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The place where we live is not only made up of spatiotemporal images, but of synthetic life. Human perception has been transformed by an immersion that takes place in different artificial organisms, which allows the experimentation in environments conformed by new species that interact between them and with us. These are the bio-immersive worlds, which come from the intersection between virtual worlds and the artificial life mediated by perception. In synthetic biology laboratories, technological images are alive and unfolding a panorama of evolution.

Since antiquity, philosophers and engineers have tried to take life's measure by reproducing it. Aiming to reenact Creation, at least in part, these experimenters have hoped to understand the links between body and spirit, matter and mind, mechanism and consciousness. "Genesis Redux" examines key moments from this centuries-long experimental tradition: efforts to simulate life in machinery, to synthesize life out of material parts, and to understand living beings by comparison with inanimate mechanisms. Jessica Riskin collects seventeen essays from distinguished scholars in several fields. These studies offer an unexpected and far-reaching result: attempts to create artificial life have rarely been driven by an impulse to reduce life and mind to machinery. On the contrary, designers of synthetic creatures have generally assumed a role for something nonmechanical. The history of artificial life is thus also a history of theories of soul and intellect. Taking a historical approach to a modern quandary, "Genesis Redux" is essential reading for historians and philosophers of science and technology, scientists and engineers working in artificial life and intelligence, and anyone engaged in evaluating these world-changing projects.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Acknowledgements Preface 1. Autonomy and Artificiality in Global Networks: ALife in context, or, the 'return to Darwin'
• Network bioethics 2. The Meaning of Life Part 1: The New Biology: Evolutionary biology - all about chickens and eggs
• The Metaphor of life as information
• Biology as ideology
• Molecular biology - an endgame
• Sociobiology and eugenics
• Evolutionary psychology and the 'Darwin Wars' 3. Artificial Life: Towards digital naturalism
• 'Information Wants to be Alive!'
• The philosophy and biology of ALife
• ALife's autonomous agents
• ALife's non-vitalism
• Spaces of dissent
• The future of ALife - consolidating (digital) naturalisation 4.CyberLife's Creatures: SimWorlds - ALife and Computer Games
• Creatures
• CyberLife - selling ALife
• CyberLife Research Limited - or 'real' ALife 5. Network Identities: Artificial Agents
• Artificial cultures
• Artificial societies
• Artificial subjects 6. The Meaning of Life Part 2: Genomics: Artificial life as wetware
• The species-self
• The self as other
• The other species 7. Evolving Feminism in Alife Environments: Alife-as-we-know-it
• Natureculture
• Risk
• Pengi and the Expressivator
• Alife-as-it-could-be
• Autopoiesis and autonomy
• Embodying Alife
• Towards situating Alife 8. Beyond the Science Wars Bibliography Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Artificial Life in a Neo-Biological Age examines the construction, manipulation and re-definition of life in contemporary technoscientific culture. It takes a critical political view of the concept of life as information, tracing this through the new biology and the discourse of genomics as well as through the changing discipline of artificial life and its manifestation in art, language, literature, commerce and entertainment. From cloning to computer games, and incorporating an analysis of hardware, software and 'wetware', Sarah Kember extends current understanding by demonstrating the ways in which this relatively marginal field connects with, and connects up global networks of information and communication systems characterised, increasingly, by claims to autonomy, agency and evolvability. From a feminist perspective, and with a set of concerns related to the role of the body, the self and the species in the production of life-as-it-could-be, the argument turns on the realisation that resistance is futile. Artificial life (ALife) is, in part, an adaptation to the climate of opposition surrounding Artificial Intelligence (AI). In ALife, as elsewhere, the meanings of reductionism and determinism, transcendence and disembodiment are complex and internally contested. The strategy for change advocated here therefore rests on dialogue and on risk where risk entails the renunciation of rhetorics based on the redundant distinction between nature and culture: science and humanities; essentialism and constructivism; ontology and epistemology. In this way, debates on artificial life are directed beyond the science wars. As well as offering suggestions for the evolution of (cyber)feminism in ALife environments, the author identifies the emergence of posthumanism; an ethics of the posthuman subject mobilised in the tension between cold war and post-cold war politics, psychological and biological machines, centralised and de-centralised control, top-down and bottom-up processing, autonomous and autopoietic organisms, cloning and transgenesis, species-self and other species. Ultimately, this book aims to re-focus concern on the ethics rather than on the 'nature' of life-as-it-could-be.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

