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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">What is “Reality”?</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">To discuss about reality, we must define what reality is. Reality is the conjectured state of things as they actually exist, rather than as they may appear or might be imagined[1]. Certain ideas from physics, philosophy, sociology, literary criticism, and other fields shape various theories of reality. Such attitudes are summarized in the popular statement, "Perception is reality" or "Life is how you perceive reality" or "reality is what you can get away with" (Robert Anton Wilson). According to these concepts, I would like to define reality is “the thing(s) can be observed and perceived by many people”, in other words, “objectively existing thing(s)”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">As an example of reality, we discussed artificial <i>C.elegans</i> of The OpenWorm project in class. What I have to claim about this “Bioinformatics” class is this: is this artificial <i>C.elegans</i> is a “real organism”? In biology, major characteristics of life are seven: cell & organization, energy use and metabolism, responds to stimuli, regulation and homeostasis, growth and development, reproduction, and biological evolution. Then, does this worm satisfy these features?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">To know this, we have to know some detail of the artificial organism. In this latest The OpenWorm project, the researchers mapped the entire physiology of a C. elegans organism. They recreated the worm’s brain, cells in digital. They have inserted the artificial brain of the worm into a Lego Mindstorms EV3 robot. By recreating the 302 neurons and 959 cells of this tiny nematode worm, the robot can then be left to ‘mimic’ the actions of a real-life worm. The robot is very basic and does not execute complex functions[2].<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In my personal opinion, reality and real organism can be objective and persived by numerous people, like I referred above already, so this C.elegans robot can show possiblity of change of definition about reality and real life.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">Reference<o:p></o:pspan></spanb></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">[1]Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English</span></p>
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<div>[2] http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2005/05/researchers-build-robot-can-reproduce </div>
