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Can't speed up nature We can, with computers. Well, maybe not today, not at the atomic level, but quite possible in a few decades.
by p1esk 4y ago
Can't speed up nature
We can, with computers. Well, maybe not today, not at the atomic level, but quite possible in a few decades.
- robbiep 4y agoSo… we can’t?
- eru 4y agoWe can't today, but maybe in the future.
- robbiep 4y agoSo we can’t
- eru 4y agoThat's pretty weird position. Eg I can fly to Hong Kong. Not today, because I haven't booked a flight and it's getting late, but probably in the next few days, if I really wanted to. You'd say that I "can't"?
- robbiep 4y agoIt is currently feasible for anyone, with the right resources, to fly to Hong Kong. It is not currently feasible for anyone to speed up or simulate nature in silico. These are quite different positions, the idea that you would equivocate them frankly is bizarre
- notriskfree 4y agoPeople working in labs today must be speeding up nature significantly on a daily basis. Perform lots of concurrent experiments, apply different environmental stresses, provide different nutrition, cross different variants you find useful, automate all the processes and tests. I think the project referenced seems to be deliberately not doing that, to observe the natural speed of change.
- veddox 4y ago> We can, with computers. Lenski and his colleagues have been working on that too, with the Avida platform (https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01568 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature01568). Although that was 20 years ago and I haven't heard much from it lately, so I don't know how active this still is.