TED Talk-Theo Jansen:The Art of Creating Creatures

Theo Jansen created what is called the "Strandbeests". Simply made out of electrical tubing and lemonade bottles, but are called mechanical beast that roam on the shore lines of beaches. Seems crazy to think that someone would be creating a creature with no blood, no brains, no vessels, or veins and yet can consider it a creature. Jansen's creation is both remarkable and interesting but at the same time it is nothing more than materials. Can one consider it to be a living creature? It has a mechanical brain that simply tells it where the water line is and where the safe dunes are, but is that enough to call it a brain? To me, Jansen has come up with a very interesting creation but I would not consider it a creature. Although it has life-like forms, it knows that water kills it, it can "die", it turns away from enemies, but it truly is not real or living. It doesn't "die", it only gets washed away and would never be thought of as missing. To me, the creation would be more of a beach toy to watch walk around during the day, but to imagine it walking down the beach while making a sand castle seems absurd to me. If anything can be made to move and do things on its own, than who is to say the robotic vacuums are not "living creatures"?