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We have been discussing Stephen Hawking earlier, and as you all know, the guy is a physicist, not a biologist nor a datalogist. I however found this little passage from one of his public popular lectures, interesting as a general question.

<STRONG>
One can define Life to be an ordered system that can sustain itself against the tendency to disorder, and can reproduce itself. That is, it can make similar, but independent, ordered systems. To do these things, the system must convert energy in some ordered form, like food, sunlight, or electric power, into disordered energy, in the form of heat. In this way, the system can satisfy the requirement that the total amount of disorder increases, while, at the same time, increasing the order in itself and its offspring. A living being usually has two elements: a set of instructions that tell the system how to sustain and reproduce itself, and a mechanism to carry out the instructions. In biology, these two parts are called genes and metabolism. But it is worth emphasising that there need be nothing biological about them. For example, a computer virus is a program that will make copies of itself in the memory of a computer, and will transfer itself to other computers. Thus it fits the definition of a living system, that I have given. Like a biological virus, it is a rather degenerate form, because it contains only instructions or genes, and doesn't have any metabolism of its own. Instead, it reprograms the metabolism of the host computer, or cell. Some people have questioned whether viruses should count as life, because they are parasites, and can not exist independently of their hosts. But then most forms of life, ourselves included, are parasites, in that they feed off and depend for their survival on other forms of life. I think computer viruses should count as life. Maybe it says something about human nature, that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. Talk about creating life in our own image.

</STRONG>

The whole lecture can be found
[url="http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/lindex.html"]here[/url]

So what do you think? Should data virus be defined as life or not?

Well I wouldn't say that a computer virus is "life" as we know it - yet, anyway.

A computer virus, can only do limitted things, it can not adapt to its surrondings or evolve.
It can only do what it has been told to do in its source code.
One could compare this source code to genetics, seeing as both contain the elements of the "entity" in question - but I'd still not be convinced because again - it would not (yet) be able to adapt independly of its creator, to its surrondings.

But I think as we get closer to discovering AI, then we could be able to talk about life.

Originally posted by Xandax:
<STRONG>A computer virus, can only do limitted things, it can not adapt to its surrondings or evolve.</STRONG>

Very good point, Xan. You might be boring, but you are smart

I know virtually nothing about computer viruses. To draw a parallell to biological life: In biological life, the small "errors", ie mutations, that sometimes occurs when the organism is replicating itself, is creating the genetic variation that is necessary for the evolution process. Can such sponataneous changes occur when a data virus is replicating itself?

There are viruses which download updated copies of themselves that help them to adapt to different situations

IMO viruses do not constitute life

BTW CE i am suprised you haven't created a thread about the BBC's psychological experiment that they are planning.

I'm not even gonna think about this, viruses ar no life form, if they are alive so is windows.

A program is not alive, about the character Data (if he was real) I'm not sure but I would say yes.

Originally posted by C Elegans:
<STRONG><snip>
I know virtually nothing about computer viruses. To draw a parallell to biological life: In biological life, the small "errors", ie mutations, that sometimes occurs when the organism is replicating itself, is creating the genetic variation that is necessary for the evolution process. Can such sponataneous changes occur when a data virus is replicating itself?</STRONG>

There is yet to be a virus (AFAIK) that can "alter" itself.
The "best" vira are the ones that will scan your harddrive and take name after a file and mail itself around, or download other copies of itself, or simply hibernate(sp?) until a given day and then activate.
But a computer virus can still not modify itself to avoid detection, it can not evolve and if mutated, it can not work due to bad code.
One way of illustating this is to open up a programfile - say bgmain.exe (or what it is called) in an editor (hex. or what ever) and alter a range of numbers an see how long time it can "function". Most computer programs will crash very fast, because programming is very unforgiving.


If a virus IMO should be considered "lifeform" it would have to be able to adapt to the computer it infects/lives in and as it spreds itself - it can not do any of these things, unless programmned.

I'm no biologist but isn't there like 7 things lifeforms do - breathe, reproduce, adapt etc.?

Strings of 0's and 1's do none of these. At the very best they simulate them. Is virtual reality life? No but it can take over your life - playing BG for example.

Umm... the modem doesn't talk to me so... no

Originally posted by Gruntboy:
<STRONG>I'm no biologist but isn't there like 7 things lifeforms do - breathe, reproduce, adapt etc.?
<snip>
</STRONG>

Neither am I - but I'd imagine that an "entity" shouldn't pocess all of these things to be a lifeform - their are plenty of lifeforms that don't breathe AFAIK

Originally posted by Rob-hin:
<STRONG>I'm not even gonna think about this, viruses ar no life form, if they are alive so is windows.</STRONG>

Why do I get an image of Bill Gates standing in front of a computer, lightning flashing overhead as he screams, "IT'S ALIVE!!"

Originally posted by fable:
<STRONG>Why do I get an image of Bill Gates standing in front of a computer, lightning flashing overhead as he screams, "IT'S ALIVE!!" </STRONG>

With his headprogrammer "Igor" mumbeling in the background

Originally posted by Xandax:
<STRONG>But a computer virus can still not modify itself to avoid detection, it can not evolve and if mutated, it can not work due to bad code.</STRONG>

Well, as a matter of fact, they have and they do. You call them stealth viruses, and they change their code to avoid detection. They do this within their programmed constraint though, so they still don't "mutate" in the proper sense of the word. A few example implementations; First, doing the same thing with different operations, for instance (this is normally done in assembler, but I'll simplify) a=0, a=a-a, a=a&0, etc all set a to zero. Second, inserting random code with no significance to the end result, like a=a-0, a=a+0, a=a*1, noop, etc. Third, having multiple variants of code sequences stored in an encrypted form, unpack and replace (these were highly unsuccessful since the decryption code is used as the signature ). Four, doing a lot of jumps and filling the intermediate space with random garbage, ie code,jmp,jadda,jadda,code,jmp,jadda,etc. Some of these methods have interesting parallells in DNA sequencing, I think.

