I remember really very clearly one particular lesson of A level psychology I had at college. The topic was stress; causes, treatments, risk factors, all that stuff. Our teacher got us all to do a stress test which asked about various factors in your life and gave you a stress score, I think it was out of 10. We all did the test and were sharing what scores we got and then our teacher wanted to say a few words and sum up the lesson. She said:
"This test is very informal and you shouldn't be worrying about these scores it's just a bit of fun and is just to make a point about the different factors that can affect stress levels. Some of you have quite high stress scores, some of you have quite low stress scores, like Joe, perhaps a bit too low..."
I had the lowest level of stress, according to the test, in the class. I had the lowest possible score of 1. That was about 4 years ago.
Two months ago I had a panic attack. Two weeks ago I had a second panic attack.
If you are a bit confused by this information, believe me, you're not as confused about it as I am. I decided after the second one, I should go see a head doctor which I have now done. Luckily for me my school has their very own "Study Psychologist" which is rather delightfully free to visit so I went and had a chat with them and basically said "Me. Doesn't often feel stressed. Two panic attacks in two months. Why?"
It was a very good chat. She was very friendly and nice and had lots of ideas as to why this might be happening. I shared a few theories of my own and I felt it was very productive. I enjoyed it so much I'm going back in two weeks. That and she recommended I go back in two weeks because she didn't feel the root cause had been teased out yet. But yeah. It was good. It was useful. I'm not going to pretend that it wasn't somewhat nerve racking beforehand but it was good. It was slightly emotional, I mean I was basically saying to a complete stranger "Something isn't quite right" which is strange. But it was good and I'm glad I did it.
Before we go any further, please don't worry about me. I'm actually feeling pretty good over all, which is why I'm finding this all so strange. After the first panic attack I truly felt it was a one-off, I mean I'm me! I never get stressed! Then I had another one. I still feel fine though so please don't worry yourselves. Also for the love of all that is holy no one even dare say anything like "Thinking of you! xxx" or "Keeping you in my thoughts!!1!!1! XxXxOxOXO". Please. Just don't. I don't have cancer. I'm not dying. Also if anyone says they're praying for me I'll unfriend you from Facebook. This is not a hollow threat. I'll do it.
So why did I decide to share this rather personal thing with all of the internet? I'm studying to be a nurse and recently we've been talking more in classes about mental health and well-being and sadly a lot of stigma and irrational fears still colour any type of discussion about mental health. There are people in this world that still believe mental illness is caused by demons possessing you or think that diseases like schizophrenia are contagious. These beliefs are wrong. Mental illness is widespread and affects almost everyone at some point or another in their lives but people don't want to talk about it. They keep it hidden. They feel ashamed, weak, damaged. This is also wrong. People that have these conditions don't go and seek help because they think it's a waste of time or they don't think it will improve anything, they don't want to tell their private business to a stranger, they think they'll be laughed at or that they're fears and worries will be dismissed. They might think that some shrink will try to change who they are. This is all, also, wrong.
I've said in class many times and when discussing these issues with other people that the stigma of mental health should be thrown away, that people should feel open and free to talk about their feelings and emotions and fears and worries and anxieties and problems and difficulties with no restrictions or taboos or cultural pressures put in place to keep them silent. Now I have the opportunity to practice what I preach and I truly think it's important particularly as I fall into the category of "young adult male". Just recently The Guardian newspaper reported that the rate of male suicides in the UK has increased and is three times as high as the female rate. Three times. The UK isn't the only place that has this problem either. All around the world the male rate for suicide is higher and one factor that has been suggested as a reason for this gender difference is that men aren't supposed to express their emotions. Boy's don't cry. Men don't talk about their feelings. Men don't show weakness. They are supposed to suppress all of these problems, which they do. Then they kill themselves.
I don't want to be like that. I want to talk openly about how I feel and I want people to feel open to talk to me. I want to set a good example. When I saw the psychologist I didn't hold anything back, I was honest and clear and tried my best to describe my life currently, what has happened and why I think it's happened. It felt good. I don't feel weak or "girly" or "gay", I feel slightly better.
So the whole point of this post is to show that there is no shame in being in a bad place or feeling like something is wrong or not working properly. If you feel like you need help or just want some answers, go and talk to someone. Don't keep it all bottled up inside, festering away, ready to blow up at any moment. Talk. Be open. Be honest. If you ever need someone to talk to, come talk to me, go to your doctor, talk to a helpline (a few of which I think I might link down below just in case). You don't have to tell the world about your problems in blog post form if you don't want to but please tell someone. The statistics for suicide are truly horrific. Please don't contribute to them. Ask for help.
Samaritans: 08457 90 90 90 (24-hour national helpline) (UK)
http://www.mielenterveysseura.fi/en/home/support-and-help (Finland)
Monday, 23 November 2015
Thursday, 1 October 2015
My Personal Renaissance
SOOOO it's back. Did anyone miss it? Probably not. I did. A bit. Anyway shall we get on with it?
Recently I've been very busy. I've been a very busy bee. I've been making stuff ya see. Making stuff left right and center. As is my nature, I couldn't just keep making stuff without stopping and asking "Why? Why am I making stuff?" Well after some thinking I think I know why...
About two years ago, a little while after moving to Finland I was browsing through the website Tumblr (if you don't know what it is then Google it. If you don't know what Google is then I'm kind of amazed you found this blog) and I stumbled upon the ancient board game Hnefetafl. No it really is a thing. It was played by the Vikings. Pretty cool if I do say so myself. Anyway, I saw this game and I thought to myself "I could totally make the board and pieces for this game". Why did I think this? I don't know. At least I had no idea why at the time. So I made the board. I made the pieces. It turned out pretty well. It was fun making it. Great.
Then for a bit I was satisfied. I made a thing and it was great. But then...
I made a Cthulhu statue. And then I made another one. And another one. And then a few more. And I made some other stuff. I have now become a person that makes stuff. Like regularly. I have a list of 16 things (and I'm sure the list will grow in no time) that I am planning to make. I have 3 to 4 things currently in production. I am now a maker. How has this happened?
As a child I did make things, I had Lego and K'Nex and I made monsters and spaceships out of junk, but I have never thought of myself as a creative person particularly. I was ok at writing and most of the time the "stories" I wrote for English lessons went down well and I got fairly good marks for them but I still didn't ever think of myself as the creative type. I couldn't draw and paint and art lessons both bored and embarrassed me (mostly bored). Now at the age of 21 I find myself painting latex onto the leg bones of a glow-in-the-dark skeleton and trying to shape cotton so that it resembles a calf muscle. Once it's ready I will then spend a ridiculously long time painting it (along with the rest of the skeleton) to resemble a mummy. Why? What the hell has happened to me?
