I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s
Excuse the cliche question, but what <i>is</i> Life?<p>If we make an AI whose thoughts and communication are practically indistinguishable from humans, and it controls a bunch of things that affect the physical world, is it alive?<p>If there's a disembodied mind somewhere that can think and imagine but never communicate or interact with anything, is it dead?<p>What about a human in a coma or permanent dreaming state? What about when they later wake up?<p>Okay nevermind thoughts and communication; What if there's an armada of "dumb" robots, spawned from a single factory, that can't think, only acts according to preset instructions, but still goes on to affect many things for hundreds of years, what should they be classified as? Would they be considered "artificial" life or automatons even if they existed for thousands of years and their creators were no longer around?<p>I don't think there is any single absolute criteria to classify all possible entities that must be out there or could theoretically exist, but the answer to "What is life?" is probably this:<p>Whatever other life thinks is life.