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How is that a counterargument to Drexlerism? The fact that it already exists would seem to make it more likely that human engineering will leverage it.
by hirundo 4y ago
How is that a counterargument to Drexlerism? The fact that it already exists would seem to make it more likely that human engineering will leverage it.
- api 4y agoYeah but the human engineering you are looking for is mostly called biotech. I think the argument is that there just isn’t a novel field here. Drexler tried to carve one out where none exists to make himself and his followers look like they invented something when they did not. Nanotech is really just gloss on biology, materials engineering, or chemistry, all of which are well aware of quantum scale effects and use them.
- philipswood 4y agoBiology has a pretty limited set of building blocks to work with. Drexler specifically wanted assemblers that could work with aluminum and that could do some extra stuff with carbon that biology can't do.
- api 4y ago> Biology has a pretty limited set of building blocks to work with. Not that small: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Periodic-representations-of-the-elements-A-Conventional-table-with-linear-columns-and_fig3_8882353 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Periodic-representations... Proteins can bind and use all kinds of other elements and the combinatorial space is enormous.