The Life Maker \ Goren Gordon
Part A
He stretched his arms wide, heard a few knacks, and grinned. At last, after three days of constant work, he rested. He was at the final stage of the experiment, but he just had to take a break. He had to be at his prime when the last test occurs, though he could think of nothing that could go wrong. He looked around, at this desolated place. Mountain range stretching from north to south, encompassing the entire horizon. The sun slowly ascended behind them, and he saw the magnificent miracle of sunrise. First, there was a blur of light above the horizon, fighting the last remnants of the night. After a few minutes, the second line of attack came. Rays of sunlight shot from between some cracks and notching the mountains. They slowly widened, conquering every last piece of sky. And as if declaring itself victorious, the sun, a golden cape of warmth, rose from its resting-place and began to rule the heaven. The day has begun. Impressed by this awesome sight, he discovered, to his great surprise, that he was not tired, just a little mentally exhausted. Excited by this lifetime project and its possible repercussions his mind began to drift to earlier times, and some unique memories that marked his life…
The pastoral environment of the
A stone skipped on the sea surface’ smashing into a wave front/ The child who threw it stared at the ripples going wider. While his young teenage colleagues were playing soccer and scouting for girls, the prodigy youth’s mind was occupied with serious puzzles. ‘I don’t understand’ he thought. ‘School didn’t help me comprehend: Multiplication, reproduction, patterns ? What is life ? I was taught that life reproduces and develops, multiply and create patterns. I wonder whether there is another kind of life, other than the normal carbon based.’ He scanned the sea, as if waiting for
‘
He hated hospitals , but is was a must. His wife, his loved one was bearing his child. She was before delivering and was lovely as ever. ‘Love is an interesting aspect of the human life’ he thought. He scanned in his head the stages of the pregnancy. How he watched every step if the fetus’s development. How it grew and move, how a body was created from a single cell. He was in awe, for that was life, the miracle of creation. Every time he looked at her belly, he thought he had found the answer, but every time it slipped, for he was blinded by his feelings. And now was the moment of truth. She started to stretch and scream. Doctors went in and out of the room, finally put her on a carrier and rolled her toward the delivery room. He run after her, the fact that he was a father struck him like a lightning bolt. He was the maker of life. The delivery began and there was blood everywhere. He sensed something was wrong but knew not what. The child’s head was seen and he began to cry, a good sign, but the doctors looked worried. The child was out but he saw that his love was in pain, unnatural pain. Suddenly, the worse happened – silence. No more crying, a terrified look on the mother’s face and another death. He fainted. The only thing he remembered was a thought in his head. ‘A woven part of life’s answer – death!’
Part B
Lab Report
Abstract
This experiment supercedes all others done before it. The purpose of this experiment is to create life, nothing more, nothing less. But, as all scientific experiments, it must be structural and logical. It must adhere to all laboratory rules; this includes control groups, testing the measuring instruments and so on. I will try, within this report, to be as methodical and as objective as possible, though it will be difficult, due to the implications of it.
The experiment is divided to five parts, each being a requisite for its successor.
Experiment A – Test. In this experiment I will test the integrity and functionality of all the components of the system.
Experiment B – Simple single multiplication. In this experiment a single unit, a lifobot, will replicate itself from external components, a single time. Only one generation.
Experiment C – Simple multiple multiplication. In this experiment I will put in a closed lab room many similar components, the building block of new lifobots and a single functioning lifobot. In theory it should replicate itself once and its successor should replicate yet another unit, and so, exponentially the population would grow until it runs out of materials.
Experiment D – Mutant single multiplication. This experiment is also divided into several parts. In each stage different component will be introduced to the lifobot and I will watch the results. Would it replicate a mutant child or would it fail to reproduce? Each stage, a different part will be exchanged and in the final step I will give it junk.
An assembly of scraps and metals to see how it will cope with such a soap.
Experiment E – This is the final stage of the experiment. In it, I will put a substantial amount of junk and stuff taken from the garbage. Tin cans, used computers, spare parts and the like and put a single functioning lifobot in it. In theory, it should replicate a mutant child and together they will continue to reproduce. I cannot visualize the results after a few generations for within each mutation, the replication process will change too. If it works the experiment will end with a versatile population of lifobots. And they would, in my opinion, constitute a new form of life. Now for the experiments. I will record myself during these proceedings, so the report will be live and true.
The unit, Lifobot, is a simple architecture of a few systems incorporated into a self-sustaining body:
- The power system provides power for mechanical and information processing needs.
