[Skybird]

So far there has not been a machine being concerned abiout itself, it's own future, it's own status after being deconstructued again. Or to use that favourite story of mine, so far there has not been any "robot dreaming of electric sheep", being aware of his own existence, wondering where he was coming from.

Astronomers have since long claimed that if there is inztelligent life out there, it probbaly consists of machines holding an intelligence and self-awareness that probably has been put into them, at least in form of a self-developing seed, by their orignal creators. The reason simply is that organic life forms and organic bodies simply are so vulnerable and hard to maintain, that most civilisations surviving the kindergarten of their technological youth sooner or later will choose to survive and gain longer lifespans - far longer ones! - by transforming their mind and intelligence into mechanical bodies. By the fact that 90% of oiur galaxy's space is muczh older than the 10% where earth is located in, any surviving civilisation in this galaxy has a 90% chance to doznes of millions of years older than we are. such lifespans maybe cannot be reached from civilisations that depend on life and mind being encapsuled in organic matter. Of course, this theory depends on a view that says that life can onoly be defined by temrns of life on earth, basing on organic molecules. we do not know if earth is really that representative as we think. mybe it is a continuation of the old belief that all universe is revolving around the earth, by other means.

However, even that theory considers such intelligent living machines as being alive by holding the lives of their former creators, not by being alive by and thorugh themselves alone. they are carrying the life of their creator. They are not a species defined by itself.

Life on earth sees developement over millions of years. It is no linear developement, as often is suggested, you only need to look close enough. Many different developement phases do not exist in sequence, one taking over from the other, but they exist parallel. For us humans, adaptation to changing environmental challenges is no longer an option, due to the speed these chnages take place, wehn we for example make a diving holiday, or fly in the air. Probably even man-made climate change happens to fast as if we could biologically adapt. For us, tehcnolgy has become a tool of adaptation, and it is now part of our identity to master the future chnages in our evolutional fate. Wehre as the ape who went back into the ocean, lost his hair, developed fins and fat skin etc and by that became a dolphin, perfactly adapted to the ocean as a living environment, we achieve the same by using technology.

I could imagine that eventually one day in the future, we become minds living in mechanical corpusses, or existing in a non-material energetic state (the original status of any life and mind form anyway, maybe, just consider that all matter is just almost completely empty space that is "vibrating" -"all world is sound", as a famous german physics book was entitled), but I have problems with imagining that a mechanism will ever develope a life and mind all by itself, through the interaction of all it's mechnaical components.

as far as the question was asked if we are anything more than molecular machineries, I again point at neurophysiological reasearch an brain research since the late 70s and early 80s. We know today that the comparisons tjhat were modern back then, that the brain works like a CPU with RAM and HD attached, simply is wrong, and does not even loosely compare to how the rbain really functions, and that is far more systemic or "holistic" than any computer does. these comparisons do not so much descriobe a reality about the brain, but man's fascination with his latest brain-child, computers, and his attempt to present it as shiny as possible by saying that the human brain also is not much more than this new toy of modern electronicl design.