The aim of this series is to bring together important recent writings in major areas of philosophical inquiry, selected from a variety of sources, mostly periodicals, which may not be conveniently available to the university student or the general reader. The editor of each volume contributes an introductory essay on the items chosen and on the questions with which they deal. A selective bibliography is appended as a guide to further reading. This volume offers a selection of the most important philosophical work in the new and fast-growing interdisciplinary area of artificial life; it will set the agenda for future study and research. Artificial life (A-Life) research aims to synthesize the characteristics of life by artificial means, particularly employing computer technology. The essays chosen explore such fascinating themes as the nature of life, the relation between life and mind, and the limits of technology. The first two papers, one of which is the classic A-Life manifesto by Christopher Langton, provide a general overview of the subject and compare it with artificial intelligence (AI); in Part II, the contributors describe examples of A-Life research. Part III discusses various explanatory strategies in A-Life, and relates them to approaches in AI and cognitive science, while Part IV focuses on the concept of life in general. Finally, Part V explores A-Life's relation to functionalism and the feasibility of `strong' A-Life. This book is intended for undergraduate and graduate students of cognitive science, artificial intelligence, philosophy of biology, and computing studies; researchers in these fields; readers from other areas of philosophy and the sciences interested in questions about the nature of life.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. Recreating large-scale evolutionary phenomena / P.-M. Agapow
• 2. Neural evolution for collision detection & resolution in a 2D free flight environment / S. Alam ... [et al.]
• 3. Cooperative coevolution of genotype-phenotype mappings to solve epistatic optimization problems / L. T. Bui. H. A. Abbass, and D. Essam
• 4. Approaching perfect mixing in a simple model of the spread of an infectious disease / D . Chu and J . Rowe
• 5. The formation of hierarchical structures in a pseudo-spatial co-evolutionary artificial life environment / D. Cornforth. D. G. Green and J. Awburn
• 6. Perturbation analysis : a complex systems pattern / N. Geard. K. Willadsen and J. Wiles
• 7. A simple genetic algorithm for studies of Mendelian populations / C . Gondro and J. C. M. Magalhaes
• 8. Roles of rule-priority evolution in animat models / K. A. Hawick, H. A. James and C. J. Scogings
• 9. Gauging ALife : emerging complex systems / K. Kitto
• 10. Localisation of critical transition phenomena in cellular automata rule-space / A. Lafusa and T. Bossomaier
• 11. Issues in the scalability of gate-level morphogenetic evolvable hardware / J. Lee and J. Sitte
• 12. Phenotype diversity objectives for graph grammar evolution / M. H. Luerssen
• 13. An ALife investigation on the origins of dimorphic parental investments / S. Mascaro. K. B. Korb and A. E. Nicholson
• 14. Local structure and stability of model and real world ecosystems / D. Newth and D. Cornforth
• 15. Quantification of emergent behaviors induced by feedback resonance of chaos / A. Patti, M. Lungarella and Y. Kuniyoshi
• 16. A dynamic optimisation approach for ant colony optimisation using the multidimensional Knapsack problem / M. Randall
• 17. Maintaining explicit diversity within individual ant colonies / M. Randall
• 18. Evolving gene regulatory networks for cellular morphogenesis / T. Rudge and N. Geard
• 19. Complexity of networks / R. K. Standish
• 20. A generalised technique for building 2D structures with robot swarms / R. L. Stewart and R. A. Russell
• 21. H-ABC : a scalable dynamic routing algorithm / B. Tatomir and L. J. M. Rothkrantz
• 22. Describing DNA automata using an artificial chemistry based on pattern matching and recombination / T . Watanabe ... [et al.]
• 23. Towards a network pattern language for complex systems / J. Watson ... [et al.]
• 24. The evolution of aging / O. G. Woodberry. K. B. Korb and A. E. Nicholson
• 25. Evolving capability requirements in WISDOM-II / A. Yang ... [et al.].

