Articles
The living artifacts? Analysis of selected arguments against ALife
The aim of this paper is to make introduction to the philosophical problems of artificial life ALife and to analyze selected major arguments against considering artificial life objects as truly living. I examine the arguments connected with relationships between form and matter, the argument of the lack o metabolism, the arguments about the genesis of ALife, those which deal with purposefulness or its lack in ALife objects as well as the arguments of the lack of autonomy. My analysis is conducted in the framework of modified Darwinian definition of life. I conclude that not one from the mentioned-above arguments is decisive in denying that ALife systems are really alive, unless we accept the Darwinian definition or some of its variants.