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I had this view once, and then I married a microbiologist. Nothing in biology is simple. Nothing. Even the simplest things are orders of magnitude more complex
by VyseofArcadia 4y ago
I had this view once, and then I married a microbiologist.
Nothing in biology is simple. Nothing. Even the simplest things are orders of magnitude more complex than I ever could have imagined from my lofty platonic realm of numbers and functions.
Life is fractal. Every time you zoom in, there is just as much complexity as the previous zoom level.
- programmer_dude 4y agoAbsolutely, but I suspect much of this complexity is accidental / incidental in nature. It is needed to support the physical aspects of the biological processes. The essential (algorithmic / mathematical) part will be quite simple and can be emulated in a few thousand lines of code. Complex algorithms are not energy efficient and since the brain is highly energy efficient we must preclude such algorithms from consideration.
- VyseofArcadia 4y ago> I suspect much of this complexity is accidental / incidental in nature From what little I know, I am unwilling to make that assumption, but I do think that starting with a relatively simple algorithmic/mathematical biology-inspired take and slowly ratcheting up the complexity as needed is a reasonable way to proceed.
- programmer_dude 4y agoAgreed!
- fnordpiglet 4y agoExcept it’s all basically clever tricks to cause gradient diffusion to do what is needed.