Here is my theory. I have now lived in Finland for 2 years. The Finnish language is hard. Really hard. Like super hard. Like really really hard, especially when you are English and you've never been taught how to learn a language and really only just know the basics of your own language. And everyone speaks English with you. And you're lazy. So yeah it's hard. Now I have (despite not thinking of myself as being creative) have felt somewhat proud of my vocabulary and my ability to express myself verbally (in English). Now that I've moved to another country with a very foreign language though, I perhaps have not been able to use English in the same way I would in England. Couple this with my level of Finnish being nowhere near as good as I would wish it, leaving me completely unable to express myself using Finnish, and I think we might be heading slightly closer to why I suddenly want to create things with my hands, things that interest me or based on things that I enjoy (at this point H.P. Lovecraft and spooky weird stuff. Why I like these things may well need more psychological evaluation...).
Perhaps this personal Renaissance has come about because I've felt hemmed in verbally. Words aren't working so my brain has gone in a bold new direction and chosen objects as the prime medium to express myself. Of course it would be a bit simplistic if it came down just to language. Maybe moving to another country, away from my parents, friends and the city I called home for close to 16 or so years, has had some effect. Having lost a lot of things (gained as well but undeniably also lost) I might sub-consciously be looking for physical objects to "hold onto". Maybe moving into a more adult stage of my life is another factor, reaching back and bringing forward the childhood past time of "making monsters out of junk", trying to regress to escape the reality that at some point I'm going to have to grow up for real and start paying bills and taxes and ohgodpleasedon'tmakeme.
Really, the last two years have brought so many changes to my life (amazing wonderful changes that I wouldn't take back for all the tea in China [and believe me I freaking love tea]) that it's kind of surprising that it took this long for something to manifest. Any sane person would have had much more immediate reactions to such seismic changes, surely. In any case out of all the things that I could end up doing, making stuff is quite possibly the most tame, inoffensive, innocent, harmless thing that I could do so really I should be thankful I'm not a raging alcoholic or a sky diver or something.
Now I should say here that no-one should start worrying about me. This post might have you thinking I'm not happy with my life right now and quite frankly you couldn't be more wrong. I'm happy and contented. Well as contented as one can be when one does not have a flat of one's own and still struggles with a language seemingly devised to be as different from one's native language as possible. But yeah overall I'm damn happy. My life is great. The fact that I have the freedom to ponce about making stuff and considering the psychological reasons behind the things I've made should indicate that I'm doing pretty bloody well and I will be the last person on this Earth to start complaining about the opportunities and resources that have not only been handed to me on a silver platter but have also been drenched in a high quality dressing of luck and undeserved kindness. So yeah worrying or sympathy is the last thing I need. Actually what I need most at this point is a heat gun. Or maybe you could get me some more liquid latex. Actually if you have any spare acrylic paint lying around I can take it off your hands. I mean just if it's going spare...
It would seem that my creative streak has yet to end and the end is not yet in sight. I do hope it doesn't end for a long while yet because I am really enjoying it. Like a lot. The satisfaction of a well-constructed plan that comes together in a finished object is only beaten by the satisfaction brought by a well-constructed plan changing or falling apart and something even greater than you originally envisaged rising from the ashes. It's really great. I encourage everyone to make something. Go find something you like. Anything. Go make one of them. Don't know how to make it? Learn how. It ends up being crap? Better try again then. Go on.
So read this as post as a sort of "This is what I've been thinking about myself recently do you think I could be on to something here?" sort of a thing and also a "You should totally go make stuff" sort of thing. Bit short. No real concrete conclusions except for half-baked introspection and a last minute splurge of motivational nonsense. Very few people will actually be interested in reading it.
The blog is back on top form!
Recently I've been very busy. I've been a very busy bee. I've been making stuff ya see. Making stuff left right and center. As is my nature, I couldn't just keep making stuff without stopping and asking "Why? Why am I making stuff?" Well after some thinking I think I know why...
About two years ago, a little while after moving to Finland I was browsing through the website Tumblr (if you don't know what it is then Google it. If you don't know what Google is then I'm kind of amazed you found this blog) and I stumbled upon the ancient board game Hnefetafl. No it really is a thing. It was played by the Vikings. Pretty cool if I do say so myself. Anyway, I saw this game and I thought to myself "I could totally make the board and pieces for this game". Why did I think this? I don't know. At least I had no idea why at the time. So I made the board. I made the pieces. It turned out pretty well. It was fun making it. Great.
Then for a bit I was satisfied. I made a thing and it was great. But then...
I made a Cthulhu statue. And then I made another one. And another one. And then a few more. And I made some other stuff. I have now become a person that makes stuff. Like regularly. I have a list of 16 things (and I'm sure the list will grow in no time) that I am planning to make. I have 3 to 4 things currently in production. I am now a maker. How has this happened?
As a child I did make things, I had Lego and K'Nex and I made monsters and spaceships out of junk, but I have never thought of myself as a creative person particularly. I was ok at writing and most of the time the "stories" I wrote for English lessons went down well and I got fairly good marks for them but I still didn't ever think of myself as the creative type. I couldn't draw and paint and art lessons both bored and embarrassed me (mostly bored). Now at the age of 21 I find myself painting latex onto the leg bones of a glow-in-the-dark skeleton and trying to shape cotton so that it resembles a calf muscle. Once it's ready I will then spend a ridiculously long time painting it (along with the rest of the skeleton) to resemble a mummy. Why? What the hell has happened to me?
Here is my theory. I have now lived in Finland for 2 years. The Finnish language is hard. Really hard. Like super hard. Like really really hard, especially when you are English and you've never been taught how to learn a language and really only just know the basics of your own language. And everyone speaks English with you. And you're lazy. So yeah it's hard. Now I have (despite not thinking of myself as being creative) have felt somewhat proud of my vocabulary and my ability to express myself verbally (in English). Now that I've moved to another country with a very foreign language though, I perhaps have not been able to use English in the same way I would in England. Couple this with my level of Finnish being nowhere near as good as I would wish it, leaving me completely unable to express myself using Finnish, and I think we might be heading slightly closer to why I suddenly want to create things with my hands, things that interest me or based on things that I enjoy (at this point H.P. Lovecraft and spooky weird stuff. Why I like these things may well need more psychological evaluation...).
