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Thread: Cell phones are living

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    Default Cell phones are living

    If you open your mind for broader definitions that are impractical in a casual conversation, you will agree that cell phones have the following qualities:
    -Digestion (cell phone breaks down electricity and shits heat)
    -Response to stimulus (Do I need to explain this? If your cell phone doesn't respond to stimuli, it's broken.)
    -Interaction between species. (Humans, duh)
    -Organs (internal parts which interact to execute the overall functioning of the cellphone)
    -Tissues (the products used to create the organs - metals, plastics, etc.)
    -Reproduction (cellphone reproduction is dependent on human desire to create more cellphones - symbiotic relationships similar to bees and flowers)
    -Adaptation (through cellphone via human reproduction, cellphones adapt to better suite their environment, human daily life)

    Why am I wrong?
    “I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life. - Osama bin Laden

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    Life on earth originates from a chain of evolution that can be traced back to the basic chemistry on the planet in it's early stages and the cosmological evolution of the solar system and stars.

    A cellphone is a product created as a tool and thus is not connect to that spontaneous process.

    A human fetus will undergo various stages from the zygote based on the genetic past of the organism. For example yolk appears in humans from the reptilian stage, it is not used and goes away early early on in the development of the embryo. The appendix exists in human although it serves no purpose. The organism retains its past in ways that are a result of its connection to that chain of evolution that occurs spontaneously. A cell phone is built in a lab by a human. A cell phone isn't sentient in the sense of a living organism, and mainly because its not part of that spontaneous chain or tree of life.

    If you believe in a creator or divine entity then the distinction would be cell phones are a product of man, man is a product of god.

    It may be possible for cellphones to evolve into sentient life but I find this ridiculous as all there systems and complexity are forced/imposed and not the result of spontaneous interaction from grassroots. The human brain for example was the result of increased complexity in the nervous system of organism after thousands of successive reproductions and mutations. Cell phones won't mutate, they won't reproduce if left alone (they would first have to evolve basic cellular reproduction or something similar at their most basic level), and so forth. Life evolved from the bottom up, cell phones are engineered from the top down by living entities. If cell phones evolved to be living silicon organisms they would first have to develop living processes spontaneously from the ground up, and in doing so the structure that appears may not conform with that engineered by the designer, all that would occur was the organism using its basic elements to adapt but not absolutely conform to its structure or intended designed purpose by humans. The ability to choose to resist an imposed purpose is part of free will and sentience and related to the concept of "conscience and soul", machines do not have this, this would have to spontaneously appear from the universe and be connected to the process sparked by the big bang and the successive evolution of stars, chemicals, and organisms.

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    The Man from Nantucket, you argue that it doesn't have the same history but would that too mean that an engineered human being wouldn't have a life?

    Vois also pointed out that the cellphones can be traced to other innovations from which they evolved from (in this case, through a whole lot of emergence) like electric lights and radio.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fireyed View Post
    The only thing they're lacking in: a soul
    Does amoeba have a soul?
    “I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life. - Osama bin Laden

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    Because it's not self sustaining, if you leave a cell phone in your closet without electricity he will not naturally seek out electricity in order to self-sustain his life but he will simply lay there and slowly exhaust its battery.

    Even plants have a tendency to seek out light, for example - given the natural constraints of their "body".

    Of course this simple objection leaves a big open question, namely what would happen if someone invented a cell phone which will naturally travel to the nearest electricty source when the battery is low?
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    Quote Originally Posted by FDG View Post
    Because it's not self sustaining, if you leave a cell phone in your closet without electricity he will not naturally seek out electricity in order to self-sustain his life but he will simply lay there and slowly exhaust its battery.
    Bees are not self-sustaining because they need flowers. Cell phones are definitely a parasitic life form.
    “I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life. - Osama bin Laden

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aquagraph View Post
    Bees are not self-sustaining because they need flowers. Cell phones are definitely a parasitic life form.
    They're self sustaining because they actively seek out flowers, ofc no life form is completely self sustaining because even humans need food etc.
    Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit

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    Quote Originally Posted by The Man From Nantucket View Post

    A cellphone is a product created as a tool and thus is not connect to that spontaneous process.
    Sure it is. There is no line separating it from that process. Not only is there no other kind of process there is no other process. All order, and intentionality have emerged spontaneously and there fore are spontaneous. You are invited to have a satori.

