Artificial Life

The meaning of life is often the most crippling question facing a sentient being. The many questions that we can apply toward the meaning of life have rarely prompted people to ask what life is. We know it when we see it; it is a programmed instinct of being able to tell between inanimate matter, living beings, and dead bodies. However, humans need more structure than simply ‘knowing it when we see it’. As such, the official definition of life has become a ‘self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution’. This generalized explanation is lacking in more detail, but the scientists of the world have begun efforts to provide those details, with the same boundless enthusiasm and thoughtlessness as their efforts in AI.

A new field of science known as synthetic biology will be the most responsible for discovering the basic way to create life. A small beaker filled with liquid is the first step toward learning to manufacture life in the same way we now manufacture semiconductors and microchips. This beaker is the linchpin of an experiment known as AEGIS - Artificially Expanded Genetic Information System. While it is not self-sustaining as yet, it is evolving, fulfilling the basic requirement of this experiment. Not only that, but these scientists are already experimenting with existing life forms, producing bacteria that can produce anti-malaria medication, for example.

These experiments sometimes feel like the mere tip of the iceberg when it comes to the advancements being pursued. The gene that produces enamel, the irreplaceable hard substance that coats and protects teeth has been located. A way to safely create stem cells by delivering the necessary genes to reprogram cells has been discovered. The genome code of the multitudes of common cold virus variants have been processed, mapped, and turned into a sort of family tree that gives scientists a better idea of how to defeat the perennial nuisances. Altered immune cells have been produced that are able to shrink, and in some cases eradicate, large tumors in mice by targeting a specific kind of protein. Ribosomes have been identified as the ones responsible for translating the messages carried in the genetic code of all organisms into the workhorse molecules of the cell. AEGIS itself is filled with eight artificial nucleotides in addition to the original four that make up every DNA strand. Cloning is advancing from animal experimentation to theoretical application to humans.

These last three are probably the most disturbing. Ribosomes have been identified as the central processing unit of the cell, as important as mitochondria and the nucleus in the functional operation of life. In the last few days, ribosomes have been created artificially. One of the fundamental building blocks of life has been successfully created by human hands. AEGIS has eight artificial nucleotides on top of its four natural ones. It has been successfully proven that the genes activated in the development of a normal human activate inside of a cloned embryo. In one short month, the power of God has come within the grasp of mankind.

Certainly, such technology has useful applications. Or so we are told by the scientists who dabble in invention of these new tools, who claim that these new techniques will aid in the production of new drugs, chemicals, and bacterias. For all the positive talk, however, even the scientist who helped create the artificial ribosome will not deny that a huge step has been taken toward the production of synthetic lifeforms. Essentially, this means that a huge step has been taken toward the abuses that mankind is capable of when it crosses ethical lines it should have best left alone.

Unfortunately, this is not even a vaguely alarmist statement. Artificial nucleotides, the manipulation of genes, and the creation of synthetic ribosomes means that the ability to create life is limited only by human imagination. DNA is similar to computer code, so setting up lines of code inside a receptive empty cell, powered by ribosomes that can process DNA that has never been witnessed on this planet, is not even far-fetched, but the likely norm. On top of that, efforts to engineer life are already underway, although this example will be reverse engineering. Chickens, who have had their genome studied in exhausting detail, will be used as the baseline to recreate dinosaurs, creatures that have been extinct for over sixty-five million years. While the paleontologists that are assisting in the project claim that reverse engineering chickens into dinochickens would result in positive advancements for mankind, I am dubious as to their claim that dinochickens would never escape and become a distinct wild species. One has only to explore the Galapagos to witness evolution in action, where there are dozens of bird species that evolved from a single common ancestor. They also seem to reject the possibility of parthenogenesis, asexual reproduction, a process commonly observed in reptiles. Moving chickens back into their reptilian origins has the distinct possibility of bringing this trait about as well, and while dinochickens may not be such a great threat, it only takes a single scientist with a rich, misguided group of investors to create a real problem.

Moving away from the dubiousness of bringing back dinosaurs is an even more alarming possibility: bringing back the long dead Neanderthals. Before anyone can claim that it is impossible to bring back the Neanderthals, let it be known that more than than 63% of the Neanderthal genetic code has already been sequenced. As time goes on, more complex tools of genetic manipulation are being developed. While it is not possible to bring back Neanderthals at present, they are sufficiently similar to humans that hollowed out human egg cells can be as the original structure to code and for all intents and purposes clone a Neanderthal.