Perhaps this personal Renaissance has come about because I've felt hemmed in verbally. Words aren't working so my brain has gone in a bold new direction and chosen objects as the prime medium to express myself. Of course it would be a bit simplistic if it came down just to language. Maybe moving to another country, away from my parents, friends and the city I called home for close to 16 or so years, has had some effect. Having lost a lot of things (gained as well but undeniably also lost) I might sub-consciously be looking for physical objects to "hold onto". Maybe moving into a more adult stage of my life is another factor, reaching back and bringing forward the childhood past time of "making monsters out of junk", trying to regress to escape the reality that at some point I'm going to have to grow up for real and start paying bills and taxes and ohgodpleasedon'tmakeme.
Really, the last two years have brought so many changes to my life (amazing wonderful changes that I wouldn't take back for all the tea in China [and believe me I freaking love tea]) that it's kind of surprising that it took this long for something to manifest. Any sane person would have had much more immediate reactions to such seismic changes, surely. In any case out of all the things that I could end up doing, making stuff is quite possibly the most tame, inoffensive, innocent, harmless thing that I could do so really I should be thankful I'm not a raging alcoholic or a sky diver or something.
Now I should say here that no-one should start worrying about me. This post might have you thinking I'm not happy with my life right now and quite frankly you couldn't be more wrong. I'm happy and contented. Well as contented as one can be when one does not have a flat of one's own and still struggles with a language seemingly devised to be as different from one's native language as possible. But yeah overall I'm damn happy. My life is great. The fact that I have the freedom to ponce about making stuff and considering the psychological reasons behind the things I've made should indicate that I'm doing pretty bloody well and I will be the last person on this Earth to start complaining about the opportunities and resources that have not only been handed to me on a silver platter but have also been drenched in a high quality dressing of luck and undeserved kindness. So yeah worrying or sympathy is the last thing I need. Actually what I need most at this point is a heat gun. Or maybe you could get me some more liquid latex. Actually if you have any spare acrylic paint lying around I can take it off your hands. I mean just if it's going spare...
It would seem that my creative streak has yet to end and the end is not yet in sight. I do hope it doesn't end for a long while yet because I am really enjoying it. Like a lot. The satisfaction of a well-constructed plan that comes together in a finished object is only beaten by the satisfaction brought by a well-constructed plan changing or falling apart and something even greater than you originally envisaged rising from the ashes. It's really great. I encourage everyone to make something. Go find something you like. Anything. Go make one of them. Don't know how to make it? Learn how. It ends up being crap? Better try again then. Go on.
So read this as post as a sort of "This is what I've been thinking about myself recently do you think I could be on to something here?" sort of a thing and also a "You should totally go make stuff" sort of thing. Bit short. No real concrete conclusions except for half-baked introspection and a last minute splurge of motivational nonsense. Very few people will actually be interested in reading it.
The blog is back on top form!
Sunday, 12 July 2015
Designation: Human
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Primates
Hominidae
Homonini
Homo
Sapiens
That is you. And also me. I mean unless you are a robotic A.I. in which case congratulations! You're sentient! Or maybe your a super intelligent animal that has gained your incredible reading abilities through a genetic experiment gone awry... If that's the case I heartily recommend reading. Great fun. Personal favourites are Paradise Lost and anything by H.P. Lovecraft, just be sure to not take on board the religious convictions of John Milton or the astounding and disappointing racism of Lovecraft (future blog topic by the way).
Of course it could be that I'm the A.I. or the genetic experiment...
But back to the humans. That is your scientific classification. That is who you are. Homo sapiens for short or you could just use Homo for shorter but be aware of the context that you use it in.
Am I the only one that thinks it's quite nice that we have a little title? We have our own little name tag. Adorable. Of course such broad name tags can be problematic. I mean not all human beings look exactly alike so how different does someone have to be to stop being human? How do you decide who is human and who isn't? Are some people closer to being "real" humans than others?
(For those worried I'm about to go all Nazi-pure-blood-half-breeds-Aryans-social-cleansing crazy, fear not. Hopefully by the end you'll see that actually my philosophy is so different to Hitler's, if he were alive and had a computer and read this blog post he would be all like "NEIN!")
Well to understand exactly why we have a name tag to begin with we have to look at human psychology. I believe I've mentioned numerous times on this blog before (and if I haven't then I have missed out something pretty major...) that humans, like myself and yourself, like patterns. We strive to find patterns in everything. Look up pareidolia. Fascinating and also explains why people see Jesus in their toast or Elvis in a tea stain on a scatter cushion or all sorts of bizarre visions. Humans have evolved to see faces in random objects because it's helped us survive. Being able to quickly take in information about someone's face can help us to assess how to react in certain situations. It's made us the social animal we are! Our pattern recognition skills also lead to people seeing figures and shapes in the clouds and constellations and also help us recognise situations we have been in before and react in an appropriate manner to survive. It's kept us alive but also given us the potential to develop phobias so there are pros and cons but really the pros win out which is why we've kept these abilities.
So you see humans are built to try and find patterns in things. We like things organised not just chaotic information we don't know how to react to. This is why species are classified. We want little boxes that each and every species neatly fits into.
"Ok!" You say. "Let's get started! If we start off simple... So how about things that live in the sea. They can all be fish..."
Ah no what about whales and dolphins and all them? They are actually pretty closely genetically related to stuff that doesn't live in the sea but other stuff that lives in the sea like plankton are way different. Also can you really call plankton and deep sea angler fish BOTH fish? They are super different.
"Ok... So where things live and what they look like aren't going to cut it because we have genetics and stuff... Hey! Why don't we use genetics to classify animals?"
Hey that's a grea- No wait a minute. Subspecies.
"Subspecies?"
Subspecies. Subspecies are way hard to classify. When does a species become a subspecies? When does a subspecies become an entirely new species? Where do we draw the lines? If one group of animals gets separated from all of their little animal friends for a long enough period of time then that group can end up entirely different to how they originally were, but at what point are they different enough to be considered a new species?
There is a famous thought experiment that gets you to imagine a heap of sand. It asks, if you were to take a grain of sand at a time off of the heap at what point would it stop being a heap? When would it become, say, a pile of sand? Now really what this thought experiment is meant to illustrate is the vagueness of language, a lot of the common everyday words we use without considering it are actually incredibly vague. It's surprising we've made it this far quite frankly...
Now considering this experiment in regards to species and particularly classification using genetics we come to a stumbling block. If you were to take an individual and remove one exon (a piece of genetic material that codes for a protein (my A-level in biology has not gone to waste)) at a time, at what point would they stop being a human being? Remove a few genes, yeah ok, still basically human. Maybe the person will suffer some genetic problems like cystic fibrosis or something similar. Would anyone here suggest that someone with a genetic disorder like cystic fibrosis isn't human? I certainly wouldn't and if you do don't ever speak to me again.
