Artificial Love Life is as Real as the Real Thing (page 2)
If I had used artificial life in my experiment, I would have had to determine
if they could go through the process of crystallization and develop illusions
about each other. Of course, this brings up many interesting questions such
as: if artificial life could imagine things, what would it imagine and how
would it imagine. How would artificial life's concept of love vary from
the model set up by Stendhal? Humanity cannot survive without the power
of imagination. Imagination has practical as well as romantic applications.
Crystallizations are the means to romantic love and they can also help insure
the preservation of the human race. The humans have two forms of self preservation:
- 1. The ability to justify the imperfections, wrongdoings and mediocrity
of other people.
- 2. The ability to justify the imperfections, wrongdoings and mediocrity
of the self.
Without too much research, any layman in the field of love can see why these
two skills are absolutely necessary in the first stages of a new love relationship,
(and they certainly can help further the career of any politician or artist.)
And I hope that by now it's quite obvious that the ability to justify takes
quite a bit of imagination and inventivenss. It's our ability to produce
illusions about ourselves and the world in which we live that keeps us distinct
from all other life forms. In other words, it's safe to assume that cats,
dogs, and amoebas do not have the same scale delusions about themselves
and the other. For artificial life to become life as we know it, i.e. totally
neurotic, my colleagues and I must pursue our research in the field of artificial
love.
