[lbo-talk] Computing R&D: science or engineering?

Dwayne Monroe idoru345 at yahoo.com
Fri Jun 8 08:02:10 PDT 2007


Chuck Grimes:

Anyway, computation? I don't what this means. I am not being skeptical exactly, or doubtful. I just need more detail about how computation fits into the picture. But here is one thing I asked myself, where is the clock? All these activities are timed in some fashion, so where is the clock? Or what is the clock? This bares on the idea of computation if you conceive computation as some form of counting. Do cells count?

[...]

.................

This is one of the key questions yet to be answered...and it spawns a sister: is a "clock" needed?

The MAYA II project (a molecular "computer" capable of a few simple operations) has produced intriguing, early stage answers:

<https://digamma.cs.unm.edu/wiki/bin/view/McogPublicWeb/MolecularAutomataMAYAII>

Also, this essay by David Baltimore is very illuminating and shows current thinking in the life sciences at the cutting edge:

DNA is a reality beyond metaphor:

<http://pr.caltech.edu/events/dna/dnabalt2.html>

.d.



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