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Ask HN: Can ever a Toaster be considered having a life?

1 points by wisewolfcorps ↗ HN
> Life is a characteristic that distinguishes physical entities that have biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased, or because they never had such functions and are classified as inanimate. [Wikipedia]

Even biological processes are a set of instructions that a body/vessel perform for a desired outcome.

So does that mean if we attach other equipment handling process' like signaling and self-sustaining, we can come close to call a Toaster possessing a "Life"?

2 comments

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FranciscusG
It depends on your definition of "Life".

One can modify one's definition of Life so that a sufficiently sophisticated toaster is alive, or one can try to build a sufficiently sophisticated toaster, until our currently accepted definition of Life applies to it.

wisewolfcorps
Yes, it does depend highly on the context. There were no talks of artificial intelligence some decades ago but now that they are appearing it seems a highly possible way to keep Humans superior by modifying the context. Being a "living" or a "non-living" generates a different response in our daily life. This thought was based on the line that would ever "it" be considered different than what it is now!

Thanks for your thought.