Ready
This game shows the essential difference between the behavior of living and non-living things. The difference is that the behavior of living things is purposeful while that of non-living things is not.
The game shows that you can’t tell the difference between these two types of behavior by just looking at behavior. The purposeless behavior of non-living things can look just like the purposeful behavior of living things.
But you can do more than passively observe—you can disturb the bugs using the mouse.
The live bug resists these disturbances because it is a control system with the purpose of maintaining a perception of being on its desired path.
This disturbance resistance is what reveals the live bug: it is the one whose movement is least affected by your actions.
Key idea: The behavior of living systems has the purpose of controlling perceptions; the behavior of non-living systems is simply caused by external forces.
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