[-empyre-] creating environmental conditions / creating teleological perspectives

[Adrian Bowyer]

Adrian Freed wrote:

>> I'm counting them by counting them.  It's numbers, not volume,
>> mass, or whatever.
> 
> I still don't know what the "them" is you are counting. I am
> including the electronics and software (they surely are part of the
> "organism") and I count dozens of components, each of which has
> thousands and sometimes millions of sub components.

Just as you and I each have trillions of electrons, and you and I have 
two (or fewer) arms.  But neither is an appropriate level at which to 
count components.  I take the rather simple view, that seems 
reasonable to me, that you count the pieces on the bench in front of 
you before you start to put the machine together.  (RepRap has an SD 
card slot into which we could put an SD card containing all the 
instructions for all its parts.  An SD card is one part.)

But this is all angels dancing on pin-heads.  The important thing is 
to make a reproducer that is designed to be symbiotic with people and 
to give them something they want in return for being helped to 
reproduce.  That way its future is hitched to that of the most 
powerful reproducer that has ever lived, giving it a high likelihood 
of Darwinian success.  If it is more efficient if it makes a greater 
proportion of its parts, then that is the direction in which it will 
evolve.  If that makes it less efficient (unlikely), then it will 
evolve the other way.

>> The machinery of life is proteins.  We can make 60% of our
>> proteins (compared to RepRap's 50% of itself).  For the rest we
>> rely (directly
> 
> I can't find the the support for this claim either. I found this in
> wikipedia: "Of the twenty-two standard amino acids, eight are
> called essential amino acids because the human body cannot
> synthesize them from other compounds at the level needed for normal
> growth, so they must be obtained from food. However, the situation
> is quite complicated since cysteine, taurine, tyrosine, histidine
> and arginine are semiessential amino acids in children, because the
> metabolic pathways that synthesize these amino acids are not fully
> developed."

14/22 sounds like about 60% to me...


Best wishes

Adrian

Dr Adrian Bowyer
http://people.bath.ac.uk/ensab
http://reprap.org