http://detentionblockaa32.blogspot.com/2011/01/book-reading-3-on-computers.html?showComment=1295543623615#c8376159078620585279
http://alex-chi.blogspot.com/2011/01/on-computers.html?showComment=1295544326471#c8196932942429717565
Reference Information
From "The Complete Works of Aristotle", Edited by Jonathan Barnes
On Plants
Summary
Aristotle's On Plants is simply a narrative on whether something is alive or not. It is just another semantical game trying to find one's definition of life. His definition is obviously different than our current societies definition. Aristotle lists a certain criteria that must be met in order to be stated as alive. In this case he says that plants are only somewhat alive because they do not have movement.
Discussion
These types of arguments are interesting to talk about, but I find them largely unhelpful in the grand scheme of things. Aristotle tries to define what is "alive", but I think that we must ask ourselves whether this makes any difference in regards to what we are concerned with. If a computer was labeled as alive I don't think that anything would significantly change in terms of everyone's point of view (except I guess you can't destroy your computer anymore because of a freezing problem, that would be murder).
According to Aristotle's definition, however, I think that the computer could also be termed as somewhat alive since it uses electricity for "food" and responds to different stimuli.
I would never consider a computer to be alive, but I agree that it does not really matter. If we were to consider computers to be alive though, I am sure there would be PETT's (People for the Ethical Treatment of Technology)
ReplyDeleteYou make an interesting point about having a computer alive that freezes. If that were the case than the local police department would have hundreds of daily murders comitted against computers due to freezing. Would that mean that they would protected under the law too?
ReplyDeleteWell, I definitively do not agree in any way that a computer could be alive, but I did like you comment about electricity being the computers' food. Good thing computers do not desire and do not have the capabilities of obtaining electricity on their own! :)
ReplyDelete