A A GENERAL ARTICLE - R L T I F Artificial Life and Philosophy E ABSTRACT Alvaro Moreno Artificial Life is developing into a new type of discipline, based on computational construction as its main tool for exploring and producing a science of life “as it could be.” In this area of research, the generation of rtificial Life (A-Life) has been defined as the A-LIFE AS A complex virtual systems, in A place of the traditional empirical study of all possible life through its artificial production. This COMPUTATIONAL definition raises three important issues: First is the very sense RESEARCH PROJECT domain, has become the actual of the term “study,” for A-Life is not only an epistemic or a object of theory. This entails a Although A-Life is not necessarily to profound change in the tradi- purely theoretical process but also a technical activity, because be understood as a computational tional relationship between in A-Life the objects of study are literally created through tech- ontological, epistemological and science, its major research activity nological action. Second, the actual meaning of “lifelike sys- methodological levels of analy- takes place in the computational do- tems” (or systems that show “lifelike” behavior) becomes sis, which forces us to recon- main. As mentioned above, the sider the differences apparently much more complex (and controversial) than in traditional most prevalent meaning of the term firmly established between biology, since this concept has become understood in a much artificial in A-Life research specifi- science and philosophy. Even if wider sense than that of empirically real biological systems. the frontiers between these two cally refers to the generation of vir- Thus, as C. Emmeche has pointed out, A-Life is founded as a kinds of knowledge do not tual systems in the computational modal discipline, establishing as its own objective the study of completely disappear, new, universe. As a matter of fact, this fea- dynamic, complex, technologi- life “as it could be” and not simply “as we know it” (even if we ture is not original to A-Life. For the cally mediated interactions are include here any extraterrestrial forms of life that might be being developed between them. past 50 years there has been a strong discovered in the future) [1]. Last, but not least, the idea of tradition in the general study of dif- “artificiality” should also be subject to examination. In addi- ferent types of systems that makes a tion to its generic sense of human construction, the term ar- radical distinction between the informational-organizational tificial has a double-sided peculiarity in the context of A-Life. aspects of a system and its energetic-material ones. This dis- On the one hand, it has a paradoxical meaning, resulting tinction already existed at the core of such disciplines as cy- from the idea that such humanly constructed systems should bernetics, computer and systems sciences and AI. These be capable—like natural living beings—of exhibiting cre- disciplines share with A-Life a common approach based on the ativity. So-called emergent behavior, capabilities, morphology, idea that the material or energetic aspects of an organization etc., sought by A-Life designers must be understood precisely do not affect its logical essence. Hence, even the admitted ne- as a form of indirect human creation [2], what Langton has cessity of including a good deal of ancillary machinery for the described as “getting the humans out of the loop,” designing actual implementation of any material system [4] would not artifacts able to perform nontrivial, unpredictable activities, be significant for modeling the “actual organization” of that so that the machine itself could appear as if it were endowed system. That is why researchers’ interest and activity is mainly with creativity. That is to say, one of the essential features of focused on the study of virtual systems generated in a compu- A-Life is that the artificially created system should display tational environment. Even most research in the domain of some type of agency, which allows us to speak (without falling physical realizations, such as the design of autonomous robots, into contradiction, although somewhat paradoxically) of au- is largely influenced by the aforementioned philosophy, since tonomy in such cases. And on the other hand, artificial has the construction of the physical “body” of the robot is still con- the peculiar meaning (not exclusive but prevailing), as in ar- sidered independently of its behavior. tificial intelligence (AI), of virtual “construction” as opposed to physical realization [3]. The complex combination of all these elements has pro- vided A-Life with an identity as a separate discipline, distinct not only from traditional biology but also from the whole set of traditional empirical sciences. The idea that a living entity subject to study is to be generated by a human agent—and, furthermore, in a computational universe—is truly suggestive; nevertheless, it also brings