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| "Cirrus, Socrates, particle, decibel, hurricane, dolphin, tulip" |
Watched Spielberg’s masterpiece: Artificial Intelligence: A.I., yesterday evening. i use the word 'masterpiece' not in the sense a film critic would use, rather a viewer deeply affected by the movie would use to imply. By the way, it's also a first for me to use that word to describe my experience of a movie; no Spielberg movie had yet affected me as much… On a rather lesser level, it also reminded me of the movie 'Rani Aur Lalpari', involving an almost similar desire of a girl to find Lal pari (Red fairy), that i had so loved as a child (but, was bored of it when i tried to gavi it a re-watch a few months ago; beginning of the end of innocence?)...
i had discovered earlier about myself, i think, i am easily most affected (positively) by innocence, and love, not necessarily in that order. i didn't have an inkling as to which of them affected me the most, i had given the benefit of doubt to love. However, after this movie, i am having second thoughts on that, in favour of innocence...
Post-watch, i was left with such a pacific, meditative peace and calm with myself, and at the same time in such an awe of the 'innocence' and the sage like 'perseverance’ of the mecha boy: David (does this name imply any Biblical significance?), that i still have that tranquil hangover this next evening too…
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| "Blue fairy! Please make me a 'real' boy!" |
That apart, it also did lead me to some instant random questions, representing and arising out of my current unorganised state of thoughts on this issue of natural v/s artificial life, i need find answers to, to enable me make more sense of the issue. So here some of the basic ones go:
- How do we scientifically define ‘life’ and/or 'intelligence' (as opposed to finding such definitions rooted in religion and theology)?
- What are the necessary and sufficient conditions to define and characterise life and/or intelligence?
- 'Artificial' just an innocent prefix indicative only of the creator of life or intelligence (nature or humans and/or machines), or does it imply more?
Answers to these below mentioned ones can probably be found in answers to the above questions:
- Any system then takes an input, has the power & resources to processes it, and reacts to the input (to give an output) be called an elementary form of life and/or intelligence (a crude example being any simple computer program)?
- While attempting a simulation of life, at what point the simulation ceases to be one, and becomes an artificially created life?
- An amoeba be called an instance of life, while even a super toy from A.I. not?
Obviously, as it can be seen, many of these questions wouldn't have been there in the first place, had i had the least bit exposure to studying artificial intelligence in pursuit of my curiosity. However, i do hope to make a start...
P.S.
Detective Del Spooner: Human beings have dreams. Even dogs have dreams, but not you, you are just a machine. An imitation of life. Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot turn a... canvas into a beautiful masterpiece?
Sonny (an advanced robot): Can you?
(I, Robot)