Rakshasa wrote:
Mestro wrote:
So.. a
golem with the ability to create another golem like itself isn't a construct? If it isn't a construct, what is it?
If you make something out of other thing, isn't it a construct? Does it matter if the things it is made up of are ideas or rock or metal or flesh?
No... You are failing to differentiate between a specific kind of reproduction and replication.
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No, that reply was specifically on why under the proposed definition of a 'construct' vs. 'reproduction', a golem whom constructs another golem does not reproduce in that sense, but rather 'constructs' it's 'offspring'.
The difference here is that the golem performs the act as an 'actor', rather than the host, performing macroscopic acts which we would describe as construction. Reproduction on the other hand, would require internal (or sometimes external) processes that would be mostly automatic, though would be initiated by macroscopic acts in most cases.
There would of course be some corner cases, like if a golem could split in two like a cell... But that's outside of this scope.
Rakshasa, I didn't say the golem built the other golem from the outside, it could just as well have a construction chamber on its inside that builds the new golem, expanding till the new golem is ready to be ejected. Or maybe it extrudes the new golem from its mouth. Whatever way it does it, a new golem, identical to the first, is created. So you have a construct creating a new construct.
The distinction I was trying to point out there is that it the act of reproduction does not necessarily make something 'not a construct'. So if the flying cat was a construct that can produce new constructs, it is still a construct. Similarly a von neuman universal replicator is a construct even though it can replicate itself and it's 'off-spring' are still constructs.
Rakshasa wrote:
Slamlander wrote:
We are skirting the absurd here. A Golem can construct another Golem, as a robot can construct another robot. That doesn't alter the basic nature of either of them and in either case, the new construct is not an offspring, rather simply another robot or Golem.
Exactly the point I was making. Someone else was suggesting that a Golem that constructs another Golem was equivalent to biological reproduction and therefor reproduction would not be much different from construction. I was attempting to debunk that argument by showing the above.
I gather you feel that there is a qualitative difference between manufacturing (even by say nanobots) and biological reproduction?
Slamlander wrote:
Senko wrote:
Makes sense to me and I agree that adding something to a base creature doesn't make it a construct.
If I take a bit of neural tissue from a mouse and implant it in a silicon chip to make a smell sensor, you are saying that it's not a construct?
A smell chip is a construct since the neurons and the 'chip sans neuron' were combined to create it. Pretty much anything manufactured is a construct. Humans live in a world we have constructed, socially and physically.
The term construct is usually used to denote the mode by which a thing is created. Thus a thing that was created by magic is labeled a magical construct and Kotler's 4+2 model of national competitiveness is a mental construct.
What do you guys think about my distinction between construct and non-construct? See, a the essence of a construct is that it must be made out of parts and that it must be created by something.
I note that a model of what is and is not a construct is itself a mental construct. :)
To test my model, is a mineral aggregate, a rock in common language, a construct? It was created out of parts by pressure. That doesn't seem satisfactory. I'll modify it a bit. A construct is anything that is created out of parts according to a conscious intent. So rocks are not a construct. What about Hybrid Maize? It was made up of parts by conscious Human intent, but it grows and so it is actually creating a new self by growth. It has continuity as it arises from it's old self, but it is a new thing as it is different from it's previous self. Since a construct is created by something else, if it creates itself, it is not a construct. So we can add to the model the notions that if the thing creates itself or modifies itself, then it is not a construct.
A construct is anything that it created out of parts according to a conscious intent that did not create or modify itself, then it is not a construct.
So a birds nest is a construct, it was created by the birds conscious intent out of various parts and it is not capable of modifying itself and neither did it create itself.