up many novel issues and chal- lenges. Alvaro Moreno (educator), Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, University of the Basque Country, Post Box 1249, 20080 San Sebastián, Donostia, Spain. E-mail: <[email protected]>. Originally presented at the Seventh International Conference on Artificial Life (Alife VII), 1–6 August 2000, Portland, OR, U.S.A. First published in M.A. Bedau, J.S. McCaskill, N.H. Packard and St. Rasmussen, eds., Artificial Life VII: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000). Reprinted by permission. Fig. 1. Building up an A-Life “model.” (© Alvaro Moreno) © MIT Press LEONARDO, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 401–405, 2002 401 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/002409402760181204 by guest on 25 September 2021 A A - R L T The roots of the computational ver- whether these models might allow com- that the computational world does not I sions of both AI and A-Life lie in the idea putational simulations or not, the mod- constitute a proper matter for study; it F E of functionalism. This position assumes els involve the pre-existence of a should rather be considered a complex and asserts that the specific materiality reference system, whose behavior is to be social practice that involves the design, that sustains a certain capability (mental, totally or partially reproduced. construction, maintenance and use of in- biological or otherwise) is not relevant The case of A-Life, however, is radically tentional artifacts [10]. Whatever answer [5]. Accordingly, functionalists claim that different. A-Life researchers attempt to may be given to these questions, it will biological phenomenology is the exclu- create not only a symbolic model of a liv- certainly have methodological implica- sive result of an organizational arrange- ing system, but also a symbolic living ob- tions, since all these problems are closely ment, rather than of a particular material ject. Accordingly, these computational related to that of establishing the criteria implementation of it. In fact, the ques- “models” are elaborated without direct for evaluating the hypotheses that the tion of whether those organizational and precise reference to empirical bio- very design of such systems attempts to arrangements are sustained by carbon or logical reality. C. Emmeche regards them test. silicon molecules or by patterns of elec- as “second-order simulacra, that is, copies trons in a computer is considered com- of the copies themselves” [7], generated pletely irrelevant. This is the reason why not as abstractions of empirical biologi- THE PROBLEM OF Langton [6] has defended the idea of cal systems (as in the case of concepts and “EMPIRICAL” EVALUATION universalizing classical biology by ab- theories of biology, which would be “first- I shall, for simplicity, use the term stracting the materiality of biological order simulacra”) but of the theories “model” hereafter to designate those vir- phenomena when studying such phe- themselves. Their main goal is to allow a tual systems created in computational nomena: he assumes this study can take new means of “computational experi- media with the aim of enlarging our place in a purely formal organizational mentation” to enable us to “discover” the knowledge about the universal laws of domain. Accordingly, the huge potential universal principles of living systems. life. Taking this into account, the funda- for exploration of virtual organizations Thus, proponents of “strong” A-Life mental problem in the methodology of in the computational realm becomes for explicitly claim that computational sim- A-Life research programs is that their A-Life researchers a way of “experiment- ulations of living systems may really come means of evaluating models are not em- ing” with formal “lifelike” entities in for- to be living systems. Whereas proponents pirically conclusive, for, by definition, the mal environments, which are then of “weak” A-Life consider models to rep- hypothetical empirical references of empirically interpreted. resent certain aspects of living phenom- these models belong to a domain This new strategy is highly promising ena, strong A-Lifers claim that the broader than the already known and with regard to the problem of the uni- phenomenology of the computational even the effectively existent. Despite the versalization of biology. However, it also environment is life in the strict sense. fact that “virtual experimentation” pro- poses new and intriguing questions, be- The model or simulacrum is considered vides some formal rigor to the method- cause it is the consequence of pure ab- a literal realization—that is to say, an ob- ology (compared to the use of theories stractions of processes taking place in ject whose phenomenology would make based on ordinary language), there re- empirical environments. In particular, I it equivalent to any natural system of the mains a problem of global empirical in- want to stress three issues: The first, corresponding empirical domain.