Anders Sandberg
> Another tidbit I noted: the number of basepairs that can be sequenced
> or synthetized together into strands per day and person appears to
> increase superexponentially right now. I saw some plots comparing it
> to Moore's law, and it was much more dramatic. After listening to
> Craig Venter, I have the feeling that we should look for a biotech
> singularity rather than a nanotech one :-)
Excellent observation, Anders. I've felt that we should expect a biotech
singularity as well as a nanotech one for years. Of course some futurists
still imagine a world in which we've abandoned biology in favor of synthetic
materials, but if it's alive, it's still biology.
Stay hungry,
--J. R.
3M TA3
"If you go back a hundred years," he explains, "one of the biggest
scientific questions was 'what is life?' And one of the most prominent
theories had to do with vitalism--some substance, some thing that is
transmitted from cell to cell, animal to animal, that is the essence of
life. Well, you don't hear anybody talking about vitalism anymore. We've
come far enough to see all the mechanics--we've seen how DNA works, we've
seen all the pieces of the cell, and we don't have need for a hypothesis
like vitalism." So it will go, Sejnowski suspects, with consciousness.
(Phlogiston, incidentally, refers to a theoretical substance that people
once sought in combustible material, thinking it made up the "substance" of
fire.)
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