On 10/1/2012 3:39 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
An interesting perspective on evolution vs. engineering:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdg4mU-wuhI
From an engineer who uses evolution to design computers.
Notable points:
He is unable to understand how some of the outputs of this evolutionary process work,
but they work better than any design he could come up with.
So does he have a sorting algorithm that's does better than O(n log n)? I've never heard
of it. And if he doesn't understand the program how can he be sure it correctly sorts all
inputs - did he try them?
Traditional engineering methods fail when the human mind can't understand a machine that
has billions of independent components (transistors).
"Can't understand" is relative to levels of description and function. Of course computer
designers depend on computers to do details of the design, but they still understand it at
higher level.
He sees us humans not as the end product of evolution, but as a stage, or a tool of
evolution to bring about the next thing.
But if we don't use our reason to bring it about, it may be radiation resistant blue-green
algae that likes hot water.
Brent
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