夜雨聆风D
What is life? Like most great questions, this one is easy to ask but difficult to answer. The reason is simple: we know of just one type of life and it’s challenging to do science with a sample size of one. The field of artificial life—called ALife for short—is the systematic attempt to spell out life’s fundamental principles. Many of these practitioners, so-called ALifers, think that somehow making life is the surest way to really understand what lifeis.
So far no one has convincingly made artificial life. This track record makes ALife a ripe target for criticism, such asdeclarations of the field’s doubtful scientific value. Alan Smith, a complexity scientist, is tired of such complaints. Asking about “the point” of ALife might be, well, missing the point entirely, he says. “The existence of a living system is not about the use ofanything,” Alan says. “Some people ask me, ‘So what’s the worth of artificial life?’ Do you ever think, ‘What is the worth of your grandmother?’”
As much as many ALifers hate emphasising their research’s applications, the attempts to create artificial lifecould have practical payoffs. Artificial intelligence may be considered ALife’s cousin in that researchers in both fields are enamoured by a concept called open-ended evolution (演化). This is the capacity for a system to create essentially endless complexity, to be a sort of “novelty generator”. The only system known to exhibit this is Earth’s biosphere. If the field of ALife manages to reproduce life’s endless “creativity” in some virtual model, those same principles could give rise to truly inventive machines.
Compared with the developments of AI, advances in ALife are harder to recognise. One reason is that ALife is a field in which the central concept—life itself—is undefined. The lack of agreement among ALifers doesn’t help either. The result is a diverse line of projects that each advance along their unique paths. For better or worse, ALife mirrors the very subject it studies. Its muddled (混乱的) progression is a striking parallel (平行线) to the evolutionary struggles that have shaped Earth’s biosphere.
Undefined and uncontrolled, ALife drives its followers to repurpose old ideas and generate novelty. It may be, of course, that these characteristics aren’t in any way surprising or singular. They may apply universally to all acts of evolution. Ultimately ALife may be nothing special. But even this dismissal suggests something: perhaps, just like life itself throughout the universe, the rise of ALife will prove unavoidable.
31．Regarding Alan Smith’s defence of ALife, the author is ______.作者意图
A．supportiveB．puzzled
C．unconcernedD．doubtful
32．What does the word “enamoured” underlined in Paragraph 3 most probably mean?
A．Shocked.B．Protected.
C．Attracted.D．Challenged.
33．What can we learn from this passage?事实
A．ALife holds the key to human future.
B．ALife and AI share a common feature.
C．AI mirrors the developments of ALife.
D．AI speeds up the process of human evolution.
34．Which would be the best title for the passage?
A．Life Is Undefined. Can AI Be a Way Out?
B．Life Evolves. Can AI Help ALife Evolve, Too?
C．Life Is Undefined. Can ALife Be Defined One Day?
D．Life Evolves. Can Attempts to Create ALife Evolve, Too?
整体评价：
本篇是议论文，文章难度较大。本篇难度文字并不大，但是学生读完抓不住主旨，看不懂文章核心。原因是学生不擅长串联文本信息，思维深度不够，同时对高考议论文常见的篇章结构不够熟悉。这篇文章对于英语基础普通并且逻辑思维能力不强的学生很有挑战性。
第一段：从what is life ? 引出核心概念：The field of artificial life—called ALife for short—is the systematic attempt to spell out life’s fundamental principles.ALife领域是系统尝试去阐明生命的基本原理。第二段：到目前为止还没有真正造出人工生命，所以ALife受到质疑。第三段：ALife有现实意义，ALife 与 AI 是相近的领域，它们都痴迷于开放式演化（ open-ended evolution系统可以产生新的复杂事物）；如果 ALife领域能复制出这种能力，就可以制造真正具备创造力的机器。第四段：ALife 发展困难的两个原因：核心概念life本身没有定义, ALife学术界没有统一共识。ALife 自身混乱的发展过程，刚好和地球生物圈的演化相类似。第五段：ALife 让研究人员重新利用旧理念，产生新事物。也许这些是所有演化行为的共性，ALife 本身没有什么特殊的。但即便如此，也可暗示出，ALife 的出现是不可避免的。
文章符合常见的议论文篇章结构：提出核心话题ALife → 就争议问题用科学家Alan Smith观点反驳→ 论述ALife实际价值 → 分析ALife发展存在的问题 → 总结阐明作者观点。四个题目的设置环环相扣，32题理解了，33题正确答案迎刃而解，34题的关键词也能捕捉。
题目解析：
31题：答案为A 。考察作者的写作意图。从题干能看出，Alan Smith对ALife是支持态度，从排除法和议论文的常见篇章结构：第一段提出话题，第二段提出争议（批判+ 辩护），第三段讲 ALife 的实际价值，可以预判答案。另外，从文章最后一段最后一句：就如同宇宙中的生命一样，ALife的出现将是不可避免的，可以看出作者对ALife是支持态度，第二段ALife 遭受外界批评，Alan Smith 对此进行辩护，所以作者的态度是反对争议，支持辩护的，所以正确答案为A。
32题：答案为C。猜测词意题。划线句意：人工智能可以被视作ALife的近亲，因为两个领域的研究者们都被“开放式演化” 这一概念所......。再根据下文：这个系统的能力能够生成无穷无尽的复杂事物，相当于一种“新奇东西的生成器”。已知的唯一有这种特性的系统就是地球生物圈。如果 ALife领域能复制出这种能力，就可以制造真正具备创造力的机器。可以看出open-ended evolution是一个正向的概念，那么两个领域都对这个概念看重，或者感兴趣。所以C选项正确。32题的得分关键点是划线句的：in that ”因为“，需要看出句子是因果关系。
33题：答案为B。在完成32题后，可知人工智能可以被视作ALife的近亲，因为两个领域的研究者们都看重 “开放式演化”这个概念。可以知道B选项share a common feature正确。A选项文章holds the key to human future 文章没有提到。C选项在文章第四段：ALife mirrors the very subject it studies, ALife 反映出它所研究的领域：生命的基本原理。可知C选项不正确。D选项文章完全没有提到相关句子。
34题：答案为D。从文章第一段和最后一段，可知文章的核心概念是ALife，AI只是第三段出现，故A，B选项不正确。从最后一段，文章只讲到生命尚无定义，并没有说 ALife 能被定义，故C选项不正确。D选项：生命是不断演化的，创造人工生命的尝试，会不断演化吗？Life Evolves：对应文章第三段：“已知的唯一有这种特性的系统就是地球生物圈”可知“地球生物圈生命演化”正确。D选项后一句：Attempts to Create ALife：全文核心，从文章第一段最后一句人类尝试理解“what is life?”，到第四段：ALife ALife 自身混乱的发展过程，刚好和地球生物圈的演化相类似，是平行关系。再到第五段：就如同宇宙中的生命一样，ALife 的出现将是不可避免的。所以D选项后一句：“创造 ALife，会不会也像生命一样演化”正确。