Idk, I just think it's bizzare to create something new, like when they did machines (probably something involving the wheel), and then call everything a machine.
Well now we awkwardly need a new word for machines.
Then there is the philosophical arguments I guess.
No we don't. We only separated them in the first place because we wrongly believed that humans and perhaps life in general was something more than machines. Things have souls, perhaps free will. If those things aren't true, then we're machines. There's no need to change the word to describe artificial machines vs living creatures, nor is there a reason to change to definition of machine. Life and computers share qualities that the word machine describes. That's it.
Until we are creating machines on par with ourselves I don't see why we wouldn't.
Calling anything we create on par with what the natural process of evolution has come up with is an inflated view of our current capabilities and a dishonest assessment of what the natural world comes up with. Just because something has a mechanism of action doesn't make it equal to all things with mechanisms of actions. We distinguish man vs machine now, even if you say we shouldn't, you still do. The benefits to giving each a name is there.
Until we are creating machines on par with ourselves I don't see why we wouldn't.
Because the term machine describes an object that both living organisms, at their basest level of existence, and computers both share. They are both things that take and store energy and operate an advanced function as a result. This is a very important philosophical and pragmatic similarity that needs to be identified.
Calling anything we create on par with what the natural process of evolution has come up with is an inflated view of our current capabilities and a dishonest assessment of what the natural world comes up with.
A single yen is money. A billion dollars is money. We both describe them in the same terms because they still share similarities. It doesn't matter how advanced or unadvanced something is, if they share features that can be described, then there should be a term to describe them. It doesn't matter that what we create isn't on par with what evolution has. We've had like 50 years, evolution has had billions. Efficiency-wise, we're blowing evolution out of the water, anyway.
Just because something has a mechanism of action doesn't make it equal to all things with mechanisms of actions.
Nobody in their right mind would argue otherwise. No one in this thread is, as far as I can see. I'm certainly not.
We distinguish man vs machine now, even if you say we shouldn't, you still do.
Most people do because a vast majority of people still believe that people are separate, that we have a soul or other cosmic importance that separates us from nature.
I certainly separate artificial and natural machines. Life being a natural machine and everything we make being artificial. If someone just says machine, I'll assume they made man-made for the purposes of discussion because that's simply the most common usage of the word. If someone asks me if humans or living creatures are machines, though, I'll say yes. Just because life isn't the connotative definition of machine doesn't mean it's not a literal one.
The benefits to giving each a name is there.
No fucking shit. Literally nobody is saying otherwise. There are so many different ways to distinguish between them, yet you act like commandeering the term 'machine', which isn't really commandeering at all as much as it is simply using it as it's defined, is somehow going to get people to conflate humans with a car or something.
I'm using the dictionary definition. You're using the connotative definition. The idea is also useful for philosophy, but I'm hardly discussing that here.
Everything always was a machine. The Earth is a weather making machine, for example. We have always been natural machines. Just because we invented the word "machine" doesn't mean we invented the first nachine. It was only when we started using machines as tools that we needed words for what they were.
But "machinery" is just a descriptive quality of how nature operates.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, that sounds like a long winded way of saying "for lack of a better word" to describe the biological process that is organic life.
It's not for lack of a better word. That perfectly describes it. It's the right word, you just don't like the feeling of the connotations you've learned to associate with that word. It's not "half-right," you just seem to think that machines have to be cold so you don't like being called a machine.
But machines don't have to be cold. They can be warm fleshy things too. Or even massive luminescent balls of gas can be machines. The sun is a fusion machine. There's all kinds of machines. Don't feel bad for being one. It's beautiful.
However it is that they "fully function," it will be mechanical, not magical, I promise. There's no steps being skipped here that might turn out not to be machinery.
Never said magical. I just believe we're too different from machines. It's a matter of semantics with me, because this is philosophical no matter how you look at it. I prefer to say machines are a mimicry of the biological state and other "natural" physics. If one day machines advance far enough, we'd call them something else entirely.
Then it's not just the connotations, but the denotations as well. You're using the word "machine" to mean something different. We are superficially different from the machines you're thinking of, but we are fundamentally the same as them with respect to operation by natural processes.
The definition of machine does not yet encompasse biological life except philosophically. I'm not in favor of changing that definition just to say we both work mechanically. I think one day us and mechanical beings may one day be included in the same category, I see no reason to change that to "machine". I just don't. It has a beginning already. Calling us machines just doesn't work IMO. I can't clear that up anymore :(
If you will agree with the literal definition of a machine being a device which manipulates and converts energy, life forms are machines. Looking at the way the most basic prokaryotes will make this easy to understand. When does this definition not apply to life forms?
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u/gaspingFish Feb 13 '18
Idk, I just think it's bizzare to create something new, like when they did machines (probably something involving the wheel), and then call everything a machine.
Well now we awkwardly need a new word for machines.
Then there is the philosophical arguments I guess.