What is "Reality"?

Introduction

The worm Caenorhabditis elegans has just 300 neurons and around 1,000 cells - and now a robot has been created that mimics the actions of this simple organism. The OpenWorm team from California is making a 'digital' worm. Their project is recreating the neurons and cells in C. elegans, the simplest organism we know of. By making a digital worm the team hope to create artificial life. They have implanted the digital 'mind' of the worm into a Lego machine.

 

The OpenWorm team from California is making a 'digital' worm. Their project is recreating the neurons and cells in C. elegans, the simplest organism we know of. By making a digital worm the team hope to create artificial life. They have implanted the digital 'mind' of the worm into a Lego machine. The OpenWorm project, a global effort including researchers from the US and UK, is attempting to create the world’s first digital animal. Earlier this year they ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund the creation of a worm you can download onto your computer.

 

What is “Reality”?

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)”.

As an example of reality, we discussed artificial C.elegans of The OpenWorm project in class. What I have to claim about this “Bioinformatics” class is this: is this artificial C.elegans 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>

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>

We can get some important information from this; Firstly, it is not made of cells, of course, but it is organized well to achieve simple movement. Secondly, energy use and metabolism are done by electronical way. Thirdly, it recognize environment, even if it is very basic, and respond to object(s). Fourthly, it cannot regulate its own body well, and needs to be adjust by human. Fifthly, it cannot growth itself. Sixthly, it cannot reproduce offspring also. Fianlly, it does not have ability to evolve itself. By these factors, we cannot call this robot as organism.

Nonetheless, ultimate goal of this robot is imitation of C.elegans, such that regulation and growth would be achieved in future. And self-reproduction of robot is still developing[2]. What we can assume is that reproduction and evolution of the robot can be possible maybe in near future, and that kind of robot can fit for major features of life, even we cannot imagine that kind of thing yet.

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.

 

Reference

[1] Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English

[2] http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2005/05/researchers-build-robot-can-reproduce