. d difference i think is d level of complexity. Vel, for a long time, i dint found ne contradiction to this theory, but still, i think dat i m livin n dis comp on vich i m workin is not. Vel, actually, it wud b wrong to say dat i think, instead i feel, i feel dat i m livin n dis comp is not. I m livin, mayb i m not controlin my actions, i mean, mayb my actions r being controlled by all d events happenin around n pocessd by algo in my dna, but dere is sumthin dat makes me feel livin. yeah, not dat simple to explain. n i dunno y i m tryin to do so. But havnt u ever thot dat way??? mayb not excatly like dis, but in sum different way, sumthin must hav sumtim been in ur mind too. Vel, i m not able to convince myself bout dis theory, for vich i m not able to find ne contradiction, primarily coz i 'feel' dat i m living. Now, i m sorry, but i wont b able to describe my feeling vid d help of dis non-livin keyboard. In case neone frm bio field read dis, please lemme know d difference between living n non-living. vat i feel is dat so-called non-livin r d buildin block of livin things. n so-called livin hav a poper algo to work. but dat way i m nt able to find ne diffeence in a machine controlled by ne kinda controller n a plant ( just for simplicity sake, else i can compare my bot even vid u). u must b thinkin dat i m totally confused, vel, i m not much confused, its simple, i think dat i m non-livin, but i feel dat i m livin.

3 comments:

Amit Monga said...

good way to pass ur confusion over others!!.... also a ques u have thought over adaptation but not abt adaptation in undefined situation living things does want pre defined conditions to survive upon... neways nice observation sometimes even i also do have such thoughts but not to that extend...hahaha....

Gautam Chaudhari said...

Yaar tere views maine dyaan se soche hain-aur uss pe debate bhi kiya hain(if you remember).Main bhi somewhat tere se agree karta hoon...coz the question ultimately remains-where do you draw the line between the living and the non living?
An atom?Or a molecule?May me a few macromolecues?viruses?where?
And one cant argue that non living things are uncomplicated-look at a computer-its definitely more complicated than a virus..at lest I believe so.

Anonymous said...

hey! I was goin thru ur blog nd found this interesting topic.Not to mention, i spend unbelievably huge amount of time thinking about this kinda stuff. hmm.. I think i agree with you in a way. Lets put it this way. Forget about souls and all. How does it matter whether a person believes it or not. (u do mention it above.) From the theory that i got myself to agree with, life can be gauged on a scale of consciousness. The difference between each species being their level of consciousness. Say, we compare plants and animals. Animals have a nervous system, plants dont. The metabolism of animals is much more complicated than that of plants. Then think about stones. You dont believe me when i say that the Earth has life.. do you? But the Earth controls its temperature by a procedure of its own. (we studied all that .. didn't we .. in school?). Or lets just say, it is one of its metabolic activities.. controlling its own temperature. But the life in it is much more lower/higher in the scale of consciousness that we dont usually notice it. Same with plants. They live for hundreds of years. It took humans centuries to prove that there is life in plants. Similarily, your robo will also stand somewhere in that scale of consciousness. But think about, how many parameters do we have to consider to design such a conscious system? It is definitely possible. anyway.. what's the guarantee, anyway, that humans will survive for more than a thousand years? u never know.. it could be robots once we design such a conscious thing.