Biology didn’t evolve to take advantage of ridiculously concentrated energy sources like fossil petroleum, or to major industrial infrastructure, two things that make jets possible. This is similar to some of the reasons I think that synthetic molecular technology will probably be capable of things that biology isn’t, by taking advantage of say electricity as an energy source or one-off batch synthesis of stuff by bringing together systems that are not self-replicating from parts made separately.
In fact the analogy of a bird to a jet might be apt to describe the differences between what a synthetic system could do and what biological systems do now, due to them using different energy sources and non-self replicating components (though it might be a lot harder to brute-force such a change in quantitative performance by ridiculous application of huge amounts of energy at low efficiency).
I still suspect, however, that when you are looking at the sorts of reactions that can be done and patterns that can be made in quantities that matter as more than curiosities or rare expensive fragile demonstrations, you will be dealing with more statistical reactions than precise engineering and dynamic systems rather than static (at least during the building process) just because of the nature of matter at this scale.
What do you make of the picture Richard Jones paints ? I’m not much more than a lay man—though happen to know my way around medicine—find his critique of of Drexler’s vision of nanotechnology sound.
His position seems to be that Drexler-style nanotechnology is theoretically possible, but that developing it would be very difficult.
I do not think that Drexler’s alternative approach – based
on mechanical devices made from rigid materials – fundamentally contradicts any physical laws, but I fear that its
proponents underestimate the problems that certain features
of the nanoworld will pose for it. The close tolerances that
we take for granted in macroscopic engineering will be very
difficult to achieve at the nano-scale because the machines
will be shaken about so much by Brownian motion. Finding
ways for surfaces to slide past each other without sticking
together or feeling excessive friction is going to be difficult.
A hypothetical superintelligence might find it easier...
Yes, that seems to be is main argument against Drexler’s vision, though I wonder if he thinks it’s difficult to come up with a design that would be robust, or if the kind of nanotechnology would be difficult to implement since it requires certain conditions such as vacuum close to 0 kelvin, which might be a bit cumbersome even for a superintelligence(?) unless you hang out a lot in space.
Biology didn’t evolve to take advantage of ridiculously concentrated energy sources like fossil petroleum, or to major industrial infrastructure, two things that make jets possible. This is similar to some of the reasons I think that synthetic molecular technology will probably be capable of things that biology isn’t, by taking advantage of say electricity as an energy source or one-off batch synthesis of stuff by bringing together systems that are not self-replicating from parts made separately.
In fact the analogy of a bird to a jet might be apt to describe the differences between what a synthetic system could do and what biological systems do now, due to them using different energy sources and non-self replicating components (though it might be a lot harder to brute-force such a change in quantitative performance by ridiculous application of huge amounts of energy at low efficiency).
I still suspect, however, that when you are looking at the sorts of reactions that can be done and patterns that can be made in quantities that matter as more than curiosities or rare expensive fragile demonstrations, you will be dealing with more statistical reactions than precise engineering and dynamic systems rather than static (at least during the building process) just because of the nature of matter at this scale.
edited for formatting
Please use paragraphs.
EDIT: thanks for the formatting update!
What do you make of the picture Richard Jones paints ? I’m not much more than a lay man—though happen to know my way around medicine—find his critique of of Drexler’s vision of nanotechnology sound.
His position seems to be that Drexler-style nanotechnology is theoretically possible, but that developing it would be very difficult.
A hypothetical superintelligence might find it easier...
Yes, that seems to be is main argument against Drexler’s vision, though I wonder if he thinks it’s difficult to come up with a design that would be robust, or if the kind of nanotechnology would be difficult to implement since it requires certain conditions such as vacuum close to 0 kelvin, which might be a bit cumbersome even for a superintelligence(?) unless you hang out a lot in space.