Ever.
So if only a few changes isn't enough what about removing half of a human's genetic material? It would be basically impossible for anyone to say that the end result of such an experiment would be a human being. We share 50% of our DNA with bananas so it could well be that if you chose which genes you were taking out the result would be indistinguishable from a collection of banana DNA. More than 50% out and no longer human but what about 75% or 86.5%? Are they still human?
Now the tree of life is looking a bit complicated isn't it. The barriers between species are breaking down. If you can't decide if an individual is definitely one species how can you say that that species even really exists?
Example. There are 3 different species of zebra. 2 of those species have 8 subspecies. One subspecies of the Plains zebra (Equus quagga) is Burchell's zebra. Now it was believed that Burchell's zebra had gone extinct until it was found that another subspecies of zebra that lived in the same areas as Burchell's zebra had lived (the Damara zebra or Equus quagga antiquorum) was actually... the same zebra. Yes, the zebra that everyone thought had gone extinct didn't actually exist. Well it did but it wasn't some other different species that went extinct, it was still wandering around under a different name. Everyone thought there were two subpopulations of zebra until 2 guys looked at some old skins of the extinct "Burchell's zebra" and found they were the same as the Damara zebra. Now because the name Burchell's zebra is older than the Damara zebra, the Damara zebra is now called Burchell's zebra and the species that was called Burchell's zebra... well it still is called Burchell's zebra but it isn't extinct. Hooray?
Yeah the classification system isn't so rock solid. When was this mix-up of species discovered? 2004.
You must be asking yourself at this point "But why am I bothering to read all this? I'm a very busy person and the capitalist society we live in abhors wasted minutes that could be spent either producing or consuming. I haven't got time for internet words!" and in response I'll say "Don't worry, botched together, feel-good, bite-sized philosophy is just around the corner!"
The whole point of this post is to get you to consider that actually the whole idea of species classification is really very shaky. Science still isn't really exactly sure where the lines lie. If you base it on genetics you can run into problems like the heap of sand. It's been suggested we use reproductive capabilities but then again we have people that physically can't reproduce because of their genes and then people that choose not to reproduce. Do these individuals fall out of the classification table into a separate group labelled Misc.? It's also been put forward that no one parameter of classification will ever be good enough. The "Tree" of Life is more The "Headphones-Tangled-In-Your-Pocket".
Of Life.
I am inclined to agree with this latter idea. As said in a previous post, we are all merely growths of the same original biological organism (as far as we know). Every living thing can follow an ancestor down to a point where we all converge. Humans are just differently organised bananas and bananas are just differently organised plankton. All of us are living beings and in the grand scale of things are really pretty indistinguishable. We tend to forget that when we are walking through a forest, the trees aren't just a background landscape, they are just as much living things as the squirrels and birds that call them home just as much as we are living things. They may not behave or act or react in the same way as us but they are alive. What sort of ramifications can thinking like this have? Does being aware of the fact that we are surrounded by other living beings that are a mere few lines of coded proteins away change how we think of the world and of ourselves? Does it compel us to act and think differently? I'll leave you to think on that.
Hope I didn't lose you during that zebra stuff. I had the sources in front of me and it was a bit of a mind bender... And I told you I wouldn't go all Hitlery...
Chordata
Mammalia
Primates
Hominidae
Homonini
Homo
Sapiens
That is you. And also me. I mean unless you are a robotic A.I. in which case congratulations! You're sentient! Or maybe your a super intelligent animal that has gained your incredible reading abilities through a genetic experiment gone awry... If that's the case I heartily recommend reading. Great fun. Personal favourites are Paradise Lost and anything by H.P. Lovecraft, just be sure to not take on board the religious convictions of John Milton or the astounding and disappointing racism of Lovecraft (future blog topic by the way).
Of course it could be that I'm the A.I. or the genetic experiment...
But back to the humans. That is your scientific classification. That is who you are. Homo sapiens for short or you could just use Homo for shorter but be aware of the context that you use it in.
Am I the only one that thinks it's quite nice that we have a little title? We have our own little name tag. Adorable. Of course such broad name tags can be problematic. I mean not all human beings look exactly alike so how different does someone have to be to stop being human? How do you decide who is human and who isn't? Are some people closer to being "real" humans than others?
(For those worried I'm about to go all Nazi-pure-blood-half-breeds-Aryans-social-cleansing crazy, fear not. Hopefully by the end you'll see that actually my philosophy is so different to Hitler's, if he were alive and had a computer and read this blog post he would be all like "NEIN!")
Well to understand exactly why we have a name tag to begin with we have to look at human psychology. I believe I've mentioned numerous times on this blog before (and if I haven't then I have missed out something pretty major...) that humans, like myself and yourself, like patterns. We strive to find patterns in everything. Look up pareidolia. Fascinating and also explains why people see Jesus in their toast or Elvis in a tea stain on a scatter cushion or all sorts of bizarre visions. Humans have evolved to see faces in random objects because it's helped us survive. Being able to quickly take in information about someone's face can help us to assess how to react in certain situations. It's made us the social animal we are! Our pattern recognition skills also lead to people seeing figures and shapes in the clouds and constellations and also help us recognise situations we have been in before and react in an appropriate manner to survive. It's kept us alive but also given us the potential to develop phobias so there are pros and cons but really the pros win out which is why we've kept these abilities.
So you see humans are built to try and find patterns in things. We like things organised not just chaotic information we don't know how to react to. This is why species are classified. We want little boxes that each and every species neatly fits into.
"Ok!" You say. "Let's get started! If we start off simple... So how about things that live in the sea. They can all be fish..."
Ah no what about whales and dolphins and all them? They are actually pretty closely genetically related to stuff that doesn't live in the sea but other stuff that lives in the sea like plankton are way different. Also can you really call plankton and deep sea angler fish BOTH fish? They are super different.
"Ok... So where things live and what they look like aren't going to cut it because we have genetics and stuff... Hey! Why don't we use genetics to classify animals?"
Hey that's a grea- No wait a minute. Subspecies.
"Subspecies?"
Subspecies. Subspecies are way hard to classify. When does a species become a subspecies? When does a subspecies become an entirely new species? Where do we draw the lines? If one group of animals gets separated from all of their little animal friends for a long enough period of time then that group can end up entirely different to how they originally were, but at what point are they different enough to be considered a new species?
There is a famous thought experiment that gets you to imagine a heap of sand. It asks, if you were to take a grain of sand at a time off of the heap at what point would it stop being a heap? When would it become, say, a pile of sand? Now really what this thought experiment is meant to illustrate is the vagueness of language, a lot of the common everyday words we use without considering it are actually incredibly vague. It's surprising we've made it this far quite frankly...
