RE: How will you know that you've woken up from cryogenic sleep?

From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Mon May 06 2002 - 03:18:33 MDT


So DNA is a Turing Machine, and the Turing Test is the standard test for
intelligence... was Alan Turing actually the system admin?

Emlyn

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky [mailto:sentience@pobox.com]
> Sent: Monday, 6 May 2002 6:18 PM
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: Re: How will you know that you've woken up from cryogenic
> sleep?
>
>
> Emlyn O'regan wrote:
> >
> > > --- Emlyn O'regan <oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au>
> > > wrote:
> > > > That's not the db, it's the install disk
> > > >
> > >
> > > I disagree there are no executables in DNA only
> > > data.
> > >
> >
> > That's not really true. There is no mechanism in DNA, just
> like there isn't
> > in software. But, the DNA is executed (almost like a turing
> machine!), with
> > little greeblies crawling along it and turning it's
> instructions into
> > proteins and whatnot.
> >
> > If the program isn't in the DNA, where is it?
>
> Considering the genes that switch off the genes that switch
> on the genes
> that switch off the genes that express the actual proteins,
> I'd say that DNA
> is a finite state automaton at the very least and probably a universal
> Turing machine, though I don't know offhand.
>
> -- -- -- -- --
> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky http://singinst.org/
> Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
>

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