🚀 go-pugleaf

Don't blame me, I voted for tycchow@riesz.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow).
>How do we know that in principle we can build a working, physical machine
>that can replicate itself? [...]
>The only good argument is to claim that we know enough about how
>living organisms replicate to be able to build, in principle, an
>analogous self-replicating machine.  But there is still so
>much that is not understood about how cells replicate that a cautious
>thinker might well be justified in waiting until we actually have a working
>self-replicating machine before claiming that one can be built.

We know that we can in principle build a self-replicator because self-
replicators exist in nature.  It's not necessary that we thoroughly
understand how cells work to do the job; we know, through observation
of physical events, that it has been accomplished and therefore, that
it can be accomplished again.

I don't understand why we would need to know all about the workings of
a cell to artificially duplicate one of its properties, that of self-
replication.  We don't know everything about how the human brain works,
but we can build machines that do arithmetic, when formerly that was the
sole province of the brain.  We didn't have to learn how birds work to
duplicate their ability to fly.  We built fusion bombs before we
understood the inner workings of the sun, and we still have a lot to
learn.  There's nothing more magical about self-replication than there is
about any of the above, and no reason I can imagine why it should be any
more difficult to imitate through human artifice.

-- 
"This coffee is my blood, this breakfast burrito is my flesh.  And
 it cost me 89 cents, so get your goddamned own." - Jeff Lester, "Saint 11"