creators_name: Harnad, Stevan
editors_name: Langton, Chris
type: journalp
datestamp: 2001-06-18
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:41
metadata_visibility: show
title: Artificial Life: Synthetic Versus Virtual
ispublished: pub
subjects: comp-sci-art-intel
subjects: comp-sci-robot
subjects: phil-mind
full_text_status: public
keywords: Artificial life, synthetic life, virtual life, mind/body problem, Searle's Chinese room, computationalism, symbol grounding, Turing test
abstract: Artificial life can take two forms: synthetic and virtual. In principle, the materials and properties of synthetic
living systems could differ radically from those of natural living systems yet still resemble them enough to be really alive if they
are grounded in the relevant causal interactions with the real world. Virtual (purely computational) "living" systems, in contrast,
are just ungrounded symbol systems that are systematically interpretable as if they were alive; in reality they are no more alive
than a virtual furnace is hot. Virtual systems are better viewed as "symbolic oracles" that can be used (interpreted) to predict and
explain real systems, but not to instantiate them. The vitalistic overinterpretation of virtual life is related to the animistic
overinterpretation of virtual minds and is probably based on an implicit (and possibly erroneous) intuition that living things have
actual or potential mental lives. 
date: 1993
date_type: published
publication: Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity
volume: 16
number: 593
publisher: Reading, Mass.:Addison-Wesley, Advanced Book Program 1994.
pagerange: 593
refereed: FALSE
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citation:   Harnad, Stevan  (1993) Artificial Life: Synthetic Versus Virtual.  [Journal (Paginated)]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/1587/1/harnad93.artlife.html