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    I approve of this thread
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    cell phones cannot independently reproduce: the example of the relationship between flowers & bees is not comparable to the relationship between cell phones & humans because in the former's case, flowers are passing along their genetic information through their pollen - cell phones contain no genetic material (DNA, etc.). it's not as if a bee could create a new flower independent of other flowers, the way that humans can create cell phones without needing other existing cell phones to do so.

    also, based on my understanding of adaptation, the argument that cell phones "adapt" does not work because the adaptation process is a result of an organism responding to its environment in order to increase its ability to survive. though a cell phone can respond to stimuli, it cannot ever eventually "adapt" new survival traits in response to said stimuli. any changes to cell phones are entirely dependent on the changes a human decides to give them.

    cell phones also do not have the capacity for cellular growth - a universal characteristic of living organisms.

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    Quote Originally Posted by FDG View Post
    They're self sustaining because they actively seek out flowers, ofc no life form is completely self sustaining because even humans need food etc.
    Why doesn't cell phones actively seek out out humans. For the survival of cell phones as a species qualities that attract humans are required.
    Quote Originally Posted by glam View Post
    cell phones cannot independently reproduce: the example of the relationship between flowers & bees is not comparable to the relationship between cell phones & humans because in the former's case, flowers are passing along their genetic information through their pollen - cell phones contain no genetic material (DNA, etc.). it's not as if a bee could create a new flower independent of other flowers, the way that humans can create cell phones without needing other existing cell phones to do so.
    Quote Originally Posted by glam View Post
    cell phones also do not have the capacity for cellular growth - a universal characteristic of living organisms.
    So there is no artificial life. Is, say, Commander Data from Star Trek only an object?
    Quote Originally Posted by glam View Post
    also, based on my understanding of adaptation, the argument that cell phones "adapt" does not work because the adaptation process is a result of an organism responding to its environment in order to increase its ability to survive. though a cell phone can respond to stimuli, it cannot ever eventually "adapt" new survival traits in response to said stimuli. any changes to cell phones are entirely dependent on the changes a human decides to give them.
    Any new survival traits of any species are limited to what their surroundings give them. The dictating environment of cell phones is just very monotonic.
    “I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life. - Osama bin Laden

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    For the record, I think people are making good points and no one seems to strongly disagree with one another. It's as if we'd be playing with aspects.

    I went through Wikipedia and found that the articles that are needed to explain life were prone to circular logic. "Life needs X, to qualify as X you need properties of life."
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    Quote Originally Posted by glam View Post
    cell phones also do not have the capacity for cellular growth - a universal characteristic of living organisms.
    You don't consider viruses to be alive?

    It's relevant to this thread, because smartphones don't have any physiological functions. Of course, does life need to have physiological functions?

    If you broaden the definition of life to any self-regulating, replicating, structured system, you include digital life, like computer viruses. This also opens the door for "machine life" like nanobots in the future.

    I think the idea of digital life is interesting though, since the information associated with a digital lifeform is married to electrons and circuitry in the physical world.


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    Quote Originally Posted by A Grain of a Song of Sand View Post
    You don't consider viruses to be alive?
    Viruses are commonly seen as not living but, naturally, all lines are arbitrary.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Esaman View Post
    Sure it is. There is no line separating it from that process. Not only is there no other kind of process there is no other process. All order, and intentionality have emerged spontaneously and there fore are spontaneous. You are invited to have a satori.
    No you are being ridiculous, for example in physics there are two types of radioactive emissions. Spontaneous and Stimulated. In a fundamental sense there is no difference with your logic as everything is spontaneous. If that were the case then are you pretending your own will is spontaneous? You just spontaneous bump from one thing to another? No most people tend to view their actions as being stimulated via their will to action. Something spontaneous would occur as an accident-- something they didn't plan for. Spontaneous emissions in physics result from the stability of the atom and it trying to achieve balance with its surroundings. Stimulated emissions are the result of some spark or interaction with something else.

