Potentialities of Life in Inorganic Medium

Philosophers conjecture that, thousands of years from now, humans will have evolved into a post-human entity, no longer limited by the relatively fragile nature of our bodies. Computing power will be immense, resulting in a trans-human phase during which technology continually changes the human body until it becomes post-human. According to philosopher Nick Bostrom, humans will essentially live in a computer simulation. He argues that a post-human society will be so technologically advanced that even our belief systems will be controlled by a post-human simulator (1). The complementary scenario is one in which computers evolve to become life-like, organic beings. In particular, notions from biology influence the degree to which humans see computers as living entities. 

The notion of life has several different context-dependent definitions. The Oxford English Dictionary defines life as “the property which constitutes the essential difference between a living animal or plant, or a living portion of organic tissue, and dead or non-living matter.” Often, the term used to describe characteristics of living organisms is “organic,” which will be used henceforth. While this definition works at the surface level — for example, we might perceive a breathing animal as organic and a rock as inorganic (non-living) — this definition fails when we begin to contemplate the essential difference between organic and inorganic objects that are pronounced “dead.” 

For instance, compare a dead dog with a dead car battery. A dog is living as long as it is breathing, the heart is beating, and the brain is active. On the other hand, a car battery is pronounced dead when it can no longer provide energy for the car to function. Is the battery considered living when it provides energy for the car? Generally, it is not, because there is more to life than simply providing energy. 

Disease, however, suggests some aspect of life because disease threatens life. For this reason, until recently, it has only been attributed to organic substances, such as humans, plants, and animals. But what does it mean to say that a computer died due to a virus? An internet search of “computer died” reveals numerous threads about viruses causing the death of computers. Here, several examples reveal that human actions towards computers and ideas concerning viral software suggest that humans view computers not as mere inorganic machines, but as objects with some human characteristics, if not human life itself.

The computer viral mechanism mirrors that of biological viruses. One of the most basic, practical definitions of computer viruses is a piece of software with the ability to replicate itself, “infect” other programs, and often cause harm (2). It has two main characteristics: copying itself from one machine to another, and carrying out its programmed instructions. The virus’s replication mechanism looks for programs to infect, inserts its code into the program, and then operates whenever that program is in use (3). Often, the results are detrimental: a virus can ruin programs, delete files, and erase the computer’s entire hard drive. 

Biological viruses, which most often cause harm to plants, humans, and animals, act in a similar manner. The virus inserts viral genetic material, namely RNA or DNA, into the nucleus of the host cell, integrating with the host cell’s DNA. It then replicates itself using the host cell’s replication mechanism (3). These viruses then cause the immune system to go haywire, with effects ranging from a mild cold, to an illness as detrimental as HIV/AIDS. 

Computer viruses mimic characteristics found in organic entities, blurring the distinction between inorganic and organic. With their ability to infect, computer viruses bring computers into the same general category as organic, biological entities. 

This blurred distinction only makes the general population more likely to believe myths about computers, based solely on fear and rumors. Take, for instance, the 1992 fiasco surrounding the Michelangelo computer virus. Michelangelo threatened to destroy all the data in every infected hard drive on March 6. According to popular belief, the virus loads into the computer’s memory from an infected floppy disk when the computer boots. From that point forward, any disk used on that computer becomes infected, passing on the virus to destroy other hard drives. 

In truth, the virus was far less damaging than media and business leaders of the antivirus industry prophecied. For weeks proceeding March 6, the media featured stories suggesting the potential devastation of Michelangelo. Business leaders were also featured on news channels, stating that the virus was expected to infect at least five million computers. This hysteria and hype encouraged computer owners to buy antivirus software in droves. Without this fiasco, some say that the antivirus software industry would never have prospered (4). Businesses and the media took advantage of the computer virus scare, blowing it up disproportionately. Without the media attention, the viral scare may not have been as big of an issue. However, this example shows that, although reality may not warrant it, people act based on what they are told. In this case, people were afraid that their computer would become “sick,” so they purchased medication of sorts.

Again, a computer may not be sick in reality, but as revealed by human actions, we consider it to be so. Consider ideologies. Ideologies are not well understood, yet they are accepted. Similarly, many people do not understand how software works, but they accept its use. According to Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, software is another type of ideology. She writes, “Software and ideology fit each other perfectly because both try to map the material effects of the immaterial and to posit the immaterial through visible clues” (5). Humans do not physically observe ideology or software, since they are primarily abstractions. Chun argues that, although computer users understand that they primarily interact with mere representations of physical objects, they treat these representations as if they were the real thing. While computer users know that the folders and desktops that appear on their computer screens are not the actual objects, they “treat them as if they were – by referring to them as folders and as desktops” (5). She argues that this type of phenomenon is analogous to the continuation of ideology in which ideology is perpetuated through the user’s actions (5).

What does it mean to treat something as if it is human, without knowledge that it is actually human? Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to observe how we treat entities that are purportedly not fully human, yet could be considered so. Take the matter of abortion, for instance. Both scientists and the general population understand that pregnancy leads to the birth of human babies, yet scientists and politicians alike have difficulty defining exactly when the baby is fully human. Widely varying definitions exist for delineating this point of humanness, so some must be wrong. Nevertheless, based on these determinations, the fetus has been acted on according to separate definitions. These actions demonstrate that the baby is not considered fully human at the given point. 

Furthermore, humans attribute elements of humanness to software, as revealed by human actions. For instance, Friedrich Kittler states that computer software is now “able to read and write by [itself]” (6). This frightens Kittler because he sees a trend in which humans are not only attributing the ability to read and write to software, but are also relinquishing this ability, once exclusively human, to immaterial software (6). Kittler’s concern reveals the value placed on exclusive, human behavior, since we use this behavior to evaluate humanness.

In summary, the potentialities for attributing human-like characteristics to a computer are great, due to our evolving relationship with computers. As characteristics attributed to computers approach characteristics of humans, the already-blurred distinction between humans and computers becomes increasingly tangled.

References

1. Tierney, John (2007). Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/14/science/14tier.html. Date accessed (February 9, 2009).
2. Brain, Marshall. Available at http://www.howstuffworks.com/virus.htm. Date accessed (February 13, 2009).
3. Freudenrich, Craig. Available at http://www.howstuffworks.com/virus-human.htm. Date accessed (April 10, 2009).
4. Michelangelo Madness. Available at http://www.research.ibm.com/antivirus/SciPapers/White/ VB95/vb95.distrib-node7.html. Date accessed (February 12, 2009).
5. Chun, Wendy Hui Kyong. Grey Room 18, 26-51 (2004).
6. Kittler, Friedrich (1995). Available at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=74. Date accessed (April 18, 2008).