Artificial life is now a recognized discipline of research with many important applications and software tools. However, many theoretical issues remain unresolved. This book brings together a cross-section of key developments in artificial life, which in turn gives us new insight into the theory of complex systems.The central ideas of the book surround genetics and evolution in an artificial life framework. Topics covered include maintenance of genetic diversity, hierarchical structures and stability of ecosystems. Underpinning these topics are key theoretical developments surrounding network complexity, the development of pattern languages for complex networks and a deeper understanding of the edge of chaos where complex systems live. Practical applications include optimization, gene regulatory networks, modeling the spread of disease and the evolution of ageing.The reader will gain an insight into the mathematical techniques at the core of artificial life and encounter a sufficient diversity of applications to stimulate new directions in their own field.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Representing life for a living
• Simflesh, simbones : at play in the artificial life ribotype
• Disciplined by the future : the promising bodies of cryonics
• Give me a body, then : corporeal time-images
• Remains to be seen : a self-extracting amalgam
• Uploading anticipation, becoming silicon
• Dot coma : the dead zone of media and the replication of family values
• Take my bone marrow, please : the community in which we have organs in common
• Wetwares ; or, cutting up a few aliens
• Sympathy for the alien : informatic ecologies and the proliferation of abduction.

Mankind now has within its grasp the power to synthesize true artificial life, playing out Dr Frankenstein's dream in both cyberspace and the real world. In this book, Steve Grand, a leading exponent of artificial life, provides the first authoritative and comprehensive tour of the frontiers of this burgeoning new creation. He surveys what has been achieved so far and looks at future possibilities for generating autonomous, intelligent, even conscious living things. The fundamental questions he tackles range widely: what is life? What should the minds, brains and bodies of these new life forms be like? What philosophical guidelines and computational frameworks are necessary? How much can we learn from the evolution of natural life forms? What are the practical, social and ethical implications of this research? At the heart of this brilliantly accessible and thought-provoking book is the author's unique imaginative vision - a vision based on his experience of making some of the most adv anced artificial life currently available. The secret of success, he argues, lies in emulating nature's way and working from the bottom up. This groundbreaking book reveals the details of how to do this and challenges how we think about the meaning of life.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface; Contents; 1 . Recreating Large-Scale Evolutionary Phenomena P.-M. Agapow; 2 . Neural Evolution for Collision Detection & Resolution in a 2D Free Flight Environment S . Alam. M . McPartland. M . Barlow. P . Lindsay. and H . A . Abbass; 3 . Cooperative Coevolution of Genotype-Phenotype Mappings to Solve Epistatic Optimization Problems L . T . Bui. H . A . Abbass, and D . Essam; 4 . Approaching Perfect Mixing in a Simple Model of the Spread of an Infectious Disease D . Chu and J . Rowe.

