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Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology
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Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology Paperback - 1993

by Steven Levy

Even as molecular biologists attempt to reproduce life in vitro, another group of scientists is creating life--or something very close to it--in silico, using computers to produce "organisms" that can move, see, feed, reproduce, and die. Photos.

From the jacket flap

This enthralling book alerts us to nothing less than the existence of new varieties of life. Some of these species can move and eat, see, reproduce, and die. Some behave like birds or ants. One such life form may turn out to be our best weapon in the war against AIDS.
What these species have in common is that they exist inside computers, their DNA is digital, and they have come into being not through God's agency but through the efforts of a generation of scientists who seek to create life in silico.
But even as it introduces us to these brilliant heretics and unravels the intricacies of their work. Artificial Life examines its subject's dizzying philosophical implications: Is a self-replicating computer program any less alive than a flu virus? Are carbon-and-water-based entities merely part of the continuum of living things? And is it possible that one day "a-life" will look back at human beings and dismiss us as an evolutionary way station -- or, worse still, a dead end?

Details

  • Title Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology
  • Author Steven Levy
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: repri
  • Pages 400
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, New York, New York
  • Date 1993-07-27
  • Features Bibliography, Index
  • ISBN 9780679743897 / 0679743898
  • Weight 1.12 lbs (0.51 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.5 x 5.48 x 1.02 in (21.59 x 13.92 x 2.59 cm)
  • Library of Congress subjects Neural networks (Computer science)
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 92050600
  • Dewey Decimal Code 006.3

Media reviews

"We used to think we knew what life is [but] not any more. 'Artificial life' has become a strange and exciting frontier of modern science...and Steven Levy makes an ideal tour guide." -- James Gleick.

author of Chaos and Genius

Citations

  • Publishers Weekly, 07/12/1993, Page 0

About the author

Steven Levy is the author of Hackers, which has been in print for more than 15 years, as well as Insanely Great: The Life & Times of Macintosh, the Computer That Changed Everything. He is also Newsweek's chief technology writer and has been a contributing writer to Wired since its inception. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.

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New York, NY: Vintage, 1993. Trade paperback. Good. Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology (SOFTCOVER CONDITION GOOD-PUBLISHED BY VINTAGE BOOKS-COPYRIGHT 1992-390 PAGES) by Steven Levy (Author) This enthralling book alerts us to nothing less than the existence of... Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology (SOFTCOVER CONDITION GOOD-PUBLISHED BY VINTAGE BOOKS-COPYRIGHT 1992-390 PAGES) by Steven Levy (Author) This enthralling book alerts us to nothing less than the existence of new vari Artificial Life: A Report from the Frontier Where Computers Meet Biology (SOFTCOVER CONDITION GOOD-PUBLISHED BY VINTAGE BOOKS-COPYRIGHT 1992-390 PAGES) by Steven Levy (Author) This enthralling book alerts us to nothing less than the existence of new varieties of life. Some of these species can move and eat, see, reproduce, and die. Some behave like birds or ants. One such life form may turn out to be our best weapon in the war against AIDS. What these… Read More
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