On Sunday, September 30, 2018 at 12:30:33 AM UTC-5, [email protected] wrote: > > > > On Saturday, September 29, 2018 at 9:28:34 PM UTC, Philip Thrift wrote: >> >> >> >> On Saturday, September 29, 2018 at 3:53:04 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On 9/29/2018 1:45 PM, [email protected] wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> On Saturday, September 29, 2018 at 8:07:12 PM UTC, Brent wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On 9/29/2018 4:34 AM, [email protected] wrote: >>>> >>>> A bacteria is already a computer (at least), >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> *Really? Then you should be able to identify the entities that store >>>> binary information. And where is the clock which pulses and advances the >>>> instruction pointer? And where is the instruction pointer located? AG* >>>> >>>> >>>> Not all computers are von Neumann computers. >>>> >>>> Brent >>>> >>> >>> *Maybe he means a parallel processor, but whatever he means should be >>> spelled out explicitly. One can't just assert, as if it's obvious, that a >>> bacteria is already a computer. * >>> >>> >>> Of course it is obvious that a bacterium computes things...like swimming >>> toward nutrients and how to make another bacterium. >>> >>> Brent >>> >>> >> Bacterial computing: a form of natural computing and its applications >> - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3971165/ >> >> Bacteria make computers look like pocket calculators >> - https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2009/jul/24/bacteria-computer >> >> Bacteria Can Now Be Programmed Like a Computer >> - >> https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/43d9en/bacteria-can-now-be-programmed-like-a-computer >> >> >> - pt >> > > What is a computer -- what is it -- that bacteria can be seen as being > like? Why bother to define it. Nothing obvious here except sloppy use of > analogies. AG > > >> >
*What is a computer?* A computer is a device that executes programs. If we can synthesize bacteria that execute programs (which we can do), then these bacteria are computers. - pt -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