Artificial life is now a recognized discipline of research with many important applications and software tools. However, many theoretical issues remain unresolved. This book brings together a cross-section of key developments in artificial life, which in turn gives us new insight into the theory of complex systems.The central ideas of the book surround genetics and evolution in an artificial life framework. Topics covered include maintenance of genetic diversity, hierarchical structures and stability of ecosystems. Underpinning these topics are key theoretical developments surrounding network complexity, the development of pattern languages for complex networks and a deeper understanding of the edge of chaos where complex systems live. Practical applications include optimization, gene regulatory networks, modeling the spread of disease and the evolution of ageing.The reader will gain an insight into the mathematical techniques at the core of artificial life and encounter a sufficient diversity of applications to stimulate new directions in their own field.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface. Learning to Love the Bomb
• Introduction. Mary Shelley and the Genesis of Political Science Fictions Interlude. Births and Afterlives Chapter I. Apocalyptic Fictions Chapter II. Un/natural Fictions Chapter III. Loveless Fictions
• Coda. A Vindication of the Rights and Duties of Artificial Creatures
• Acknowledgments Postscript. "The Journal of Sorrow" Notes Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Artificial Life After Frankenstein brings the insights born of Mary Shelley's legacy to bear upon the ethics and politics of making artificial life and intelligence in the twenty-first century. What are the obligations of humanity to the artificial creatures we make? And what are the corresponding rights of those creatures, whether they are learning machines or genetically modified organisms? In seeking ways to respond to these questions, so vital for our age of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence, we would do well to turn to the capacious mind and imaginative genius of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851). Shelley's novels Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) and The Last Man (1826) precipitated a modern political strain of science fiction concerned with the ethical dilemmas that arise when we make artificial life-and make life artificial-through science, technology, and other forms of cultural change. In Artificial Life After Frankenstein, Eileen Hunt Botting puts Shelley and several classics of modern political science fiction into dialogue with contemporary political science and philosophy, in order to challenge some of the apocalyptic fears at the fore of twenty-first-century political thought on AI and genetic engineering. Focusing on the prevailing myths that artificial forms of life will end the world, destroy nature, and extinguish love, Botting shows how Shelley modeled ways to break down and transform the meanings of apocalypse, nature, and love in the face of widespread and deep-seated fear about the power of technology and artifice to undermine the possibility of humanity, community, and life itself. Through their explorations of these themes, Mary Shelley and authors of modern political science fiction from H. G. Wells to Nnedi Okorafor have paved the way for a techno-political philosophy of living with the artifice of humanity in all of its complexity. In Artificial Life After Frankenstein, Botting brings the insights born of Shelley's legacy to bear upon the ethics and politics of making artificial life and intelligence in the twenty-first century.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface. Learning to Love the Bomb
• Introduction. Mary Shelley and the Genesis of Political Science Fictions Interlude. Births and Afterlives Chapter I. Apocalyptic Fictions Chapter II. Un/natural Fictions Chapter III. Loveless Fictions
• Coda. A Vindication of the Rights and Duties of Artificial Creatures
• Acknowledgments Postscript. "The Journal of Sorrow" Notes Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Artificial Life After Frankenstein brings the insights born of Mary Shelley's legacy to bear upon the ethics and politics of making artificial life and intelligence in the twenty-first century. What are the obligations of humanity to the artificial creatures we make? And what are the corresponding rights of those creatures, whether they are learning machines or genetically modified organisms? In seeking ways to respond to these questions, so vital for our age of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence, we would do well to turn to the capacious mind and imaginative genius of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851). Shelley's novels Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) and The Last Man (1826) precipitated a modern political strain of science fiction concerned with the ethical dilemmas that arise when we make artificial life-and make life artificial-through science, technology, and other forms of cultural change. In Artificial Life After Frankenstein, Eileen Hunt Botting puts Shelley and several classics of modern political science fiction into dialogue with contemporary political science and philosophy, in order to challenge some of the apocalyptic fears at the fore of twenty-first-century political thought on AI and genetic engineering. Focusing on the prevailing myths that artificial forms of life will end the world, destroy nature, and extinguish love, Botting shows how Shelley modeled ways to break down and transform the meanings of apocalypse, nature, and love in the face of widespread and deep-seated fear about the power of technology and artifice to undermine the possibility of humanity, community, and life itself. Through their explorations of these themes, Mary Shelley and authors of modern political science fiction from H. G. Wells to Nnedi Okorafor have paved the way for a techno-political philosophy of living with the artifice of humanity in all of its complexity. In Artificial Life After Frankenstein, Botting brings the insights born of Shelley's legacy to bear upon the ethics and politics of making artificial life and intelligence in the twenty-first century.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Deep in the remote Nevada desert, eight people are trapped inside of the Xymos Corporation, a state-of-the-art fabrication plant, by a self-replicating, rapidly evolving swarm comprised of predatory molecules that they themselves had created and that have massed together to form a powerful and intel.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

