Living Things Are Not (20th Century) Machines: Updating Mechanism Metaphors in Light of the Modern Science of Machine Behavior
Living Things Are Not (20th Century) Machines: Updating Mechanism Metaphors in Light of the Modern Science of Machine Behavior
复制标题
DOI：
10.3389/fevo.2021.650726
复制
发表时间：
2021-03-16
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
Levin, Michael
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bongard, Joshua;Levin, Michael
推动科学和工程进步的最有用的比喻之一是“机器”。“关于这一概念在生命科学中的适用性存在很大争议。分子生物学的进步揭示了许多设计原则，可以利用这些原则从工程角度理解细胞，并构建新的设备来合理利用化学，物理和计算定律。与此同时，有机主义者指出生命的许多独特特征，特别是在较大规模的组织中，这些特征抵制了分解分析和人工实施。在这里，我们认为，这场辩论的大部分集中在机器的非本质方面-经典属性已被现代机器行为的进步所超越，不再适用。这个新兴的多学科领域，在人工生命，机器学习和合成生物工程的界面，突出了现有定义的不足。机器、机器人、程序、软件、进化、设计等关键术语，需要根据技术和理论的进步进行修订，这些进步已经超越了限制我们对进化和设计系统的理解的过时的哲学概念。超越历史和当前机器的偶然方面，将使概念工具能够拥抱合成和混合生物工程和计算机科学的不可避免的进步，走向一个框架，确定设备和生命体的基本概念之间的本质区别。理论和实际应用的进步都需要建立一个新的概念，即“机器可以是什么样的机器”，这是基于生物学在所有尺度上的深刻教训。我们勾勒出一个视角，承认生命的显着，独特的方面，以帮助重新定义关键术语，并确定未来概念的深刻，基本特征，其中进化和设计系统之间的尖锐界限将不存在。
One of the most useful metaphors for driving scientific and engineering progress has been that of the "machine." Much controversy exists about the applicability of this concept in the life sciences. Advances in molecular biology have revealed numerous design principles that can be harnessed to understand cells from an engineering perspective, and build novel devices to rationally exploit the laws of chemistry, physics, and computation. At the same time, organicists point to the many unique features of life, especially at larger scales of organization, which have resisted decomposition analysis and artificial implementation. Here, we argue that much of this debate has focused on inessential aspects of machines - classical properties which have been surpassed by advances in modern Machine Behavior and no longer apply. This emerging multidisciplinary field, at the interface of artificial life, machine learning, and synthetic bioengineering, is highlighting the inadequacy of existing definitions. Key terms such as machine, robot, program, software, evolved, designed, etc., need to be revised in light of technological and theoretical advances that have moved past the dated philosophical conceptions that have limited our understanding of both evolved and designed systems. Moving beyond contingent aspects of historical and current machines will enable conceptual tools that embrace inevitable advances in synthetic and hybrid bioengineering and computer science, toward a framework that identifies essential distinctions between fundamental concepts of devices and living agents. Progress in both theory and practical applications requires the establishment of a novel conception of "machines as they could be," based on the profound lessons of biology at all scales. We sketch a perspective that acknowledges the remarkable, unique aspects of life to help re-define key terms, and identify deep, essential features of concepts for a future in which sharp boundaries between evolved and designed systems will not exist.