    Humans and other things traditionally considered "living" are the result of a spontaneous process of evolution that occurred as a result of events unfolding from the beginning. The creation of a cellphone is a product of something stimulated.by a human's willpower. Same can be said of oneself. The part of you which is your essence is a spontaneous product of the universe, you can't control your own nature. The part of you which is the result of a determined action though is stimulated. And there is an interplay between fate and freewill constantly going on. One observes the other and the other respond. Your nature influences your determined willful actions and the consequences of these actions come back to you as karma which effects and resonates with your being.

    If you don't have that line then you are basically a piece of driftwood floating down a creek with no ability to act willfully or direct yourself. If you consider the entire universe to be spontaneous emergence then you believe in determinism, that everything is pre-scripted and you cannot "stimulate" yourself to willful action, you are just a meditating piece of driftwood that spontaneous flows like food in your bowels through the universe.

    It is not that simple, there is a line separating the two but its not a black and white static line. It is a line of oscillation and mutual creation like electromagnetism. Freewill and Fate and consistently playing against each other. Spontaneity is consistently pitted against Plans and Order and vice versa.

    Life is spontaneous evolution, tools are planned and engineered creations. Tools cannot evolve spontaneously without intervention from their creators. A cellphone won't update itself spontaneously.... a human has to see it, evaluate it and update it. It may be possible for a cellphone to evolve but it would occur at a much more basic level than the level at which humans upgrade it.

    Just as mentioned above with the interplay between fate and freewill. Tools and Organisms have a interplay between them. The usage of tools influences our evolution and the user influences the evolution of tools. It in a way is symbiotic. Except with bees and flowers.... if the bees leave the flowers still live and flourish and if the flowers leave the bees still live and flourish, they aren't dependent on the other, they are interdependence and connected. With humans and tools.... if the humans leave the tool it just lays there like a rock or any other piece of raw matter, they are solely dependent on the human or much much much more dependent in any practical sense. If the tool is removed from the human though, the human is still able to flourish.

    This dependency vs interdependency/connected is why the argument for symbiosis is different. I would be of the school of thought though that all raw matter is somewhat sentient (otherwise the idea of spontaneous evolution of life is ridiculous), but at a very subtle level. Therefore everything is connected, even basic matter to people... but raw materials are so much more dependent on their creators than symbiosis between two living entities.

    Life in this matter is largely defined by a practical boundary. Life is capable of spontaneous self-sufficiency at a much higher level than something like a rock which is almost entirely guided by the actions of something sentient.

    Saying the entire universe is spontaneous self-sufficiency may be true but that's like painting the world all one color and failing to see the structure and niuances of everything. A rock is no where near as self-sufficient as a human being. A human being appears from a much longer branch of spontaneous evolution. Cellphones are tools that appear in a very limited scope as a branch from humans and are for all practical purposes entirely dependent on humans as much as a puppet is on its master.

    If humans were biologically engineered then yes we would be the puppets of that master in someways, but given enough time separate from this master we would begin to evolve at our roots to a different destiny as the constant interplay between fate and freewill plays out.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoIKhg5d7G0

