From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Wed Nov 27 2002 - 14:27:03 MST
Ramez wrote:
>
> Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So if someone
> says to me that we will be able to write software that effectively
> manages swarms of billions (trillions? quadrillions?) of assemblers
> from the /bottom up/ and directs them to build things like cars, then
> I would like some deep analysis to back that up. I appreciate the
> kind of qualitative thinking you're doing here, and much of it seems
> plausible to me, but it's not really rigorous enough to be convincing.
>
### The software effectively controlling many trillions of biological
nanoassemblers, the cells of a blue whale's body, is contained with a few
hundred kilobytes of DNA, and allows building of quite massive structures.
The main effectors used are networks of morphogens diffusing across tissues,
as well as sensors and switches operating the transcription factors involved
in production of morphogenes, and switching of cellular phenotypes.
There is no doubt that this is a complex system, but somehow it doesn't
appear beyond human understanding (suitably amplified with the right
visualization and network-analysis software). Just give me a nanoassembler,
and me and my buddies will come up with nifty ways of using it.
Rafal
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