Quantum Loop Gravity Be For Whitey

[Tim May]

On Jan 1, 2004, at 7:44 PM, Thomas Shaddack wrote:

> On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Tim May wrote:
>
>> A few moments of thought will show the connection between replicators
>> and general assemblers. A general assembler can make another general
>> assembler, hence all general assemblers are replicators.  And in fact
>> this is necessary to make mechanosynthesis nanotech viable, as
>> otherwise it takes all the multibillion dollar wafer fabs in the 
>> world,
>> if they could make nanoscale things, to make some scum on the bottom 
>> of
>> a test tube.
>
> Or a few-dollar fermentation tanks with suitable bacteria, once its 
> genome
> is tweaked in required way. Who ever said that the nanoparticles we 
> need
> can't be proteins or organic molecules with required shape/properties? 
> If
> viral particles can self-assemble from host-cell-synthetized proteins, 
> if
> complicated structures like bacterial propulsion systems - or even 
> whole
> plants - can be formed, why not nanomechanical systems? Why bother with
> assembling machines when they could be grown?
>
> I hope I didn't screw up my understanding of "nanosynthesis". If it is
> "build anything you want by telling the general assembler", then this
> won't work and would need a lab; but for mass-producing nnoparticles, 
> eg.
> surface coatings or elements for camera or memory arrays, biotech 
> should
> be good enough.
>

Which is why I was careful to say "mechanosynthesis" and even to 
qualify the type of replicator as "Drexler-style."

We've had systems which can replicate in 25 minutes or so for as long 
as we've existed. But making bread is not the same thing as making 
computers, or Boeing 747s, or non-bread kinds of food.

Specialized biologicals making specialized things is probably where 
"nanotechnology" will be a commercial success, but it just ain't real 
nanotech.

--Tim May