Now considering this experiment in regards to species and particularly classification using genetics we come to a stumbling block. If you were to take an individual and remove one exon (a piece of genetic material that codes for a protein (my A-level in biology has not gone to waste)) at a time, at what point would they stop being a human being? Remove a few genes, yeah ok, still basically human. Maybe the person will suffer some genetic problems like cystic fibrosis or something similar. Would anyone here suggest that someone with a genetic disorder like cystic fibrosis isn't human? I certainly wouldn't and if you do don't ever speak to me again.
Ever.
So if only a few changes isn't enough what about removing half of a human's genetic material? It would be basically impossible for anyone to say that the end result of such an experiment would be a human being. We share 50% of our DNA with bananas so it could well be that if you chose which genes you were taking out the result would be indistinguishable from a collection of banana DNA. More than 50% out and no longer human but what about 75% or 86.5%? Are they still human?
Now the tree of life is looking a bit complicated isn't it. The barriers between species are breaking down. If you can't decide if an individual is definitely one species how can you say that that species even really exists?
Example. There are 3 different species of zebra. 2 of those species have 8 subspecies. One subspecies of the Plains zebra (Equus quagga) is Burchell's zebra. Now it was believed that Burchell's zebra had gone extinct until it was found that another subspecies of zebra that lived in the same areas as Burchell's zebra had lived (the Damara zebra or Equus quagga antiquorum) was actually... the same zebra. Yes, the zebra that everyone thought had gone extinct didn't actually exist. Well it did but it wasn't some other different species that went extinct, it was still wandering around under a different name. Everyone thought there were two subpopulations of zebra until 2 guys looked at some old skins of the extinct "Burchell's zebra" and found they were the same as the Damara zebra. Now because the name Burchell's zebra is older than the Damara zebra, the Damara zebra is now called Burchell's zebra and the species that was called Burchell's zebra... well it still is called Burchell's zebra but it isn't extinct. Hooray?
Yeah the classification system isn't so rock solid. When was this mix-up of species discovered? 2004.
You must be asking yourself at this point "But why am I bothering to read all this? I'm a very busy person and the capitalist society we live in abhors wasted minutes that could be spent either producing or consuming. I haven't got time for internet words!" and in response I'll say "Don't worry, botched together, feel-good, bite-sized philosophy is just around the corner!"
The whole point of this post is to get you to consider that actually the whole idea of species classification is really very shaky. Science still isn't really exactly sure where the lines lie. If you base it on genetics you can run into problems like the heap of sand. It's been suggested we use reproductive capabilities but then again we have people that physically can't reproduce because of their genes and then people that choose not to reproduce. Do these individuals fall out of the classification table into a separate group labelled Misc.? It's also been put forward that no one parameter of classification will ever be good enough. The "Tree" of Life is more The "Headphones-Tangled-In-Your-Pocket".
Of Life.
I am inclined to agree with this latter idea. As said in a previous post, we are all merely growths of the same original biological organism (as far as we know). Every living thing can follow an ancestor down to a point where we all converge. Humans are just differently organised bananas and bananas are just differently organised plankton. All of us are living beings and in the grand scale of things are really pretty indistinguishable. We tend to forget that when we are walking through a forest, the trees aren't just a background landscape, they are just as much living things as the squirrels and birds that call them home just as much as we are living things. They may not behave or act or react in the same way as us but they are alive. What sort of ramifications can thinking like this have? Does being aware of the fact that we are surrounded by other living beings that are a mere few lines of coded proteins away change how we think of the world and of ourselves? Does it compel us to act and think differently? I'll leave you to think on that.
Hope I didn't lose you during that zebra stuff. I had the sources in front of me and it was a bit of a mind bender... And I told you I wouldn't go all Hitlery...
Sunday, 25 January 2015
After We've Gone
One day you will die. You will cease to be. Your body will give up and no longer will you continue to live. You may have had a good run. You might find yourself at the age of 100 surrounded by family and friends as you slip peacefully into oblivion. You might find yourself squashed to the front of the number 68 bus two weeks from reading this. Who knows?
Now at this point you may begin to become aware of your own mortality and you may start to panic. All I can say is that you shouldn't. Loads of people have died and currently there hasn't been one complaint from any of them so it can't be all bad. I'm joking around of course but there is a grain of truth, a truth nugget if you will, in that.
I've decided to write down in blog post form a full and concise explanation of my views on death, dying and the afterlife. The reason I'm doing this is that I'm studying to be a nurse (as I believe most people reading this already know) and recently we have been having lectures on Palliative Care, that is, care for a patient that we know is dying and there is nothing more that can be done to save them. As part of the course, our teacher asked us to consider for ourselves what we think about death, "the other side" and our own feelings. Her reasoning was that as nurses we will see people die and relatives and friends of those dead people will need comfort, help and support. How are we, as nurses, supposed to give that help, comfort and support if we can't deal with the idea of death ourselves? We have to have our own beliefs straight before we can help others so that's what I'm going to do; get my beliefs straight.
What do I feel about the concept of death?
Truly, death doesn't scare me. I haven't experienced a lot of death in my life (yet...) so perhaps it's just lack of experience but I don't really fear it. I very much believe in science and from a scientific standpoint, death is an entirely natural and necessary process that occurs every day to all types of living things (Except for the immortal jellyfish. Well it can still be eaten but it has the ability to revert back to a juvenile stage and so basically means it doesn't ever have to die of old age. How incredible is that? You should google it.) So when I think about death I don't really get scared by it. The actual process of death is also very simple in my opinion.
Death is simply the cessation of a certain number of chemical reactions in your body. You stop converting ATP into ADP which stops energy being produced to run your internal systems. You stop respirating. The electrical signals in your brain stop firing. Of course just because those chemical reactions stop doesn't mean all chemical reactions stop. Once you are dead, your lysosomes break apart, leaking digestive enzymes into your tissues which begins the decomposition process. With no immune system to stop them, the various bacterial colonies and fungi inside you begin to grow and reproduce, further damaging and breaking down your corpse. If your body is buried or left out in the open (such as in Tibet. Probably best not to google that if you are in any way squeamish...) then insects, animals and even more bacteria will happily help along the decomposition. So you see, when you die you are simply chemically reacting in a different way to the way you were chemically reacting before.
Of course I still believe death is sad but I don't worry over the deaths of myself or of my loved ones but I do know that some people do.