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    Quote Originally Posted by The Man From Nantucket View Post
    No you are being ridiculous, for example in physics there are two types of radioactive emissions. Spontaneous and Stimulated. In a fundamental sense there is no difference with your logic as everything is spontaneous.
    Nature of events can be separated in two factors - random and caused. Causation is what plays substantiating in role in choices-decisions-determinations of will.
    That said all things are interplay of both. Emergent order incorporates randomness. Living order actively so.
    Biochemistry builds on random and pseudo-random behavior of atoms/molecules.
    DNA/sex/species is an organisation whole function of which is largely random recombination of DNA and increasing chance of new mutations finding functional configurations.
    Randomness("stochastic dynamics" in literature) plays integral role in function of a brain.
    Human mind and culture is an engine of semi randomly produced ideas to be to be tested internally then practically.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Man From Nantucket View Post
    If that were the case then are you pretending your own will is spontaneous? You just spontaneous bump from one thing to another? No most people tend to view their actions as being stimulated via their will to action. Something spontaneous would occur as an accident-- something they didn't plan for.
    Bumping from one thing to another sounds more like stimulated than spontaneous. Your use of the spontaneous vs stimulated dichotomy is peculiar.
    Yes, things bumping in to me and inside of me are source of my actions. Things bumping inside of me are structured to be a kind of calculation which is my mind and my will. The calculation is self-involved and malleable but to speak of it's separateness from general field of cause effect would be wrong.
    Your will being then just part of general causative force, "force of nature" if you will, all intentional creations are also natural. I guess I should have started with simple statement that un- or super-natural things do not exist.
    Planing is "just" another form of natural organisation.


    Quote Originally Posted by The Man From Nantucket View Post
    If you don't have that line then you are basically a piece of driftwood floating down a creek with no ability to act willfully or direct yourself. If you consider the entire universe to be spontaneous emergence then you believe in determinism, that everything is pre-scripted and you cannot "stimulate" yourself to willful action, you are just a meditating piece of driftwood that spontaneous flows like food in your bowels through the universe.
    Freedom is an abstraction of different levels than what we are talking about. Even in totally deterministic world living being has "freedom" if it has multiple physically possible options to consider and according to another kind of "freedom" those options are not lopsidedly biased in value from subjective perspective of the entity. The fact that the choice - the decision making is deterministic does not detract from "freedom" of it since it reflects nature and will of the entity.
    I can be fine with pseudo-random deterministic world without omniscient creators, but I find it nicer that it is apparently sprinkled with quantum indeterminacy.
    "A driftwood". Implications are a lot more complicated and amazing. Denying responsibility would be pointless since there is no one else ("more responsible" - if you are queasy) to shift it on and consequences are undeniable and so are your preferences.


    Quote Originally Posted by The Man From Nantucket View Post
    Freewill and Fate and consistently playing against each other.
    "Fate and freewill" is plain intellectual capitulation of those Ni/Se people who are unwilling to go beyond limitations of those elements. Ni- passive observation of chain of causality. Se- experience of powers and wills (among other things). What those things aren't is involved insight.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Man From Nantucket View Post
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaWSXjyqAfo

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    I hate cell phones. I am tired of people bumping into me because they are texting while walking, waiting at green lights because people are texting, having to listen to people's inane conversations (including in PUBLIC BATHROOMS), having to text within 5 minutes or be accused of not caring (this is why I refuse to text), and worst of all, watching students look intently at their genitals in class and giggling every 30 seconds.
    “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.”
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    Quote Originally Posted by Esaman View Post
    Nature of events can be separated in two factors - random and caused. Causation is what plays substantiating in role in choices-decisions-determinations of will.
    That said all things are interplay of both. Emergent order incorporates randomness. Living order actively so.
    Biochemistry builds on random and pseudo-random behavior of atoms/molecules.
    DNA/sex/species is an organisation whole function of which is largely random recombination of DNA and increasing chance of new mutations finding functional configurations.
    Randomness("stochastic dynamics" in literature) plays integral role in function of a brain.
    Human mind and culture is an engine of semi randomly produced ideas to be to be tested internally then practically.
    I think its more complex than that honestly because even with randomness you have things which are caused by laws of physics that have a predictable behavior and then things which are entirely unpredictable and random. Mathematical randomness is a unique thing of a system and in natural science randomness is different than an ordered system. It's also possible systems are ordered but without will, entirely driven by universal laws. Gravity will of course impose an order which sometimes is predictable and sometimes random, but being pulled into something by gravity isn't an act of willpower.