- The locomotion system provides means of transportation for the unit. The unit, unlike plant life, is an active form of live, by definition. It manipulates its environment on the macro scale and for that it requires movement.
- The sensory system provides vital information about the surrounding of the unit. The sensory unit is divided to visual (i.e. visual light and IR) and somatosensory input (through vibrating antennae.)
- The assembly system produces the mechanical means of constructing the future generation. The unit is reproducing by actively assembling its child from material in its environment.
- The central system that integrates all the other systems is the information storage and processing unit. In it is the information of object recognition sensed by the sensory system. It then manipulates the propulsion system towards its objective. Then it activates the assembly system to create a new unit according to its own information storage.
The main thing which, as I believe, is a prerequisite for life is that the information processing is based on the theory of fuzzy logic. This theory means that the information is juxtaposed from the storage and surrounding doesn’t have to match exactly, but it just has to be similar enough. This means, for example, that if the sensory system ‘sees’ a part that is just similar to its representation in its memory storage, it still recognizes it as the right part and acts on this basis. This fuzzy logic manipulation enables the lifobot to live in a different environment and not just an artificially created one.
This unit, the lifobot, is now connected to my mainframe computer for testing. The first experiment is to test its systems one by one. After this test I will disconnect it from any ‘controlling’ system and let it act on its own. That will be the true test.
Checking the system:
- Power unit – check.
- Propulsion system: Guiding the unit on its driving motor to all directions – check. Directing the unit with a predefined path – check.
- Sensory system: Watching the image from the cameras – check. Testing the input from the antennae – check.
- Assembly system: Testing arms; movement – check. Trying lifting a large weight – check. Trying to assembly a part with a predefined program – check.
- Information storage and processing system: Testing analyzer of sensory input; identifying objects – check. Checking motor output unit; making arms assemble a part – check. Testing integrity of knowledge on the assembly of a new generation; watching it ‘virtually’ assembling a ‘child’ – check.
- Cutting it from umbilical cord. The unit is on its own. Testing it in a maze – check.
All systems GO !!!
This experiment is divided into a series of tests, each a level above its predecessor.
The first test is composed of a lifobot with, near it, a complete set of another lifobot unit.
Result: Within five minutes, the mother unit assembled its child. Upon testing the child unit for activity, all systems were functional. I could not have distinguished one unit from the other.
Comments: The assembly time was ten times faster than I have computed in my virtual testing. I was amazed at the speed it recognized the parts and assembled it to the right place.
The second test is composed of a scattered array of parts, distributed all over the lab room.
Results: The mother unit assembled each part to its neighbor, slowly forming the child unit, each time bringing another component to the partially constructed offspring.
Comments: The assembly lifobot centered its construction on the information system, first taking care of the information storage part, as if ‘knowing’ that without it the child unit is worth nothing. Again, the assembly took only ten minutes, twenty times faster than my calculations.
The third test is a false one. In each part of this test I submitted a different component, making sure that a new functioning lifobot could not be constructed.
Results: First, the mother lifobot constructed the information system. ( In the test where I didn’t put it, the construction halted.) After constructing the information system, the assembly continued to all other available systems, each time in a different order. I was shocked to observe that is test where I neglected to put just a small part of a single system, the mother lifobot Disassembled the missing part of its own body and constructed it onto its child, thus, unpredictably, making two fully functional units.
Comment: The ingenuity of the unit took me by surprise. It was programmed that way in the information storage and manipulation systems, but the application of that in such a perfect and direct way overwhelmed me.
In the forth test, I gave the lifobot all the parts of a new unit, but to their smallest extent. Every complex part -–I disassembled, every screw, every nail, every wire and tube was apart.
Results: The lifobot assembled the new unit quickly and without hesitation or delay. It took more time, obviously, but again, it was much faster then my calculations.
Comme n I have anticipated. I even believe that had I not stopped the experiment in time, It would have succeeded in creating another mutant lifobot with the spare parts of the outer devices.
Conclusions:
The lifobot passed every test with flying colors. I was discontented, though, with the calculation that failed me in each test. I had ran new calculation, each time getting nearer to the experimental results, but even the closest calculation was too far from the observed ones. I must have missed something.
I was exhalted, though, from the ingenuity and improvisation of the unit. I am excited before the following test…
Experiment C – Simple Multiple Multiplication
This test is also divided to several parts. They don’t have direct influence on each other. Each tests another side of the multiple reprodcution phenomena. This is the first complex test and prediction here is virtually impossible due to the recursion effect and the chaos theory. Each reproduction is a little unpredictable, as I have seen in the previous test, so the uncertainty exponentially grows with each replication. Another crucial factor is the interaction between the different units, and as the number increases, the interaction grows exponentially, too. Thus ‘social’ manifestation arises.