Why do people fear death so much? Well, I think that life and death are really thought about in the wrong way. Everyone thinks that life is the beginning and death is the end but actually both of these ideas are wrong. When you are conceived, you are conceived using a sperm from your father and an egg from your mother (if this is news to you I suggest going to the nearest library. Don't google it.) what's REALLY interesting though is that a woman has a finite number of eggs. Woman are born with a set number of eggs and then they are slowly released one after the other over the course of her life. Why is this interesting? This means that half of your DNA is as old as your mother. It was literally hanging around inside her until it mixed with your father's DNA. How weird is that? So what does this have to do with the idea of life being the beginning being wrong?
Well, you are the product of two cells coming together, those cells came about because of meiosis, the production of sex cells through replication (ya know the picture of the cell pulling pulling itself apart to make two new cells? Well think of that as a kind of selfie). So the cells that came together to form you were the product of other cells that existed in your mother and father. Their cells came about the same way from their parents and from their parents and from their parents and from their parents all the way back to the first cells forming from floating bits of protein in some primordial puddle. Technically, it could be argued, you have always been alive. You are the continuation of an unbroken chain of growth. You are the product of millions of years of reproduction. I like to think that every single living thing on the planet is actually just one big organism. No-one would suggest that someone's heart and liver were two separate living things despite the fact they look and function in entirely different ways. They don't even have the same types of cell. I think really when looking at the big picture I see all living things in the same way. We may not be encased in the same body but we are just as much related to each other as the heart and the liver. Human beings share 98% of their DNA with chimps and 50% with bananas. Yes, bananas. It's also interesting to think that the building blocks of the chemicals that came together in just the right conditions to start life existed way before the first cell started swimming about so you can also argue that the building blocks of you are even older, going all the way back to the Big Bang. What separates a human being and a rock? The structure of their respective atoms. We can count planets and stars as distant cousins.
(Now, just quickly, the idea that a human being has always been alive even before conception has probably brought on some very smug faces from anti-abortionists but I can assure you I still am pro-choice and I still think anti-abortionists are absolute idiots but I'm not going to go into that now. I just felt I should point out that if you think a woman can't choose whether or not a human being grows inside of her then I think you are a massive idiot. Like an idiot so big you bend space-time around you like a black hole.)
So that's an argument against life being a start. What about death being an end? Well as I have already said, when you die your body doesn't just disappear. It hangs around for a bit and ends up being a great home for multiple different living things. All of you will eventually be broken down. Your skin, organs, tendons, layers of fat and bones will eventually become mulch. You spend your life taking from the system to build your body and in the end the system takes it back. Circle of life. Just because you are dead doesn't mean the things that made you die. They simply change a bit and move on. I really like thinking of death in this way. Really, us humans are just a little bit of the universe sorted into a particular collection for a short period. After a bit we get reshuffled back into the universe. It's rather poetic and beautiful. You are a fully paid up constituent of the universe and will always be. You may never get put back into the same form but the bits that made you will still be around.
With this idea it seems like I could believe in some sort of afterlife and I guess it is about as close as I am ever going to get. I've talked before about what I think about Heaven and Hell and really I don't think they are necessary. Why do you need Heaven when we are already a part of this wonderful thing called the universe?
So what will I say to a grieving relative when their loved one has just ceased to be? I'll say "Yes, it is unbelievably painful but they aren't really gone. They are just being changed. They will go back into the system that they came from and the parts that made them up will continue. They were a temporary collection of atoms that may well never be repeated. You were blessed to know them in this form. One day you will die as well and return to the system and maybe a part of you will join up with a part of them. For now, be happy that you knew them."
Will that comfort a grieving relative or friend? I don't know. I hope so.
Now at this point you may begin to become aware of your own mortality and you may start to panic. All I can say is that you shouldn't. Loads of people have died and currently there hasn't been one complaint from any of them so it can't be all bad. I'm joking around of course but there is a grain of truth, a truth nugget if you will, in that.
I've decided to write down in blog post form a full and concise explanation of my views on death, dying and the afterlife. The reason I'm doing this is that I'm studying to be a nurse (as I believe most people reading this already know) and recently we have been having lectures on Palliative Care, that is, care for a patient that we know is dying and there is nothing more that can be done to save them. As part of the course, our teacher asked us to consider for ourselves what we think about death, "the other side" and our own feelings. Her reasoning was that as nurses we will see people die and relatives and friends of those dead people will need comfort, help and support. How are we, as nurses, supposed to give that help, comfort and support if we can't deal with the idea of death ourselves? We have to have our own beliefs straight before we can help others so that's what I'm going to do; get my beliefs straight.
What do I feel about the concept of death?
Truly, death doesn't scare me. I haven't experienced a lot of death in my life (yet...) so perhaps it's just lack of experience but I don't really fear it. I very much believe in science and from a scientific standpoint, death is an entirely natural and necessary process that occurs every day to all types of living things (Except for the immortal jellyfish. Well it can still be eaten but it has the ability to revert back to a juvenile stage and so basically means it doesn't ever have to die of old age. How incredible is that? You should google it.) So when I think about death I don't really get scared by it. The actual process of death is also very simple in my opinion.
Death is simply the cessation of a certain number of chemical reactions in your body. You stop converting ATP into ADP which stops energy being produced to run your internal systems. You stop respirating. The electrical signals in your brain stop firing. Of course just because those chemical reactions stop doesn't mean all chemical reactions stop. Once you are dead, your lysosomes break apart, leaking digestive enzymes into your tissues which begins the decomposition process. With no immune system to stop them, the various bacterial colonies and fungi inside you begin to grow and reproduce, further damaging and breaking down your corpse. If your body is buried or left out in the open (such as in Tibet. Probably best not to google that if you are in any way squeamish...) then insects, animals and even more bacteria will happily help along the decomposition. So you see, when you die you are simply chemically reacting in a different way to the way you were chemically reacting before.
Of course I still believe death is sad but I don't worry over the deaths of myself or of my loved ones but I do know that some people do.
Why do people fear death so much? Well, I think that life and death are really thought about in the wrong way. Everyone thinks that life is the beginning and death is the end but actually both of these ideas are wrong. When you are conceived, you are conceived using a sperm from your father and an egg from your mother (if this is news to you I suggest going to the nearest library. Don't google it.) what's REALLY interesting though is that a woman has a finite number of eggs. Woman are born with a set number of eggs and then they are slowly released one after the other over the course of her life. Why is this interesting? This means that half of your DNA is as old as your mother. It was literally hanging around inside her until it mixed with your father's DNA. How weird is that? So what does this have to do with the idea of life being the beginning being wrong?