    Randomness does play a role in biochemistry but that's not really what I mean by spontaneous creation, what I mean is product of the universe without an artificial designer. The cellphone has a craftsman, the human doesn't. This is what I am trying to get at, where you are claiming everything is spontaneous so its an irrelevant factor. And sure I see your point the human spontaneous evolves and the cellphone spontaneous appears as a product of them but this is such a one sided view that doesn't take into account something like human willpower.

    Bumping from one thing to another sounds more like stimulated than spontaneous. Your use of the spontaneous vs stimulated dichotomy is peculiar.
    Yes, things bumping in to me and inside of me are source of my actions. Things bumping inside of me are structured to be a kind of calculation which is my mind and my will. The calculation is self-involved and malleable but to speak of it's separateness from general field of cause effect would be wrong.
    Your will being then just part of general causative force, "force of nature" if you will, all intentional creations are also natural. I guess I should have started with simple statement that un- or super-natural things do not exist.
    Planing is "just" another form of natural organisation.
    Well yea maybe its stimulated but you got the gist of what I'm saying. Spontaneous is no internal willpower, you are entirely a victim of fate or response to your environment. Stimulated is not, and we could make a division -- stimulated within or stimulated without. It's complex because atoms don't consider willpower, but humans do. So the division between spontaneity and stimulated within is irrelevant and the analogy isn't intended to be a one to one relation... its just meant to open up the door to thinking about events in terms of two things (spontaneous and stimulated) versus one thing (only spontaneous).

    My point though is if everything is purely just a result of spontaneous emergent order from random processes then there is no willpower --- randomness =/= willpower. In such a case a person just bumps around from one thing to next like a victim of circumstance.

    Freedom is an abstraction of different levels than what we are talking about. Even in totally deterministic world living being has "freedom" if it has multiple physically possible options to consider and according to another kind of "freedom" those options are not lopsidedly biased in value from subjective perspective of the entity. The fact that the choice - the decision making is deterministic does not detract from "freedom" of it since it reflects nature and will of the entity.
    I can be fine with pseudo-random deterministic world without omniscient creators, but I find it nicer that it is apparently sprinkled with quantum indeterminacy.
    "A driftwood". Implications are a lot more complicated and amazing. Denying responsibility would be pointless since there is no one else ("more responsible" - if you are queasy) to shift it on and consequences are undeniable and so are your preferences.
    I think freedom and will is more complex. And traditionally determinism is a view of the universe in which there is only one determined option or solution to the universe, which basically puts the nail in the coffin for freewill and is something like BF Skinners conditioning. Whereas something on the opposite extreme as pure willpower I find opens the door to solipism and a god like view of being able to control all aspects of one's environment completely and no interaction with other entities.

    I'm just saying a human is a lot more "willful" than a cellphone. A cellphone may have some basic fundamental sentience if you think all matter may be partly willful due to something like quantum indeterminacy, but its not where near as sophisticated and developed because its a product of engineering -- its order was imposed by an outside agent (stimulated), the order of a human being was the result of spontaneous creation from the universe (spontaneous).

    That's how I'm using these terms. And once again I'm borrowing the dichotomy from particle physics buts its not supposed to be a 1-1 absolute analogy.

    "Fate and freewill" is plain intellectual capitulation of those Ni/Se people who are unwilling to go beyond limitations of those elements. Ni- passive observation of chain of causality. Se- experience of powers and wills (among other things). What those things aren't is involved insight.
    Lol wow what an arrogant statement. Fate and Freewill I think are useful aspects to consider. You must not be playing with the ideas much if you find them to be shortsighted and devoid of insight. I think playing the elements against each other can produce a lot of questions and insights philosophically. And something like your statements of Ni/Se, intellectual capitulation, and aren't involved in insight seems ridiculous judgmental and venomous. We are just talking philosophy, you should come down from your ivory tower.

    I posted O Fortuna because it was based on a 13th century poem that explores the interplay between fate (embodied by the roman goddess Fortuna) and willpower. You seemed to take it more as a sign off to show off, where my intention was to open the door to the boundaries between art and philosophy, specifically music and philosophy. I don't have headphones but if its a nice song I'll check it out, but I'm unsure what your philosophical purpose is in posting it.

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