2001-06-18Z2011-03-11T08:54:41Zhttp://cogprints.org/id/eprint/1591This item is in the repository with the URL: http://cogprints.org/id/eprint/15912001-06-18ZLevels of Functional Equivalence in Reverse Bioengineering: The Darwinian Turing Test for Artificial LifeBoth Artificial Life and Artificial Mind are branches of what Dennett has called "reverse engineering": Ordinary engineering
attempts to build systems to meet certain functional specifications, reverse bioengineering attempts to understand how systems
that have already been built by the Blind Watchmaker work. Computational modelling (virtual life) can capture the formal
principles of life, perhaps predict and explain it completely, but it can no more be alive than a virtual forest fire can be hot. In
itself, a computational model is just an ungrounded symbol system; no matter how closely it matches the properties of what is
being modelled, it matches them only formally, with the mediation of an interpretation. Synthetic life is not open to this objection,
but it is still an open question how close a functional equivalence is needed in order to capture life. Close enough to fool the Blind
Watchmaker is probably close enough, but would that require molecular indistinguishability, and if so, do we really need to go
that far? Stevan Harnad