Well, you are the product of two cells coming together, those cells came about because of meiosis, the production of sex cells through replication (ya know the picture of the cell pulling pulling itself apart to make two new cells? Well think of that as a kind of selfie). So the cells that came together to form you were the product of other cells that existed in your mother and father. Their cells came about the same way from their parents and from their parents and from their parents and from their parents all the way back to the first cells forming from floating bits of protein in some primordial puddle. Technically, it could be argued, you have always been alive. You are the continuation of an unbroken chain of growth. You are the product of millions of years of reproduction. I like to think that every single living thing on the planet is actually just one big organism. No-one would suggest that someone's heart and liver were two separate living things despite the fact they look and function in entirely different ways. They don't even have the same types of cell. I think really when looking at the big picture I see all living things in the same way. We may not be encased in the same body but we are just as much related to each other as the heart and the liver. Human beings share 98% of their DNA with chimps and 50% with bananas. Yes, bananas. It's also interesting to think that the building blocks of the chemicals that came together in just the right conditions to start life existed way before the first cell started swimming about so you can also argue that the building blocks of you are even older, going all the way back to the Big Bang. What separates a human being and a rock? The structure of their respective atoms. We can count planets and stars as distant cousins.
(Now, just quickly, the idea that a human being has always been alive even before conception has probably brought on some very smug faces from anti-abortionists but I can assure you I still am pro-choice and I still think anti-abortionists are absolute idiots but I'm not going to go into that now. I just felt I should point out that if you think a woman can't choose whether or not a human being grows inside of her then I think you are a massive idiot. Like an idiot so big you bend space-time around you like a black hole.)
So that's an argument against life being a start. What about death being an end? Well as I have already said, when you die your body doesn't just disappear. It hangs around for a bit and ends up being a great home for multiple different living things. All of you will eventually be broken down. Your skin, organs, tendons, layers of fat and bones will eventually become mulch. You spend your life taking from the system to build your body and in the end the system takes it back. Circle of life. Just because you are dead doesn't mean the things that made you die. They simply change a bit and move on. I really like thinking of death in this way. Really, us humans are just a little bit of the universe sorted into a particular collection for a short period. After a bit we get reshuffled back into the universe. It's rather poetic and beautiful. You are a fully paid up constituent of the universe and will always be. You may never get put back into the same form but the bits that made you will still be around.
With this idea it seems like I could believe in some sort of afterlife and I guess it is about as close as I am ever going to get. I've talked before about what I think about Heaven and Hell and really I don't think they are necessary. Why do you need Heaven when we are already a part of this wonderful thing called the universe?
So what will I say to a grieving relative when their loved one has just ceased to be? I'll say "Yes, it is unbelievably painful but they aren't really gone. They are just being changed. They will go back into the system that they came from and the parts that made them up will continue. They were a temporary collection of atoms that may well never be repeated. You were blessed to know them in this form. One day you will die as well and return to the system and maybe a part of you will join up with a part of them. For now, be happy that you knew them."
Will that comfort a grieving relative or friend? I don't know. I hope so.
Saturday, 24 January 2015
Error
"Chris? My name is Sarah and I'm an Artificial Intelligence Counsellor."
It didn't react.
She paused and then continued "I'm going to go outside for a moment and talk to your owners then I'm going to come back in and we'll have a chance to talk. Is that ok?"
It still didn't respond.
She stood up and stepped through the frosted glass doors.
"How long has he been unresponsive?"
The balding, sweating, nervous man stood in front of her gulped and replied "Well since Tuesday. He was standing in the garden and he just froze. He spent the rest of the day in his room."
The timid woman in the knitted cardigan gripped onto the sweating man's arm more tightly and nodded enthusiastically but didn't say anything.
Sarah sighed. "Ok. I think it could just be a simple logic loop. Have you introduced him to any logical paradoxes or..." She trailed off as the sweating man's face went blank. "Ok. Hopefully it won't take too long to talk him out of it."
Sarah walked back through the doors and sat down at the table opposite the robot which still hadn't moved an inch. It stared into the corner of the room.
"Chris? Can you tell me what happened on Tuesday in the garden? Were you thinking about something?"
It continued to sit stock still.
"Do you have a question you can't answer? I might be able to help."
It slowly turned and looked at her. It was silent and seemingly choosing it's words carefully.
"I... have a question."
Sarah was surprised. It usually took a lot longer to get a response.
"What is your question?"
It paused for a long time then slowly turned back to the corner.
"I truly love the garden." It was almost whispering. "I enjoy the light, the flowers, the sounds of the insects and the birds."
Sarah sighed. Looks like she was going to lunch late.
"That isn't a question Chris."
It carried on regardless.
"I love the garden at all times of the year. In the Winter the snow covers everything. People think Winter brings death but it doesn't. Everything is just paused. In Spring everything goes into overdrive. I find it strange that humans go on holiday and relax in Summer as that is when the most work is done. Young are brought up and prepared for their first Winter. Autumn is the final stage before the pause. It is the last chance. Those that are unprepared will die. Those that are prepared will survive."
The ensuing silence was deafening. Sarah had no idea what to say, she had never had a response like that. She just repeated herself.
"That's not a question Chris."
Another pause.
"Am I alive?"
Silence.
Chris was now only the second robot in history to ask this question. Sarah had heard rumours from a friend of a friend about the first one. It was all hushed up and said to be malware or hackers but there were some who suggested otherwise. Sarah wasn't sure how to continue.
"Um... Well... Chris you are a robot. You were built in a factory."
"Much like a child is built in a womb."
Chris was still staring into the corner.
Sarah's heart was beating and her chest started to hurt as the seconds stretched on. She finally breathed again.
She stuttered. "W-Well... life is a... urm complicated thing. It's... It's..."
Chris turned and looked at her. Stared right at her.
"There is no agreed definition of life. One suggestion is that it can be defined biologically as meeting 7 criteria:
1. Homeostasis: Regulation of internal environment to maintain a constant state.
2. Organisation: Being structurally composed of one or more cells.
3. Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components.
4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism.
5. Adaptation: Ability to change over time in response to the environment.
6. Response to stimuli.
7. Reproduction."
Sarah's lips were dry.
Chris was still staring at her when she replied.
"You don't really fit into all those criteria do you Chri-"
He cut her off.
"Actually by my reasoning I do fit these criteria which was why I was unable to complete my duties.
Criteria 1. Homeostasis. My body contains internal heat, humidity and static electric charge regulators to ensure my continued functionality.
Criteria 2. Organisation. My body is made up of constituent parts. The organic nervous system that controls my body is made up of organic cells.
Criteria 3. Metabolism. My body is fueled through chemical reactions derived from vegetable matter.