The first experiment contains parts for two new units. (Prior comment: It is of interest to see which unit shall assemble the grandchild unit, whether it will be the mother or child.)
Results: The mother unit assembled the child, and together they assembled the next unit. It is amazing to see how they are cooperating without and communication system. Each unit assembled another part and the new unit was constructed within only two minutes, less than half the time.
Comments: Already interaction between lifobots is showing. I was surprised to discover it so early in the test. My calculations for assembly of a colony of lifobots changes dramatically after this test.
The second test contains parts for ten new units. (Prior comment: This test is extremely exciting for it is the first that I have no clue to the time and process of the assembly.)
Results: The assembly of the first unit was as expected, and so was that of the next one. The assembly of the other units spread rapidly as the constructing ones combined efforts for maximum efficiency and speed.
Comments: I ran this test several times to verify my results and to make sure there were no random effects taking place. There were none. The results were extraordinary. It took less than ten minutes to assembly the ten new units. Even the fastest exponential function couldn’t have predicted it. Something else than just mechanical assembly is working here. They are somehow communicating and transferring messages. I don’t know how but they are working together as a colony and not as individuals. I’m at a loss at what would happen if there were hundreds of them…
In the third test I have inserted many devices containing the parts for ten new units. (Prior comment: If the units act, as before, I’m sure they will work together at disassembling the devices and making new brothers and sisters.)
Results: The first unit disassembled a device and constructed a new unit. They, as expected, worked together; one disassembling and the other constructing. As their number grew, some were working on the devices and other assembled new lifobots.
Comments: Its incredible. Again I ran more tests to check it out. It turns out that they are working like an ant farm – some are ‘workers’ and some are ‘care-takers.’ Some just scraped the devices for parts and others took them and constructed their children.
General comment: I’m intrigued by their behavior in a hostile environment. Maybe some will become ‘fighters’? …
Experiment D – Mutant Single Multiplication
In this experiment I’m testing the fuzzy logic system. The lifobot will face materials and parts with no resemblance to the original known ones. This experiment is the longest one yet, for I will test many times, with many different objects, devices and junk. They are not related so I will not specify each, just the final results.
Prior comment: I’m intrigued by the appearance and function of the mutant child. Will it resemble the mother unit at all? Will it function?
Results:
a) With few and incompatible set of parts the unit did not start to build a child, as if analyzing the components and the probable outcome.
b) With a bunch of closely related parts to the original ones, the mutant child was assembled quickly and looked similar to the mother unit, as expected.
c) The last stage of the experiment consisted of many devices and a lifobot. I repeated it with many combinations of different devices. The results were the following. The more devices I’ve put, the similar the new unit. When I put just a few devices, the mutant was just that – a mutant.
Comments: Some new features of the lifobot were revealed:
First, its analyzing power. It didn’t waste energy on the assembly of a non-functioning unit. All assembled units were functioning.
Second, the assembly speed was not slower. On the contrary. Sometimes it was faster, for the end unit was smaller and simpler.
Third and last, the mutants were extremely variant. It’s amazing they were even functioning. They had the most bizarre size and shape. The systems varied enormously. The assembly system looked weirder from time to time, the sensory system functioned slightly different. The locomotion system didn’t change much, but I’m sure it will with more generations. The info-system is still ubiquitous. I will have to wait for the next experiment to find out.
