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i believe there is a disconnect between “is like a computer” and “is like a computer that i can understand and program”. if you were going for the latter i agre
by rantwasp 6y ago
i believe there is a disconnect between “is like a computer” and “is like a computer that i can understand and program”. if you were going for the latter i agree, we are not there yet.
but it you define a computer as something that runs on some sort of code and translates input to output literally everything can be seen as a computer. the more complex something is the more impressive it is.
you should also probably update your profile description since it’s literally confirming what i am saying :)) (ie I've been: A molecular biologist that discovered that an enzyme was secretly an NPN transistor)
- dnautics 6y agoAn npn transistor is not a computer, and in this case it's literal. The molecule had an negative, a positive, and a negative iron sulfur clusters. However, it most certainly wasn't acting in a logic gate; if anything it's activity functionally was closer to a diode than a transistor, by blocking bulk current flow in one direction but not the other (but, for quantum reasons, it has to be a transistor to do that). There were no data transformations in it's activity. To wit: I didn't get my job done on that project because I thought of it as a computer, I got it done because having been a curious child who also did computers I happened to know (and remember into adulthood) how computers work at a very low level and was able to make an insight based on that, nothing particularly CSey.
- rantwasp 6y agoan npn transistor can be regarded as a computer. it's like a digital switch. was there something special that made you think npn or could it have also been a pnp transistor? (ie it was just acting as a transistor) anyways, we may disagree but you do sound like a fascinating person. molecular biology, CS, elixir. that's a rare but exciting combo. what materials would you recommend for someone who is a rookie but wants to learn more about molecular biology?
- dnautics 6y agoIt's npn, as I said, because there was a positively charged iron sulfur cluster between two negatively charged iron sulfur clusters. In a row. Like literally it could not be a pnp element. And not all switches are computers. You wouldn't call your wall lightswitch a computer, because in the general case, the current running through it is not meaningfully carrying data. I don't really recommend 'learning' molecular biology. There really is no substitute for designing a molecular biology experiment, starting with dna synthesis, through cloning, and seeing it through to its biochemical outcome. It's not terribly time consuming, I had an intern that I took through the steps in 3 months, starting from no lab experience he completed 50 mutations on the enzyme, tested half of them, and got a paper out of it.
- rantwasp 6y agoall switches are computers :) you have an input, a state and an output. if i'm hearing what you're saying correctly, you seem to have a complexity barrier that something must reach to be called a computer. i'm more liberal when it comes to defining a computer. why don't you recommend learning molecular biology? is it hard to grasp without the practical experiments? what's your thinking behind "i don't recommend it"?