On Wed, 2011-06-29 at 11:40 -0700, Alan Kay wrote: > Hi Chris > > I think looking at the way biology works is a good perspective. By the way, > we > recycle not just the 10 trillion cells that contain our DNA (and the 90 > Trillion > cells we have with microbial DNA/RNA), but all our *atoms* are replaced about > every 7 years (with the exception of inorganic pigments from tattooing, etc., > which take quite a bit longer). > > The only human artifact that is remotely like this is the Internet, which has > been able to grow and replace most parts large and small without having to > ever > be stopped. > > It is worth considering the scaling differences between biological structures > and those we can make with computer hardware and software. These are some of > several reasons why going directly after how bio does it is not very > feasible. > Similarly, evolution takes a very long time to figure out things compared to > brains, so we should be interested in not just "eternal computing as microbes > do > it" but "eternal computing with goals at human levels". > > The Masters thesis looks interesting! > > Cheers, > > Alan
Hi Alan, thanks for the reply :) I think one reason for the Internet not quite fitting with 'human-level goals' is that the abstraction created by the network falls down at the point where humans actually use it (the desktop/laptop/phone/etc.) At the network level we have the Internet, as an 'Intergalactic Network', but it is never interacted with directly. Instead it has become, in the developed world at least, a ubiquitous communication medium *for our devices*. At the software level we have, for example, Smalltalk. As has been mentioned many times before, this is essentially its own network of pluggable computers (objects). Humans interact with these object networks in a much more direct way than we interact with the Internet. However, these miniature worlds are (in the vast majority of cases) running inside one device at a time, with perhaps some limited form of RPC linking some specific worlds together. These software worlds cannot be part of the Internet unless they too become 'eternal' like the Internet. At the hardware level we don't yet have an equivalent to these massively networked systems. If a device dies, we have to seek a replacement, then recover from a backup or start from scratch. This is why our software worlds aren't 'eternal' (see the philosophy behind Erlang, for example: no software can be called reliable if its running on one machine). Even if our devices are working perfectly, we may not have access to them, which again interrupts what we could otherwise do (can I borrow your phone? Where's the nearest cybercafe? Should I hold off doing this until I have my documents available? How hard would it be to rewrite that thing I left at home? etc.). Whilst computers are becoming pervasive, *our computers* are not pervasive. They sit in one location at a time. Contrast this to 'paintable computing', where computers exist as "blobs of hardware", which we can rip pieces off and take with us, or squish together to create a more powerful computer. These are the ideal wearable computer, as they are perfectly acceptable standalone machines wherever we are, but when we sit at a desk they merge with our office computer seamlessly so that we don't have to care about eg. sync issues. There is of course the 'cloud computing' trend, but whilst this may 'solve' the data issue (as long as there is Internet connectivity, you trust the supplier, etc.) it still doesn't solve the core issue I am mentioning here which is that the hardware needs replacing. For those who've seen Google's Chrome netbook advert ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm-Vnx58UYo ) my point is that in real life, there is no helpful assistant to furnish us with an infinite supply of replacement machines. In the "blob of hardware" model, the hardware is *constantly* failing, but there's so much redundancy that we don't notice or care. If a coffee spill breaks some of our computer, we rip that bit off and throw it away. Every once in a while we would prune off the dead parts from our computers (while the working parts are still running, uninterrupted), buy a pack of fresh computer and stick it on. I understand that this is very blue sky, but the key point is that we can only interact with the Internet (and the Web, etc.) from discrete boxes of metal and silicon. Having everything on the Web doesn't help us if, for example, someone else happens to be sat in front of our metal +silicon box at the moment. Does this gel with other people's thoughts of 'eternal computing'? Thanks, Chris Warburton PS: I'm afraid I can't contribute much to the hardcore biology discussion, as it's way beyond me (my background is Physics and Computer Science) _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list [email protected] http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
