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He did not try to say it was turing complete. He was making an analogy: CRISPR:mRNA::Turing Complete:Non-Turing Complete. Not sure how deep that analogy is, sin
by singlow 5y ago
He did not try to say it was turing complete. He was making an analogy: CRISPR:mRNA::Turing Complete:Non-Turing Complete. Not sure how deep that analogy is, since non-turing complete systems can still be very powerful. But I think it gits the idea across OK.
- dekhn 5y agoOK, it was written very misleadingly. Further, the comparison doesn't even make sense. RNA molecules can fold into ribozymes and carry out activity. In principle, you could make a turing machine with RNA molecules, although the error correciton would be fantastically hard. Computer scientists, please stop making CS/biology analogies.
- Dylan16807 5y agoBut that's not how analogies work. When someone says "A is to B as X is to Y", you're not supposed to start comparing B to X. Your post is comparing B to X. Let me try to come up with another example... Let's say I make an analogy like "a house relates to a wall the same way a forest relates to a tree". (It's not a very good analogy, but that doesn't matter here.) If you look at that analogy and then start talking about how you can use a tree to build a wall, you are doing analogies wrong. The items on the left of the analogy are not supposed to be compared to the items on the right of the analogy. You're only supposed to compare the relation on the left to the relation on the right. Your discussion of RNA-based Turing machines is doing analogies wrong in the same manner. Turing machines are on one side of the analogy and RNA is on the opposite side.