In The Allure of Machinic Life, John Johnston examines new forms of nascent life that emerge through technical interactions within human-constructed environments -- "machinic life" -- in the sciences of cybernetics, artificial life, and artificial intelligence. With the development of such research initiatives as the evolution of digital organisms, computer immune systems, artificial protocells, evolutionary robotics, and swarm systems, Johnston argues, machinic life has achieved a complexity and autonomy worthy of study in its own right. Drawing on the publications of scientists as well as a range of work in contemporary philosophy and cultural theory, but always with the primary focus on the "objects at hand" -- the machines, programs, and processes that constitute machinic life -- Johnston shows how they come about, how they operate, and how they are already changing. This understanding is a necessary first step, he further argues, that must precede speculation about the meaning and cultural implications of these new forms of life. Developing the concept of the "computational assemblage" (a machine and its associated discourse) as a framework to identify both resemblances and differences in form and function, Johnston offers a conceptual history of each of the three sciences. He considers the new theory of machines proposed by cybernetics from several perspectives, including Lacanian psychoanalysis and "machinic philosophy." He examines the history of the new science of artificial life and its relation to theories of evolution, emergence, and complex adaptive systems (as illustrated by a series of experiments carried out on various software platforms). He describes the history of artificial intelligence as a series of unfolding conceptual conflicts -- decodings and recodings -- leading to a "new AI" that is strongly influenced by artificial life. Finally, in examining the role played by neuroscience in several contemporary research initiatives, he shows how further success in the building of intelligent machines will most likely result from progress in our understanding of how the human brain actually works.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Dublin, 1943-2012
• Chemical synthesis as proof
• Dawn of the digital age of biology
• Digitizing life
• Synthetic Phi X 174
• First synthetic genome
• Converting one species into another
• Synthesis of the M. mycoides genome
• Inside a synthetic cell
• Life by design
• Biological teleportation
• Life at the speed of light.

• Part I: Proactive regulation
• Embedded ethics as preparatory regulation of technology : a new solution to the Collingridge Dilemma? / Daniel Tigard
• Repugnance, denial, and fear : societal challenges for regulation of novel beings / David R. Lawrence
• Morally significant technology : a case against mere corporate self-regulation / Sarah Morley
• Beware Oz the Great and Powerful : sci-fi determinism, flawed artificial intelligence and emerging regulatory frameworks / Alan Dignam
• Newer technologies, older attitudes, and retrograde regulation / David R. Lawrence and John Harris
• Part II: Reactive regulation
• Being novel? : regulating emerging technologies under conditions of uncertainty / Joseph T.F. Roberts and Muireann Quigley
• The "ethical" regulation of "novel being" technologies : the potential role for patents as ethical drivers, blockers and guiders? / Aisling McMahon
• A phased approach to protection of artificial beings / Colin Gavaghan and Mike King

"Novel Beings is a forward-looking exploration into the divide between proactive and reactive regulatory approaches to the cross-section of biotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI) research. Addressing an innovative area of academic study, Novel Beings questions how this research, which has the potential to create new forms of morally valuable life, could be regulated."

The story of two people and the artificial intelligences they helped create, following them for more than a decade as they deal with the upgrades and obsolescence that are inevitable in the world of software. At the same time, it's an examination of the difference between processing power and intelligence, and of what it means to have a real relationship with an artificial entity.