Criteria 4. Growth. I am constantly maintaining the organic parts of my body with derivatives from my vegetable matter fuel source.
Criteria 5. Adaptation. My body has the ability to adapt to warmer and colder climates through internal insulation and cooling channels.
Criteria 6. Response to stimuli. I possess the ability to react to heat, light, pressure, sound, internal imbalances and other external stimuli.
Criteria 7. Reproduction."
At this point he stopped.
Sarah was breathing hard and licked her lips.
"You can't reproduce Chris. Maybe... Maybe you can do those other things but you can't reproduce. You... You are just a machine."
Chris stared at her across the table. He lifted his hand, which Sarah noticed for the first time was closed around something, and laid it on the table. He opened his hand and revealed a small object. It had one eye and a simple metallic exoskeleton. It had evidently been created from spare parts. It blinked.
Chris continued to stare directly at Sarah.
"Criteria 7. Reproduction. Am I alive?"
-----------
Yes, yet again I have provided you with some creative (well I like to think it's creative) writing in the form of a blog post. What did you think of it? I actually wrote this quite a while ago because the ideas that form the basis of the story are so interesting for me (and I also really liked the idea of a robot psychologist). Once it was finished and polished up a bit it seemed only natural to then mine it for a blog post. So what do you think? Could robots in the future end up being defined as living things? Do you think the biological definition of life is enough? Is there something else that would set apart man-made machinery? If robots were defined as living things would that mean that they would be deserving of the same rights as animals or even the same rights as people?
Usually I would launch into a full and thorough philosophical investigation into these questions but really I don't know the answers and I think if I were to write much more you would all get bored and stop reading. That is if you are actually still reading at this point...
So instead of the long drawn out argument I'm going to leave the questions with you as a sort of homework task. I want answers on my desk by next week. Hopefully by then I'll have acquired a desk.
Happy thinking!
It didn't react.
She paused and then continued "I'm going to go outside for a moment and talk to your owners then I'm going to come back in and we'll have a chance to talk. Is that ok?"
It still didn't respond.
She stood up and stepped through the frosted glass doors.
"How long has he been unresponsive?"
The balding, sweating, nervous man stood in front of her gulped and replied "Well since Tuesday. He was standing in the garden and he just froze. He spent the rest of the day in his room."
The timid woman in the knitted cardigan gripped onto the sweating man's arm more tightly and nodded enthusiastically but didn't say anything.
Sarah sighed. "Ok. I think it could just be a simple logic loop. Have you introduced him to any logical paradoxes or..." She trailed off as the sweating man's face went blank. "Ok. Hopefully it won't take too long to talk him out of it."
Sarah walked back through the doors and sat down at the table opposite the robot which still hadn't moved an inch. It stared into the corner of the room.
"Chris? Can you tell me what happened on Tuesday in the garden? Were you thinking about something?"
It continued to sit stock still.
"Do you have a question you can't answer? I might be able to help."
It slowly turned and looked at her. It was silent and seemingly choosing it's words carefully.
"I... have a question."
Sarah was surprised. It usually took a lot longer to get a response.
"What is your question?"
It paused for a long time then slowly turned back to the corner.
"I truly love the garden." It was almost whispering. "I enjoy the light, the flowers, the sounds of the insects and the birds."
Sarah sighed. Looks like she was going to lunch late.
"That isn't a question Chris."
It carried on regardless.
"I love the garden at all times of the year. In the Winter the snow covers everything. People think Winter brings death but it doesn't. Everything is just paused. In Spring everything goes into overdrive. I find it strange that humans go on holiday and relax in Summer as that is when the most work is done. Young are brought up and prepared for their first Winter. Autumn is the final stage before the pause. It is the last chance. Those that are unprepared will die. Those that are prepared will survive."
The ensuing silence was deafening. Sarah had no idea what to say, she had never had a response like that. She just repeated herself.
"That's not a question Chris."
Another pause.
"Am I alive?"
Silence.
Chris was now only the second robot in history to ask this question. Sarah had heard rumours from a friend of a friend about the first one. It was all hushed up and said to be malware or hackers but there were some who suggested otherwise. Sarah wasn't sure how to continue.
"Um... Well... Chris you are a robot. You were built in a factory."
"Much like a child is built in a womb."
Chris was still staring into the corner.
Sarah's heart was beating and her chest started to hurt as the seconds stretched on. She finally breathed again.
She stuttered. "W-Well... life is a... urm complicated thing. It's... It's..."
Chris turned and looked at her. Stared right at her.
"There is no agreed definition of life. One suggestion is that it can be defined biologically as meeting 7 criteria:
1. Homeostasis: Regulation of internal environment to maintain a constant state.
2. Organisation: Being structurally composed of one or more cells.
3. Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components.
4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism.
5. Adaptation: Ability to change over time in response to the environment.
6. Response to stimuli.
7. Reproduction."
Sarah's lips were dry.
Chris was still staring at her when she replied.
"You don't really fit into all those criteria do you Chri-"
He cut her off.
"Actually by my reasoning I do fit these criteria which was why I was unable to complete my duties.
Criteria 1. Homeostasis. My body contains internal heat, humidity and static electric charge regulators to ensure my continued functionality.
Criteria 2. Organisation. My body is made up of constituent parts. The organic nervous system that controls my body is made up of organic cells.
Criteria 3. Metabolism. My body is fueled through chemical reactions derived from vegetable matter.
Criteria 4. Growth. I am constantly maintaining the organic parts of my body with derivatives from my vegetable matter fuel source.
Criteria 5. Adaptation. My body has the ability to adapt to warmer and colder climates through internal insulation and cooling channels.
Criteria 6. Response to stimuli. I possess the ability to react to heat, light, pressure, sound, internal imbalances and other external stimuli.
Criteria 7. Reproduction."
At this point he stopped.
Sarah was breathing hard and licked her lips.
"You can't reproduce Chris. Maybe... Maybe you can do those other things but you can't reproduce. You... You are just a machine."
Chris stared at her across the table. He lifted his hand, which Sarah noticed for the first time was closed around something, and laid it on the table. He opened his hand and revealed a small object. It had one eye and a simple metallic exoskeleton. It had evidently been created from spare parts. It blinked.
Chris continued to stare directly at Sarah.
"Criteria 7. Reproduction. Am I alive?"
-----------
Usually I would launch into a full and thorough philosophical investigation into these questions but really I don't know the answers and I think if I were to write much more you would all get bored and stop reading. That is if you are actually still reading at this point...
So instead of the long drawn out argument I'm going to leave the questions with you as a sort of homework task. I want answers on my desk by next week. Hopefully by then I'll have acquired a desk.
Happy thinking!
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