More robot pain sensors

It is possible to run a line of conducting paint across the LEGO brick* joints in order to form a breakage sensor. When a break does occur it can then easily be repaired by painting over the break point. It is also possible to solder lead wires directly onto the conducting paint.** If melting of the underlying plastic becomes an issue*** tabs cut out of semiconductive paper can be glued to the bricks at each end of the sensor.

* or other component pieces
**or use conducting epoxy
***this has not been a problem with LEGO pieces

Maybe there is no "best"

As a cleaner example of what I was trying to get at in my blog of 13 June consider agents that can have 3 different means of attack: V1, V2, and V3 along with 3 means of countering these same  attacks: -V1,-V2, and -V3. Each agent is then described by a vector (V1, V2, V3, -V1, -V2, -V3). If agent A=(1,0,0,0,1,0), agent B=(0,1,0,0,0,1) and agent C=(0,0,1,1,0,0), then agent A will always beat agent B*, agent B will always beat agent C, and agent C will always beat agent A. There will be no "best", no "fittest."

* i.e., A can attack B using V1, which B can not defend against, while countering B's V2 attacks using its -V2 defense.

What is life?

Life isn’t a thing. Life is a process, a complex network of linked co-operating, self-sustaining, and regulating feedback loops.* The exact details, in fact, depend upon (and could vary with) the environment (hardware) the network operates in.

* See Peter Hoffmann, Life’s Ratchet, Basic Books, 2012, especially pages 229-231.

Another example of vector values

Team A may regularly beat team B. Team B may regularly beat team C, And team C may regularly beat team A. This will make no sense if one tries to rank teams with a scalar value from “best” to “worst.” It does happen, however, due to the ways in which teams happen to “match up.” Suppose (american football) teams are described by four component quantities: passing ability, running ability, pass defense, and run defense. Perhaps team A has a very good passing defense and can run. Team B has a very good passing game and can defend the pass. Team C can run and can defend the run.

The problem of evil

Evil (danger) may be necessary. In the way suggested in my blog of 10 March 2017. With too little danger evolution might not produce brains and minds. Minds are an adaptation to a particular range of environmental conditions. In animals and in A.s.a. H. pain is an important feedback signal. See also my blog of 24 April 2019.