A Step Closer to Creating Artificial Life

slick_shoes writes to mention that Italian researcher Giovanni Murtas has taken another step towards creating life in a test tube. "To the untrained eye, the tiny, misshapen, fatty blobs on Giovanni Murtas's microscope slide would not look very impressive. But when the Italian scientist saw their telltale green fluorescent glint he knew he had achieved something remarkable — and taken a vital step towards building a living organism from scratch. The green glow was proof that his fragile creations were capable of making their own proteins, a crucial ability of all living things and vital for carrying out all other aspects of life."

Matter knowing it's own existence

[TheBearBear]

The concept of matter ending up as human beings, and then being aware of its own existence, is mind blowing! Is there a scientific definition for life? I don't mean the using energy and waste - has dna - reproduces - want to will to survive stuff. I hope you understand what I am trying to ask. Like a clump of matter one day, then aware of its own existence the next day, what a transition!!

I've read that some say it just might be that it's all just a bunch of chemical/electrical interactions, but to get to the point where matter contemplates its own existence is just on a different level. So it's big bang heat explosion stars planets...then human beings (albeit much much later). Is that something you can say is a property of matter? That at some point it will know of its own existence?

What's/where's the threshold between a blob of carbon+goo, and me? Or at least, are there any theories? Or is all of this stuff discussed only in the philosphical realm?

Re:Matter knowing it's own existence

[m0ns00n]

Actually, an emerging thought is that consciousness is a property of matter, OR it is a symbiotic twin to matter: matter resonating with consciousness. At one point the resonating brings fruit in the form of memories and thoughts in a capable matter-structure. So in theory, if you manage to put material pieces together in a certain combination, it will end up being self-aware. Also; all matter becomes potentially conscious, and it also means that everything is one in a much more profound way. Now you might also understand concepts like the over-self, "God" and a self aware universe. I'm sure all you religious people will have a field day on this :-) but at the end of the day, the idea that matter has potent consciousness in itself really explains how life is possible at all, and must exist, and it can perhaps lead to a more down to earth view on existence than that there has been a omnipotent master designing the universe as an architect would a house. My thoughts on this anyhow..

Re:Matter knowing it's own existence

[BarneyL]

What's/where's the threshold between a blob of carbon+goo, and me? Or at least, are there any theories? Or is all of this stuff discussed only in the philosphical realm?

You are assuming that self awareness is an all or nothing situation.
More realistically all living things could be placed on a scale with carbon and goo at the bottom end perhaps small mammals next, then moving up through apes to us.
And of course finally to dolphins and the white mice who are secretly running the whole experiment.

Re:Matter knowing it's own existence

[nyekulturniy]

I have thought about this, and I wouldn't agree that consciousness is strictly a property of matter; if you have a sufficiently stable substrate with differences in energy potential, it is possible for an organized system to have quasi-nervous action, which leads to thought. (I was thinking of the nature of thought because I was answering my own hypothetical question, "How do angels or other immaterial creatures think?")

Matter doesn't have consciousness unless it's organized into life, which in turn must have a nervous system. It's an emergent property that depends on this organization. So, the question becomes not "Is matter sufficient to create consciousness" to "What sort of organization or system is required for consciousness?"

There the question becomes interesting. Is organization inevitable? Or does it require a first impulse, a Prime Mover?

To address a second point in your post, the knowledge of God:

Those of us who are of faith realize that revealed knowledge is not the same as the common knowledge given to all of us; it is productive to try to fuse the two sorts of knowledge for the mental exercise, but it is fruitless. As St. Thomas Aquinas noted, all truth points to the same source, so in the long run there is a resolution of the apparent paradoxes.

Philosophy only gets us so far, as to either accept a First Mover or to deny all causality when a chain of thought is extended long enough. I accept a First Mover, because I believe in causality. (Note: this is not meant to be a rigorous analysis.)

Is the universe God? That depends on the definition of the universe and God. Is the universe merely all we can detect through the senses, or does it include concepts? Is God a Person, or an impersonal force, or is God everything? If God is everything, that means that either God is not good, or there is no evil. And so we go on for hours and hours, illuminating our sources of thought, but not solving the issue.

I am really interested in this research. If one can create cellular life, then what an accomplishment! Cells are life, the rest of it is commentary.

Re:Matter knowing it's own existence

[ockegheim]

Any universe in which particles appear at random and with a lot of time on its hands will eventually produce large numbers of Boltzmann Brains [wikipedia.org] (randomly appearing objects capable of observation). The observations that the universe's expansion is accelerating and that there may be no end of time allows this. This article [arxiv.org] states that if we (ie. evolved sentience) are typical observers then the universe is more likely than not to end within 19 billion years. This is a bit like the theory that if I am a typical human, then the human race doesn't have much of a future, because if there are many more billions of humans in the future it makes me special, not typical.

But it doesn't take a cosmologist to look at me and fear for the human race.

Re:Great, exciting and all, but ...

[Tomthemage]

I for one am glad people don't spend more time trying to preserve nature. "The balance of nature" is a false term, and such a situation where everything lives in harmony simply doesn't exist. Nature is wild, crazy, unpredictable, and I honestly don't think humanity has the capability to "preserve" it. Don't believe me? Just take a look at the disaster that is Yellowstone National Park, if you don't believe me.