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Is life a form of computation?

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Re: Is life a form of computation?

#31

Post by antegamisou »

AIPedant wrote: post #29

Articles like this indicate we should lock down the definition of "computation" that meaningfully distinguishes computing machines from other physical phenomena - a computation is a process that maps symbols (or strings of symbols) to other symbols, obeying certain simple rules[1]. A computer is a machine that does computations. In that sense life is obviously not a computation: it makes some sense to view DNA as sym…

I think the notion largely boils down to another dogmatic display of tech industry's megalomania.

Re: Is life a form of computation?

#34

Post by matheusmoreira »

I love thinking about life as computation. Cells are computers, enzymes are functions, ribosomes are compilers, nucleic acids are source code...

Enzymes in particular are a lot like unix pipelines. An enzyme catalyzes its substrate's conversion into its product which is the substrate of another enzyme. When cells ingest glucose, it flows through the glycolysis metabolic pathway until it becomes pyruvate, and may be reduced even further depending on available resources. It's a huge pipeline of enzymes. They just kinda float around within the cell and randomly perform their tasks when their substrates chemically interact with them. No explicit program exists, it emerges from the system within the cell.

  Cell              - Computer
  Enzyme            - Function / Process / Filter
  Substrate         - Data
  Product           - Data
  Metabolic pathway - Program / Script
I've been playing in my mind with an idea for an esoteric programming language modeled around enzymes. The program defines a set of enzymes which are functions that match on the structure of data, automatically apply themselves to them and produce a modified version of the input which may in turn match against other enzymes. The resulting program metabolizes input by looping over the set of enzymes and continuously matching and applying them until the data is reduced to its final form. If no enzymes match, the output is the unmodified input.

Re: Is life a form of computation?

#35

Post by heavyset_go »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #9

I don't see the point of asking this question. Like, sure, all physical systems follow certain rules, so any such process will develop in a way that it look like a computation of an algorithm. Also, evolution itself is constantly optimizing organisms to best adapt to their environment, just like a computation. So asking if life is a computation seems mostly like a semantic musing. Define "life" and define "computatio…

> Also, evolution itself is constantly optimizing organisms to best adapt to their environment, just like a computation.

There is no optimization, if organisms can reproduce, they'll continue to exist. That does not mean they are the "best adapted" or on a trajectory toward better adaptation.

It's entirely possible for a germ line to become less fit over time, even to the point of extinction, and that's still evolution. Time has shown that is the case for most germ lines.

Re: Is life a form of computation?

#37

Post by ok_dad »

antegamisou wrote: post #31
AIPedant wrote: post #29

Articles like this indicate we should lock down the definition of "computation" that meaningfully distinguishes computing machines from other physical phenomena - a computation is a process that maps symbols (or strings of symbols) to other symbols, obeying certain simple rules[1]. A computer is a machine that does computations. In that sense life is obviously not a computation: it makes some sense to view DNA as sym…

I think the notion largely boils down to another dogmatic display of tech industry's megalomania.

In what sense? I agree the tech industry fucking sucks right now, but I don't see how this has anything to do with that.

A physical computer is still a computer, no matter what it's computing. The only use a computer has to us is to compute things relative to physical reality, so a physical computer seems even closer to a "real computer" or "real computation" to me than our sad little hot rocks, which can barely simulate anything real to any degree of accuracy, when compared to reality.

Re: Is life a form of computation?

#38

Post by heavyset_go »

measurablefunc wrote: post #20
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #9

I don't see the point of asking this question. Like, sure, all physical systems follow certain rules, so any such process will develop in a way that it look like a computation of an algorithm. Also, evolution itself is constantly optimizing organisms to best adapt to their environment, just like a computation. So asking if life is a computation seems mostly like a semantic musing. Define "life" and define "computatio…

Evolution is not optimizing anything. What's happening in the biosphere is a process of mutation & selection, it's not optimization towards any particular goal or objective. Furthermore & slightly more abstractly, b/c of conservation of mass & energy, what's actually happening is re-organization of existing biomass into different life forms enabled by solar radiation.

> what's actually happening is re-organization of existing biomass into different life forms enabled by solar radiation.

And the flux of geothermal and chemical energy

Re: Is life a form of computation?

#39

Post by nathan_douglas »

measurablefunc wrote: post #20
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #9

I don't see the point of asking this question. Like, sure, all physical systems follow certain rules, so any such process will develop in a way that it look like a computation of an algorithm. Also, evolution itself is constantly optimizing organisms to best adapt to their environment, just like a computation. So asking if life is a computation seems mostly like a semantic musing. Define "life" and define "computatio…

Evolution is not optimizing anything. What's happening in the biosphere is a process of mutation & selection, it's not optimization towards any particular goal or objective. Furthermore & slightly more abstractly, b/c of conservation of mass & energy, what's actually happening is re-organization of existing biomass into different life forms enabled by solar radiation.

I suppose I fail to see why evolution through natural selection is not optimizing. That was Darwin's big idea, right? That given heredity, selection, and variation you end up with life forms we'd consider optimized for their environments?

Or do you mean that optimization by definition must include intent, and evolution as a mindless process has no intentionality?

I'm just not sure what you're driving at.

Re: Is life a form of computation?

#40

Post by jes5199 »

AIPedant wrote: post #29

Articles like this indicate we should lock down the definition of "computation" that meaningfully distinguishes computing machines from other physical phenomena - a computation is a process that maps symbols (or strings of symbols) to other symbols, obeying certain simple rules[1]. A computer is a machine that does computations. In that sense life is obviously not a computation: it makes some sense to view DNA as sym…

our relationship to computation got weird when we moved to digital computers. Like, I don’t think anyone was saying “life is like millions of slide-rules solving logarithms in parallel”. but now that computers are de-materialized, they can be a metaphor for pretty much anything
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