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Why is the question of the di?erence between living and non-living matter - tellectually so attractive to the man of the West? Where are our dreams about our own ability to understand this di?erence and to overcome it using the ?rmly established technologies rooted? Where are, for instance, the cultural roots of the enterprises covered nowadays by the discipline of Arti?cial Life? Cont- plating such questions, one of us has recognized [6] the existence of the eternal dream of the man of the West expressed, for example, in the Old Testament as follows: . . . the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being (Genesis, 2. 7). This is the dream about the workmanlike act of the creation of Adam from clay, about the creation of life from something non-living, and the con?dence in the magic power of technologies. How has this dream developed and been converted into a reality, and how does it determine our present-day activities in science and technology? What is this con?dence rooted in? Then God said: “Let us make man in our image. . . ” (Genesis, 1. 26). Man believes in his own ability to repeat the Creator’s acts, to change ideas into real things, because he believes he is godlike. This con?dence is – using the trendy Dawkins’ term – perhaps the most important cultural meme of the West.
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Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence Subseries of Lecture Notes in Computer Science Edited by J. G. Carbonell and J. Siekmann
Lecture Notes in Computer Science Edited by G. Goos, J. Hartmanis, and J. van Leeuwen
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Berlin Heidelberg New York Barcelona Hong Kong London Milan Paris Tokyo
Jozef Kelemen Petr Sos´ık (Eds.)
Advances in Artificial Life 6th European Conference, ECAL 2001 Prague, Czech Republic, September 10-14, 2001 Proceedings
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Series Editors Jaime G. Carbonell,Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA J¨org Siekmann, University of Saarland, Saarbr¨ucken, Germany Volume Editors Jozef Kelemen Petr Sos´ık Silesian University, Faculty of Philosophy and Science Institute of Computer Science 74601 Opava, Czech Republic E-mail: {petr.sosik/jozef.kelemen}@fpf.slu.cz
Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme Advances in artificial life : 6th European conference ; proceedings / ECAL 2001, Prague, Czech Republic, September 10 - 14, 2001. Jozef Kelemen ; Petr Sosík (ed.). - Berlin ; Heidelberg ; New York ; Barcelona ; Hong Kong ; London ; Milan ; Paris ; Tokyo : Springer, 2001 (Lecture notes in computer science ; Vol. 2159 : Lecture notes in artificial intelligence) ISBN 3-540-42567-5
CR Subject Classification (1998): I.2, J.3, F.1.1-2, G.2, H.5, I.5, J.4, J.6 ISBN 3-540-42567-5 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer-Verlag. Violations are liable for prosecution under the German Copyright Law. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York a member of BertelsmannSpringer Science+Business Media GmbH http://www.springer.de © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2001 Printed in Germany Typesetting: Camera-ready by author, data conversion by PTP Berlin, Stefan Sossna Printed on acid-free paper SPIN 10840282 06/3142 543210
Preface
Why is the question of the difference between