"Artificial life research deals with the design and
exploration of life-like organisms and systems created by man.
The nature of this material is anorganic, its core is information,
and computers are the incubators producing these new organisms.
Just as medical research has managed to partly have processes
of life go off in test-tubes, "in vitro", biologists and computer
specialists hope to create life "in silicio", in silicon chips."
 

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Peter Weibel

LIFE - THE UNFINISHED PROJECT

Since Turing, the question "What is life" has been discussed by computer scientists. Life (just like the brain) was taken out of its "natural carbon-based context". The birth of Artificial Intelligence was followed by the concept of Artificial Life. The term Artificial Life applies on the one hand to forms of life without any natural substances being involved, for instance computersimulated dynamical systems consisting of character strings (beings composed of characters) capable of growth and reproduction, of exchanging energy and information, creating and controlling themselves. These forms of Artificial Life can be either represented audio-visually or be actually three-dimensional (e.g. robots). On the other hand, the term Artificial Life covers a multitude of human interventions in natural life, ranging from modifications of the genetic code to organ transplants. In this artificial context of life, the old dreams of mankind do not appear so far away any longer - a long life, the opportunity to modify both, a person's physical characteristics and mental abilities, protection against illness, against internal and external misdevelopments, the very creation of life. The task of artificially creating life can be approached from two directions: from the hardware and the software side. The challenge thereby consists in generating living organisms from non-living elements. The first synthesis of organic molecules by Wöhrer took place more than 100 years ago and constitutes an important step in the direction of an artificial re-creation of life. But Wöhrer chose a hardware approach and this proved to be insufficient.The software approaches defining life as a system property and dynamic process appear to be more promising. Artificial life is thus not only the simulation of biological processes on a computer (ranging from cell growth to virtual ants) but also includes the notion that the "synthesis of life", the artificial generation of life by human beings, will not be possible on a material basis alone. This implies that the artificial creation of life does not require natural materials (from Golem's loam to the carbohydrates and proteins of our modem times) and that the programmes involved, the software, will distinguish between life and all other types of natural phenomena.