Microbes have reproduction constraints (complicated by food and waste constraints) and the idea that a colony of bacteria could work on successively more complicated graphs without running into surface/reproduction constraints is a little hard to believe. Even within a near future sci-fi system which includes modern micro plumbing and micro cafeterias and other stuff that would allow the system to work on more and more complicated problems the petri dish could not solve the problem. If the Hamilton Problem could be solved by breaking it into smaller parts it would not be (or no longer be) a np-complete problem would it?. So the number of microbes that could line the paths would be severely constrained. Jim Bromer
On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 4:51 PM, Jim Bromer <[email protected]> wrote: >> Don't underestimate the complexity of chemical computation occurring with >> microorganisms such as bacteria. The more it's investigated the more >> underestimated the molecular sophistication seems... >> >> Also FYI it's shown that NP-complete problems can be solved with bacterial >> computers: >> http://www.jbioleng.org/content/3/1/11/abstract >> >> John > > Do you understand the basics of their claims? How was the desired > result represented? I mean I read the part about fluorescing both red > and green, but does that mean that the two colonies were on either end > of a 3-node directed path? It doesn't quite make sense to say that > the bacterial computer can solve exponentially complex problems does > it? Is a 3-node directed graph really evidence of an exponential to > polynomial time solution, or is this really just an initial > feasibility test? > Jim Bromer > > > On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 3:21 PM, John Rose via AGI <[email protected]> wrote: >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: Matt Mahoney via AGI [mailto:[email protected]] >>> >>> 10^40 self replicating organisms over the last 3 billion years have long >>> since >>> solved the problem of traveling over snow without leaving footprints, but >>> have >>> failed to solve any NP-complete problems. >>> >> >> Don't underestimate the complexity of chemical computation occurring with >> microorganisms such as bacteria. The more it's investigated the more >> underestimated the molecular sophistication seems... >> >> Also FYI it's shown that NP-complete problems can be solved with bacterial >> computers: >> http://www.jbioleng.org/content/3/1/11/abstract >> >> John >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------- >> AGI >> Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now >> RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/24379807-653794b5 >> Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; >> Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
