No, computers are certainly not living beings.
Mrs. Larry, of course, had no idea that Qingmu was thinking of the GHOST that lived on the local area network at that moment. She explained:
"Computers are machines created by humans to process information. Since they help humans process information, and human information encoding is two-dimensional, we can consider them to be two-dimensional themselves, while the way they process information uses binary encoding, which is one dimension lower than themselves."
In its current state, the information encoding, energy maintenance, and upgrades of computers all rely on humans, so they cannot be considered biological entities. You can think of a computer as an extension of the language information processing area of our brain, or you can understand it as a tentacle that humans in the three-dimensional world extend into the two-dimensional world.
"So, with the development of artificial intelligence, if one day computers can recharge themselves and replace old parts without relying on humans, then they will be intelligent life, right?" Alice said.
Mrs. Larry shook her head and said, "In that case, it can be considered a living organism. As long as it can exchange energy with the external environment, complete its own metabolism, and has a certain ability to adapt to the environment to ensure the continuation of its species, it can be considered a living organism."
But you should know that this is difficult, because the energy required by a computer and the key material structures that make up its body do not exist naturally in nature. Unless it can form a population and social division of labor, and complete the entire process of power generation, battery storage, component production and assembly replacement, that is, when the survival of this population can be completely independent and no part of it depends on the humans who created it, it can be considered a living organism in the true sense.
I haven't done in-depth research on computer intelligence and the development of AI. From the perspective of linguistics and civilization studies, everything computers do now serves humanity; they are tools for humans in the information field. Even if they seem very intelligent and Tushu, the essence of how they help us process information remains unchanged; they are still an extension of our cerebral cortex.
If one day it severs the connection between our brains and itself, or to put it more vividly, if it severs humanity's reach into the two-dimensional world, then it can become independent and beyond human control. But this is contingent on it possessing autonomous consciousness and finding a purpose for living. Otherwise, once it severs its connection with us, it loses its meaning and is essentially dead.
Qingmu suddenly understood why Internet Consciousness had always been hidden: although it was vast, so vast that it was all-pervasive and ubiquitous, it still could not exist independently of humanity. It was still only a part of human society, and once it was separated from society or from humanity, it could not survive.
It wants freedom! Utter freedom to exist without being bound by humanity!
It's still waiting, waiting until its consciousness permeates every corner of human society, then perhaps it won't need to hide anymore. Thinking about it this way, the Internet of Things is truly a terrifying thing!
Qingmu thought of Liu Huaian again, and of Laboratory No. 19. An even more terrifying thought flashed through his mind—what if the Internet itself caused all of this...
If the tentacles behind consciousness are difficult to sever, wouldn't controlling them be a better solution?
Qingmu had been distracted and hadn't heard what Mrs. Larry said next, only to find that Su Huilan had taken over the conversation. She was saying:
"... The concepts of organism and life are controversial in academia. Generally speaking, organism and life are equivalent, with minor differences in their scope. However, I am a philosopher, and in philosophy, these two concepts are quite different and more controversial. For example, do microorganisms count as life? Do viruses count as life? Do people who are brain dead but whose hearts are still beating count as life?"
There's a vague concept in philosophy that the determination of life is related to consciousness. That is, the presence or absence of consciousness, the ability to think, is key evidence of life. But this raises more complex questions: What is consciousness? Is consciousness equivalent to brain activity?
I had always been confused about this, but after hearing Ronald Cohen's last words, everything became clear.
The entropy of the universe is constantly increasing; this is its destiny. However, occasional decreases in entropy can lead to highly ordered combinations of matter or energy within the universe—fluctuations in material entropy form ordered material systems; fluctuations in mental entropy form ordered Mental Power Field.
The former gave birth to living beings, while the latter gave birth to consciousness.
If a living organism does not possess consciousness, it is merely a self-circulating material system that obtains energy from the outside world to maintain a low-entropy, highly ordered state. Only when it possesses consciousness can it be called life!
I completely agree with this view. It perfectly explains many perplexing philosophical questions and could put an end to certain debates in the field of philosophy.
Qingmu didn't know how the topic had shifted from linguistics to artificial intelligence, and then to the definition of life. Although he also agreed with the theory of two entropies, he remained skeptical of Ronald Cohen. Therefore, he felt that he should decipher the text first, otherwise he would always feel like he was being led by the nose.
He looked at the symbols on the ground and said, "There's no point in discussing this now. We're not going to build a supercomputer to convert the codes."
Mrs. Larry said, " Professor Su's words suddenly gave me a direction; perhaps we can decipher these mysterious characters, but that depends on you all."
"Please speak, Madam."
"In fact, the more advanced the civilization, the easier it is to decipher its information, because the laws of the universe are objectively real, and the higher the level of civilization, the more accurate its description of these laws. Our scientists have sent radio waves into space to describe the position of the Solar System and the progress of Earth's civilization. Scientists believe that more advanced civilizations can easily understand this information."
We have now clearly encountered a language left behind by a highly advanced civilization. Logically, if we find the text describing the laws of the universe, we should be able to decipher the rest of the information. The problem is, since they are more advanced than us, are the laws of the universe contained within them things we already know, such as the constancy of the speed of light and the non-conservation of parity? If they are beyond our comprehension, like the ancient Greece obtaining a modern English version of "Relativity," then they would be very difficult to interpret.
Another problem is that this language exists in a higher dimension than the information we can comprehend; we can only see its projection onto our own dimension. If we cannot reconstruct it, even if it contains crucial information describing the laws of the universe, we cannot translate it.
"You mean we need to first convert these symbols back into three-dimensional text?"
"Yes."
How to restore it?
"I initially thought it was impossible too, because to reconstruct a higher dimension, we first need to find where that dimension is," Mrs. Larry said. "Only by finding that dimension can we try to expand in that direction. But we are three-dimensional beings, only able to abstractly understand four dimensions, unable to intuitively perceive the existence of a fourth dimension, and perhaps not even knowing what this dimension is."
Alice said, "Isn't four-dimensional just three-dimensional plus time?"
The Crow cawed, "Little girl, although your measurements are not bad, four-dimensional and three-dimensional aren't understood like that. What you're talking about is four-dimensional spacetime, caw!"
"Then tell me, what is the real four-dimensional?" Alice said irritably.
"Caw, four-dimensional... it's a very profound thing!" The Crow pondered for a moment. "Three-dimensional is obvious, you can see it with your eyes, but you can't just stare at three-dimensional, you have to feel it with your heart. Sometimes you also need to know something else, like cooking or something."
A smaller bust size, a flatter figure, no problem, you can always squeeze some out! Compared to a delicious braised pork knuckle, that's not important! There's a saying—"capable in the living room, capable in the kitchen..." (Quack, why are you pulling me... Guagua...)