There cannot be any doubt that people would want to bring back Neanderthals; humankind is able to take up the strangest causes, and scientists have already taken up the cause of bringing back extinct creatures like the ibex, which was briefly cloned before lung defects caused it to fall once more into extinction. Scientists are convinced that Neanderthals hold one of the keys to working what makes us human, so it is only a matter of technology and time before they decide that the resurrection of a species that became extinct before humans had the power to casually inflict oblivion would benefit their analysis.

However, what would be the point? Neanderthals became extinct because our ancestors out-adapted them. Our ancestors had slightly larger brains and enjoyed some secret advantage that we have no cognizance of. What would be the point of bringing back Neanderthals, who would always live in our shadow? Even if we succeeded in bringing them back, remember the physical differences between man and Neanderthal. Humans are programmed to reject that which is different to them, and Neanderthals fall within that area known as the uncanny valley, looking similar to humans, but not similar enough to avoid rejection. With sloped foreheads and chinless skulls that prevent any misidentification as humans, no amount of pithy tolerance speeches would overcome instinct. Neanderthals were much stronger than our ancestors, with the typical male equipped with arms that could shame a weightlifter. Not only that, humans are competitive enough with each other; how do you suppose we would react to a stronger, less intelligent rival going for the same jobs, living in the same space, and attempting to get the same food we do? Genocide would be the least of their new worries.

What of clones? The same genes that turn on in a naturally gestated baby are turned on in a clone. Cloned human embryos demonstrate many of the hallmarks of healthy genetic development. This breakthrough would mean that people can produce healthy cloned stem cells to replace damaged tissue and failed organs. People would be able to recover from fatal conditions, accidents and diseases in a fraction of the time and expense that it currently takes to keep them alive long enough to repair them or await an organ transplant. However, the same procedure that can clone organs can clone a human being.

It is almost a certainty that many governments will ban human cloning. It is also virtually a certainty that people will break those laws. Imagine how much a narcissist would be willing to pay to have a clone of himself take his place when he finally leaves this world. Imagine how much people would be willing to pay to clone a lost loved, to clone a genius so their legacies would continue, to clone a beauty to satisfy insatiable lust. As cloning techniques are practiced, they become less expensive as innovation improves production and cuts cost. In the same way that computers were once the purlieu of the government before becoming cheap enough to be purchased by the average household.In effect, a new market for human flesh will arise.

Production of clones would actually cheapen human life. After all, there is no need to be concerned about being careful, avoiding war, or any other of a thousand actions that we weigh against our continued existence when it would become so easy, so inexpensive to produce a fresh body to take its place. Who would care about going to war when it takes a mere eighteen years to raise a battalion of clones for battle? Who would care about sexual slavery when clones are easy enough to "put to work?" Who would care about industrial conditions when clones can be replaced? Sure, they might think like us, look like us, act like us, and think like us, but if humans are still willing to enslave each other in our 'enlightened' times, why would any logical thinker believe that we would treat clones any better? Especially when they would 'merely' be copies of homo sapiens?

The last implication involves not reverse evolution, nor present day DNA, but genetic engineering. Recently, the owner of a fertility clinic was obliged to withdraw an offering for designer babies, where couples would be allowed to determine the future offspring’s hair, eye and skin color by testing the embryos. While the measure was deemed distasteful and condemned as impossible by current science. However, as in all things, how long will it take before this becomes a reality? One that is frequently practiced and meddled with by morally indifferent genetic engineers? Already China has a gaping sex ratio because its families already prefer men to women, and use prenatal screening to discard girls. How long would it take before people paid to produce an oversupply of geniuses? What relevance would genius have when everyone would be equally as brilliant?

In the words of one of the practitioners of this new and arcane science, the underlying goal of synthetic biology is to make biology easy to engineer. By the estimation of other scientists, synthetic life is only ten years away, beating AI by a decade. As usual, they say nothing about whether they should engineer biology, and by extension, life. The ethics are left on the side as they continue to experiment. The future cannot be stopped. Whether we survive a future of synthetic life is another matter entirely.

Sources
Research Breakthrough: Human Clones May Be Genetically Viable
'Dinochicken' scheme puts evolution in reverse
Scientists expect to create life in next 10 years
Origin of Life On Earth: Scientists Unlock Mystery Of Molecular Machine
Synthetic life form grows in Florida lab
Saving the World, One Molecule at a Time
Researchers make stem cell breakthrough
Researchers crack the code of the common cold
Neanderthals could walk again after discovery of genetic code
New Artificial DNA Points to Alien Life
Targeted Immune Cells Shrink Tumors In Mice
Designer baby plan nixed for now by fertility clinic
BBC - Science & Nature - Wildfacts - Neanderthal
Harvard Scientists’ Discovery Opens Door to Synthetic Life
Toward Synthetic Life: Scientists Create Ribosomes -- Cell Protein Machinery
Making Every Baby Girl Count