[extropy-chat] Smalley, Drexler and the monster in Lake Michigan

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com>

> On Sun, 7 Dec 2003, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:

>
> > (a cell couldn't store enzyme information for making e.g. 20 000
> > building blocks instead of 21)
>
> Well that isn't true -- there are organisms like Amoeba dubia
> that have 670 million BP genomes, 20,000 building blocks
> gives them 33,000 bp/building block which is probably enough
> for 1500+ bases for each enzyme in a 10 step assembly process
> and that doesn't include any reuse of parts of pathways.

### I agree that an organism could be made to store information about 20 000
building blocks - but could it have evolved this information on its own?
(which is what I wanted to question in the sentence you quoted) Even an
organism with 21 aminoacids and only about 30 000 genes (or 60 000 or 100
000, or whatever), like a human, has under natural conditions an early
mortality of about 90%, due to mutations in crucial genes. It would be
difficult to imagine a bug dependent on every single one of the 20 000
blocks and 200 000 enzymes and who knows how many control elements, and
still able to proliferate without recourse to error-checking methods that
would stop its ability to evolve (or force it to have a complex mechanism
for artificially evolving itself without random mutation).

As I was saying, using the clunky living organisms as a proof of principle
for blitz-fast molecular nanotech is valid precisely because of the
evolutionary limitations under which organisms evolved. Once we increase our
computational capability by another 10 orders of magnitude and our knowledge
about chemistry by another 10 Terabytes or so (purely out-of-the-hat filler
numbers), the nanotechnologist, free from the evolutionary limitations, will
be able to use biotechnological approaches to develop MNT.

Rafal