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concept:living-things-are-not-20th-century-machines-bongard-levin-frontiers-2021Living Things Are Not (20th Century) Machines (Bongard & Levin, Frontiers 2021)
Paper arguing against machine metaphors for living systems, cited to clarify the distinction between tools and agents
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- Josh Bongardauthored
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- The source paper under extraction — a philosophical essay by Michael Levin arguing that AI debates neglect deeper questions about diverse intelligence, developmental biology, and humanity's future
Related by similarity (8)
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- Core thesis: the machine metaphor requires updating, not abandoning, in light of modern machine behavior.
- First central claim of the paper: the machine concept used in organicist critiques is historically contingent, not essential
- Claim that the organism–machine dichotomy is outdated.
- Challenges classical assumption that machines are separate from environment and each other.
- Quantum computers, ML systems, and evolved machines exploit uncertainty rather than requiring determinism.
- Foundational definitional question motivating the entire paper
- Concluding pragmatic epistemology: the machine metaphor's value is heuristic, not ontological
- Hybrid bioengineered systems blur distinctions between intelligent machines and conscious life.claim0.728Brain-machine interfaces and biological-electronic hybrids demonstrate no principled line between subjectivity and engineering.