I don’t know how to engage with the first two comments. As for diffusion being slow, you need to argue that it’s so slow as to be uncompetitive with replication times of biological life, and that no other mechanism for placing individual atoms / small molecules could achieve better speed and energy efficiency, e.g. this one.
I don’t have the expertise to evaluate the comment by Muireall, so I made a Manifold market.
Such actuator design specifics aren’t relevant to my point. If you want to move a large distance, powered by energy from a chemical reaction, you have to diffuse to the target point, then use the chemical energy to ratchet the position. That’s how kinesin works. A chemical reaction doesn’t smoothly provide force along a range of movement. Thus, larger movements per reaction take longer.
Biological life uses an ATP system. This is an energy currency, but it’s discrete. Like having batteries that can only be empty or full. It doesn’t give a good way to apply smaller amounts of energy than 1 atp molecule carries, even if less energy is needed.
Nanobots could have a continuous energy system, or smaller units of energy.
I don’t know how to engage with the first two comments. As for diffusion being slow, you need to argue that it’s so slow as to be uncompetitive with replication times of biological life, and that no other mechanism for placing individual atoms / small molecules could achieve better speed and energy efficiency, e.g. this one.
I don’t have the expertise to evaluate the comment by Muireall, so I made a Manifold market.
Such actuator design specifics aren’t relevant to my point. If you want to move a large distance, powered by energy from a chemical reaction, you have to diffuse to the target point, then use the chemical energy to ratchet the position. That’s how kinesin works. A chemical reaction doesn’t smoothly provide force along a range of movement. Thus, larger movements per reaction take longer.
Biological life uses an ATP system. This is an energy currency, but it’s discrete. Like having batteries that can only be empty or full. It doesn’t give a good way to apply smaller amounts of energy than 1 atp molecule carries, even if less energy is needed.
Nanobots could have a continuous energy system, or smaller units of energy.