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MEETING "SCIENCE TO THE LIMIT OF POSSIBLE"
Information and pre-registration: transhumanismo@sapo.pt
Terça-feira, 28 de Julho de 2009
Informatics artificial “life”
Rui Barbosa*
Teillard de Chardin, great Paleontologist and Priest, described the phenomenon of the appearance of Life from mega molecules (1); in 1999 it was announced in the scientific magazine “Science” that a group of Japanese scientists had discovered the nature of the spark that would have produced, in a molecules soup, the flash of Life and that “it got to produce some of the molecular components of the proteins of which life is made” (2). According to Catholicism, it was (is) God who created (creates) Life.
Very different of producing Life it is to produce “Artificial Life” (3)(4)(5), which consists of constructing systems with one or some characteristics of the natural living systems (to multiply, to put into motion themselves, to grow, to evolve, etc.) on the basis of artificial elements, that can be digital, created in test tube, mechanics, etc.
One of the possible starting points for such is Nanotechnology, that will not probably be operational before 2050, although the advances occurred in this area (6). “Nanotechnology is the understanding and control of the Matter in dimensions of approximately 1 to 100 nanometers (1 nanometer = 10-9 meters), where phenomena unique in Nature allow new applications: to the nanometric scale, the physical, chemical and biological properties of Matter in quantity, or the materials, differ in a fundamental way, and valuable, of the properties of the atoms and individual molecules.
Covering simultaneously the Science, Engineering and Technology of the nanomeasurable, Nanotechnology involves:
- The caption of images,
- The measurement,
- The modeling, and
- The manipulation (atom/molecules displacement, often made using electronic microscopes) of Matter at the nanometric scale.
The Research and Development of Nanotechnology are directed for the understanding and improved creation of materials, devices and systems, that explore the properties specific to the nanomatter” (7).
Molecular robots
A branch, already quite developed, of Artificial Life, is Molecular Robotics (8) which is “an emergent and highly interdisciplinary field that looks for producing new materials and devices at the nanometric scale, through the direct interaction with the atomic structures. While conventional Chemistry is based on phenomena involving many individuals, such as Diffusion, to create self-assembling structures, Molecular Robotics consists of devices that manipulate structures by applying external forces and locating atoms and molecules with precision; it is a revolutionary technology that tries to exert a fine control on the structure of Matter, analogous to what we can currently exert on the ‘bytes' of information".
Replication
If we take the molecular robots as the equivalents of the cells of the living beings, then we can ask ourselves if it will not be possible to make artificial living beings on the basis of themselves. There can theoretically have at least 2 forms to replicate molecular robots: by operation of an external mechanism (9), or by self-replication (6). Following Minsky, if we could come to use 1 self-replicating robot and needed one week so that it made 1 copy of itself, then it could produce 1 billion of robots in less than one year… (10).
See you again in 15 days when I’ll write about Informatics Artificial “Evolution”.
Totality of my chronicles: Humanity+ Portugal.
*PhD in Engineering (U. of Grenoble, France), Researcher in Informatics Artificial Life for more than 30 years, transhumanismo@sapo.pt.
Citations
(1) “The Human Phenomenon”, Ed. Paulus
(2) Science; 5-2-1999; newspaper “Diário de Notícias” of 9-2-1999
(3) “What is Artificial Life” of Adami, Chris and of Brown, Titus;
(4) Saint Fe Institute; http://www.santafe.edu/
(5) Sipper, Moshe;
(6) Kaku, Michio; “Visions – How Science Will Revolutionize XXI Century”; Ed. Bizâncio, Lisbon Portugal
(7) National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI); federal program of coordination of the Inquiry and Development made by some agencies in science, engineering, and technology to the nanometric scale
(8) Laboratory will be Molecular Robotics; Computer Science Department, University of Southern California, Los Angeles; http://www.cs.usc.edu/
(9) Requicha, Ari; Laboratory will be Molecular Robotics, Computer Science Department, University of Southern California, Los Angeles; http://lipari.usc.edu/~lmr/
(10) Replicant Molecular Robots; Molecular Robotics, U. Sussex, UK
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