Synthetic life and robot with Conscience
2August 2, 2010 by styagi68
Headline 1 = Craig Venter
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-genome
Headline 2 = The world’s first robot with conscience
First one talks about creating a bacteria completely from chemicals and a computer sequencer. It still used a some cells from yeast and E Coli bacteria but the whole genome is synthetically created by a sequencer. So in effect a machine created the whole life pattern. This is a major achievement and raises a lot of questions. For me, the question is could it give it “life force”–could it give the ability to make a free choice, to create something new, something not in its past experience. Otherwise it is just another set of instructions in a computing environment.
The second headline is about a robot with conscience. It learns and adapts its behavior. This is clearly a non-living thing. But what will differentiate this as non-living. To me the answer goes back to the “free-will” the creative force. The robot will never “adapt” outside its programmed behavior.
Analytical Faith 
Free will is a comforting but ultimately unverifiable concept. Even the existence of a “conscious being” other than oneself is only a belief we nurture, isn’t it? I have always found free will a difficult concept because though we vaguely understand it as humans, it is hard to decide where in the evolutionary/complexity chain it really comes into play.
Further, adaptation may have nothing to do with the existence of a conscience or free will. A bacterium probably has no free-will as we understand it? Yet it may certainly “adapt” beyond its “programmed behavior”.
On the other hand, we humans are no less bound by our limitations for adaptation. The limitation of the machine in its ability to adapt and grow is only limited by the expressiveness of our programming languages, much as our ability to adapt is limited by the language of our genes.
Dear Parijat
Very thoughtful comments.
While free will is difficult to verify, lack of free will leaves us with a unsatisfying concept of “programmed self.” It is difficult to accept that I, who can think, is nothing but a mere collection of neurons, which is reacting to stimuli, based on genetic code and memory of past experiences.
But your question on where this comes into a picture in the various life forms is a really good one. It is hard to think that a plant or algae has much free will.
Sandeep