Originally posted by Yet Another Crank:
How does consciousness trump everything else for something to be alive?
Trees and grass and bacteria and many undergraduates are all considered alive. But we wouldn't exactly consider them to be conscious.
Intelligence is not a prerequisite for life, and life is not a prerequisite for intelligence. Likewise, self-awareness is not a prerequisite for life, and life is not a prerequisite for self-awareness.
Life is pretty much what I said above. It needn't be organic, but it needs more than just the ability to learn and recursive self awareness.
I fail to see any logic in your post.
Obviously plants are considered to be alive.
In my view, consciousness trumps any other neccessary conditions for something to be considered alive. This in no way implies that something that isn't conscious cannot be alive.
Whether one would consider artifical intelligence to be truly alive is totally subjective. In my opinion it would be.
Something that's self-aware and can reason should be considered to be alive, even if it cannot reproduce and has no metabolism (in the usual sense). Self-awareness is the very pinnacle of life - the highest peak that has yet been obtained by biological entities. If something artifical attains it, it lives.