5 ms·
Scale factors in biological systems are collosal. It amuses me when I hear e.g. Alan Kay talk about objects as biological cells. (Conceptually, sure.)
by eternalban 8y ago
Scale factors in biological systems are collosal. It amuses me when I hear e.g. Alan Kay talk about objects as biological cells. (Conceptually, sure.)
- Balgair 8y agoYes, the thermodynamics alone are vastly different between an Elephant and a mouse, let alone between an Elephant and a bacterium. We are somewhat fortunate that life can exist across such vast scales, as it really gives us a lot of things to study and think about.
- eternalban 8y agoI meant the scale range when considering the constituent components of any given biological organism: Let's say we take the hardware basis -- cpu, instruction sets, registers, buses, etc. -- as the 'organic chemistry' analogue -- the substrate. Just the basic cell, which is a profoundly amazing machine, would require layer upon layer of software. By the time we reach the level of an 'organ' or 'system' along the biological model, it would be a monster. We humans, for example, have apparently (per my search engine) somewhere between 10^13 to 10^14 cells. That's 4 to 5 orders of magnitude larger than the total number of computers on this planet.