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The term "artificial life" describes research into synthetic
systems that possess some of the essential properties of life. This
interdisciplinary field includes biologists, computer scientists,
physicists, chemists, geneticists, and others. Artificial life may
be viewed as an attempt to understand high-level behavior from
low-level rules -- for example, how the simple interactions between
ants and their environment lead to complex trail-following
behavior. An understanding of such relationships in particular
systems can suggest novel solutions to complex real-world problems
such as disease prevention, stock-market prediction, and data
mining on the Internet.Since their inception in 1987, the
Artificial Life meetings have grown from small workshops to truly
international conferences, reflecting the field's increasing appeal
to researchers in all areas of science.
Bringing together the latest scientific advances and some of the
most enduring subtle philosophical puzzles and problems, this book
collects original historical and contemporary sources to explore
the wide range of issues surrounding the nature of life. Selections
ranging from Aristotle and Descartes to Sagan and Dawkins are
organised around four broad themes covering classical discussions
of life, the origins and extent of natural life, contemporary
artificial life creations and the definition and meaning of 'life'
in its most general form. Each section is preceded by an extensive
introduction connecting the various ideas discussed in individual
chapters and providing helpful background material for
understanding them. With its interdisciplinary perspective, this
fascinating collection is essential reading for scientists and
philosophers interested in astrobiology, synthetic biology and the
philosophy of life.
A range of views on the morality of synthetic biology and its place
in public policy and political discourse. Synthetic biology, which
aims to design and build organisms that serve human needs, has
potential applications that range from producing biofuels to
programming human behavior. The emergence of this new form of
biotechnology, however, raises a variety of ethical questions-first
and foremost, whether synthetic biology is intrinsically troubling
in moral terms. Is it an egregious example of scientists "playing
God"? Synthetic Biology and Morality takes on this threshold
ethical question, as well as others that follow, offering a range
of philosophical and political perspectives on the power of
synthetic biology. The contributors consider the basic question of
the ethics of making new organisms, with essays that lay out the
conceptual terrain and offer opposing views of the intrinsic moral
concerns; discuss the possibility that synthetic organisms are
inherently valuable; and address whether, and how, moral objections
to synthetic biology could be relevant to policy making and
political discourse. Variations of these questions have been raised
before, in debates over other biotechnologies, but, as this book
shows, they take on novel and illuminating form when considered in
the context of synthetic biology. Contributors John Basl, Mark A.
Bedau, Joachim Boldt, John H. Evans, Bruce Jennings, Gregory E.
Kaebnick, Ben Larson, Andrew Lustig, Jon Mandle, Thomas H. Murray,
Christopher J. Preston, Ronald Sandler
Contemporary classics on the the major approaches to emergence
found in contemporary philosophy and science, with chapters by such
prominent scholars as John Searle, Stephen Weinberg, William
Wimsatt, Thomas Schelling, Jaegwon Kim, Daniel Dennett, Herbert
Simon, Stephen Wolfram, Jerry Fodor, Philip Anderson, David
Chalmers, and others. Emergence, largely ignored just thirty years
ago, has become one of the liveliest areas of research in both
philosophy and science. Fueled by advances in complexity theory,
artificial life, physics, psychology, sociology, and biology and by
the parallel development of new conceptual tools in philosophy, the
idea of emergence offers a way to understand a wide variety of
complex phenomena in ways that are intriguingly different from more
traditional approaches. This reader collects for the first time in
one easily accessible place classic writings on emergence from
contemporary philosophy and science. The chapters, by such
prominent scholars as John Searle, Stephen Weinberg, William
Wimsatt, Thomas Schelling, Jaegwon Kim, Robert Laughlin, Daniel
Dennett, Herbert Simon, Stephen Wolfram, Jerry Fodor, Philip
Anderson, and David Chalmers, cover the major approaches to
emergence. Each of the three sections ("Philosophical
Perspectives," "Scientific Perspectives," and "Background and
Polemics") begins with an introduction putting the chapters into
context and posing key questions for further exploration. A
bibliography lists more specialized material, and an associated
website (http://mitpress.mit.edu/emergence) links to downloadable
software and to other sites and publications about emergence.
Contributors P. W. Anderson, Andrew Assad, Nils A. Baas, Mark A.
Bedau, Mathieu S. Capcarrere, David Chalmers, James P. Crutchfield,
Daniel C. Dennett, J. Doyne Farmer, Jerry Fodor, Carl Hempel, Paul
Humphreys, Jaegwon Kim, Robert B. Laughlin, Bernd Mayer, Brian P.
McLaughlin, Ernest Nagel, Martin Nillson, Paul Oppenheim, Norman H.
Packard, David Pines, Steen Rasmussen, Edmund M. A. Ronald, Thomas
Schelling, John Searle, Robert S. Shaw, Herbert Simon, Moshe
Sipper, Stephen Weinberg, William Wimsatt, and Stephen Wolfram
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