That’s it. The next experiment will be the creation, genesis. If it works, I will declare them as alive. The moral implications will be mind boggling. But I will wait. It has to work first…
Part C
He woke up. The sun was high in the sky, not a cloud for miles. He felt rejuvenated after this Last Sleep, as if ready to conquer the entire world. He thought, proudly, that in some way, if the experiment works, he would conquer the world. The wind blew strongly and passed through a crack in the rough terrain. The whistle faltered now and again but was very strong, almost deafening. He entered through the back door into the underground laboratory. The deafening sound stopped, but there was another sound, a jitter, something trembling on the ground. But it was faint and he hardly noticed it. He walked though the corridor and stopped. ‘It’s too dark’ he thought. He looked up and a bulb was missing. Not burnt, just missing. Puzzled he continued to the main laboratory, too excited about the near future than to care for minorities like that. He took a turn and stopped again. His eyes widened and his heart beat faster. He saw wires and chips on the floor of the corridor. Other junk was sparsely scattered all over the place. He walked slowly, trying to figure out what has happened. ‘I’m alone here. Maybe an intruder… But why would someone wreck things? No, it’s something else. Something…’ He jumped to the side. Something heavy dropped and broke on the floor some distance away, in one of the rooms. ‘Whoever it is, he’s still here’ he thought. He walked slowly toward the noise. HE came to a junction and quickly turned his head left. He didn’t see anything, just more junk. ‘It was a reflex’ he analyzed, ‘something must have moved back there.’ He went left and shouted ‘ Whoever you are, I’m unarmed. Let’s talk it over.’ He advanced slowly. All this time the slight jittering sound in the background entered into his consciousness. A frightening idea went though his mind, but he couldn’t focus it. The entire building looked as though someone came with a hammer and destroyed everything. He was in the small kitchen and every apparatus was torn o pieces. The refrigerator, the microwave oven, everything. Again, a fast movement to the left. He was paralyzed by fear. That thought slowly focused and the ramifications were horrifying. Suddenly, as if in harmony with his thoughts and desires – complete silence. No more jittering sound, no wind, just silence. He looked around and his eyes froze on a piece of metal that lay on the ground. ‘It is true, then.’ A quiet thought, as if afraid to disturb the silence. Every nightmare combined every dark apocalypse he had imagined united a thousand hells cam to earth. ‘NO !!!!!!’
He ran as if his life depended on it, as if his whole being concentrated on the target, as if Death walked behind him. He ran and his heart almost burst, his legs hurt like hell but he felt nothing but terror. He reached his main lab and stopped. ‘Something moves’ he laughed ironically in his head. One moved toward him, as if unaware of his creator’s existence. He lifted his leg to let it pass. ‘No respect’ he raged, too enfeebleminded to think of something else. The entire room was trashed, but in the act of destruction, but in one of creation. Every piece of junk moved graciously as a lifobot. Dozens of them worked on dozens more. Some destroying other to build two more. His analytic mind he trained for years slowly took over and admiration and pride flooded his ego.
LIFE. A complete variety of shapes and sizes. Mutation was just a word, for there was nothing else. No two lifobots were alike. He left the room and started to examine the specimens. As he scanned a lifobot with four arms that matched perfectly in the assembly of another unit, the light faltered. He looked up, but it returned. ‘They have reached the generator.’ He ran to the power room. He saw five ‘corpses’ of lifobots electrified by the generator. Two other worked on another part, looking for pieces for another ‘child.’ ‘Wait,’ he said to himself, ‘they work with light. They can’t see without light. This is my salvation.’ The lifobot cut the power again, and the light went out, only to return two seconds later. He looked at the unit… and laughed. His laughter was so uncontrollable that he fell to the floor, his belly started to ache. Five minutes later he slowly recovered. ‘A dog’ he said. ‘It learned. A learning capability of a single unit. The climax of evolution. In just a few hours.’
He continued to walked through the corridors and rooms, making a ‘head count,’ a statistical survey of the population. The variety was extraordinary. Some had armies and wheels, other beaks and legs. He even thought he saw a flying unit. ‘They will use all the materials of the lab, but that’s all. They will ran out of materials and go extinct in this desolated place.’ He thought ‘How ironic, so will we.’
As he continued his journey he saw a picture on the wall and heard a sound. Together they combined into a new terror. He started to walk and then sprinted again. The picture echoed in his head; a picture of this place, from above. Miles of desert all around. The complete silence, except his footstep, magnified his doom. The ventilation system went dead. He reached the garage, and collapsed again. The jeep was wrecked; no recognizable sign of it was left. Desperation slowly took over, but a new hope began. Another sprint and another disappointment. The communication room looked like a garage sale. ‘No way out and no way to call for help. No air within and no food or water outside.’ With that thought he collapsed from exhaustion.
He woke quickly, as if trying to catch his dream. The image faded, but the meaning still lingered. His oblivion was humanities’ only chance. For if those lifobots ever got to a civilization, no machinery would have survived it. They would have multiplied like germs on expense of our technology and would have lived forever on this isolated planet. We would’ve returned to the Stone Age for we could not fight something that destroys our strongest weapon – machines. One life form on expense of another: The story of modern evolution. But we are safe, for this desert and isolation is our shield. I’ve chosen the perfect place. And I will die here with my creations.
Darling. My child. I’m coming…’
A traveler with a jeep reached a strange place. He followed a trace of another jeep toward it. He found the door in the mountain and entered.
Alas, as he saw the bones of the Life Maker, and heard the sound of the destruction of his vehicle, he knew his fate.
And his vehicle hastened humanity’s doom. A little…