Federico Giorgi
University of Namur, Belgium (federico.giorgi@unamur.be; ORCID: 0000-0002- 7154-2013).
Abstract: The essay takes a critical stance towards the widespread thesis that life is computable or even reproducible on a medium other than a biological body. The insights of some opponents of that thesis were somehow anticipated by Whitehead in his metaphysical works, and the essay is intended to stress the relevance of Whitehead’s processual ontology to the debate on artificial life. Some of Whitehead’s notions, such as the mental pole and the living person, help significantly to account for the divide between organisms and machines. Two distinctive characteristics of organisms are especially analyzed by the essay: their ontogenetic development and their mental faculties.
Keywords: Life; Machines; Self-creation; Processual Ontology; Mental Faculties.