<STRONG>
One way of illustating this is to open up a programfile - say bgmain.exe (or what it is called) in an editor (hex. or what ever) and alter a range of numbers an see how long time it can "function". Most computer programs will crash very fast, because programming is very unforgiving.</STRONG>

Pretty much the same thing applies to living cells, I believe, although mutations in living matter probably are more likely to produce a positive result. There are some experiments with selfmodifying code that have given some interesting results. It's called Genetic Programming, or GP, and they're currently on the level of selfevolving 2-bit binary adders and such (ie, not very advanced ). [url="http://citeseer.nj.nec.com/vassilev00towards.html"]Here's[/url] a reference.

<STRONG>
If a virus IMO should be considered "lifeform" it would have to be able to adapt to the computer it infects/lives in and as it spreds itself - it can not do any of these things, unless programmned.</STRONG>

Yes, it has to be programmed. But so is a RL virus. It doesn't have the capacity to change on it's own. It's offspring, x generations later, can have changed into something more welladapted for a given environment, but that may not nescessarily happen while it's within a given host. Does that disqualify the virus from being life?

one thing to consider is that most bilogists do not consider a real virus to be alive. it can only reproduce by use of a foreign organism's DNA. it has no way of duplicating itself, and is completely dependent on its host.
a computer virus is similar, so i would have to say no, it is not alive...besides the whole computer part of it all.

I wonder whether the whole question of "computer life" is superfluous. Personally, I'd be more curious at what point in the biological spectrum we could identify self-awareness--and I don't simply mean an instinct for self-preservation, which is common to all life.

Originally posted by Silur:
<STRONG>You call them stealth viruses, and they change their code to avoid detection.
</STRONG>

Yes - I know of these as well as the other kinds, but it is still not something the virus itself evolves into - it is still created by a programmer.

Originally posted by Silur:
<STRONG> Yes, it has to be programmed. But so is a RL virus. It doesn't have the capacity to change on it's own. It's offspring, x generations later, can have changed into something more welladapted for a given environment, but that may not nescessarily happen while it's within a given host. Does that disqualify the virus from being life?
</STRONG>

I disagree here - because I think organic vira can mutate into a different dna string without "being programmed" to do so - spontaneous mutation (or what it is called) for instance multi-resistant bacteria’s are not originally resistant, but became that way due to exposure.
And a computer virus is that way because the programmer has said it should/could use this or that algorithm.

There are many similarities between DNA-strings and likes from organisms with the source code in a computer virus - but still the virus haven't the possibility of (yet) to alter itself independent of it's programmer it can only encrypt itself due to an algorithm, and the RL virus have that possibility - it can go beyond its initial "DNA string" and mutate.

Originally posted by Xandax:
<STRONG>Neither am I - but I'd imagine that an "entity" shouldn't pocess all of these things to be a lifeform - their are plenty of lifeforms that don't breathe AFAIK </STRONG>

C'mon Xandax, give me a list of living things that don't breathe.

@Nael: Good point. I just had that discussion with a friend of mine that actually knows something about these things (in difference to me ). Regular viruses are generally not considered life, but there are a bunch of strange things between virus and bacteria that mess up the definitions...

@Fable: The question of intelligent life on earth is yet to be decided As for "computer life", after a looong discussion (with me on the losing end...) we concluded that probably, GP's are as much life as viruses - see @nael.

@Xandax: A (singular) virus or bacteria cannot change itself, but it can have offspring that are better adapted. The computer virus "offspring" is always an exact copy, thus no mutation/genetic drift/etc.

Originally posted by Silur:
[QB@Fable: The question of intelligent life on earth is yet to be decided As for "computer life", after a looong discussion (with me on the losing end...) we concluded that probably, GP's are as much life as viruses - see @nael.
[/QB]

What I mean is not "intelligent life," whatever that is, but life which is self-regarding, ie, has a sense of self. Arguably, there's a difference between the two.

@all: interesting discussion

@Sleep: BBC are planning a psychology experiment? Sorry, I've totally missed this, I've been too focused on my own research for a while now.

Some words about the defintion of life:

There is no sharp limit between life an non-life today. As my professor once said, jokingly but correct: "Biology is a really soft science - they can't even distiguish between an animal and a plant, and they don't know whether something is alive or not".

Many (perhaps most) definitions of life includes:
- reproduction of some sort
- development, growth
- stimulus response
- metabolism (those who define virus as life don't include this, of course)

Most scientists agree that these parameters in not enough, and that we need both to extend and specialise the definition of life.
@Grunt: Non-breathing organisms are not so uncommon, but it also depends what you mean with "breathing". If you simply mean organism that don't require an oxygen metabolism, the number will get lower, but there are still some clearly living organisms like arthopods that have been shown not to metabolise oxygen. Remember the spectacular finding of the sulphur caves in former Jugoslavia? More such caves have been found since, but the war of course hampered the research.

@Fable: You demand too much The question of consciousness and self-awareness is not only one of the great philosophical questions of mankind, it's also one of the greatest questions in modern science. We are not anywhere near an answer to those issues, it's more like just having opened a door to an unknown terrotory

Originally posted by fable:
<STRONG>What I mean is not "intelligent life," whatever that is, but life which is self-regarding, ie, has a sense of self. Arguably, there's a difference between the two.</STRONG>

It's a huge difference, and it's way over my head My entire philosophy department is undermined by faulty logic and like CE says, it's one of the _big_ questions.