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I think the author covered it sufficiently, because the author is correct that if you just walk up to someone with the referenced videos, they are going to come
by jerf 4y ago
I think the author covered it sufficiently, because the author is correct that if you just walk up to someone with the referenced videos, they are going to come away with the mistakes the video author discusses. They're going to think things have specific functions, in specific ways, in the super-orderly manners presented, etc.
Redefining machine to the point that it happens to cover what cells really are won't change those misconceptions, or at least, it won't change them for a very long time and until you get those definitions propagated far and wide. Which will be an uphill battle because they are frankly less useful than the current definition we have, which works in the real world we all interact with.
Nobody is hearing "the cell is a machine" and then goes off thinking "ah, what they clearly mean is that it is a whole lot of goop interacting in shocking complicated ways with each other all the time resembling literally nothing else a human calls a machine". Playing games with definitions is, well, exactly that: Playing games with definitions. It doesn't actually change anything in the world.
- adamredwoods 4y agoThis was similar to my understanding (with my limited insight). If we are researching a particular cell interaction, thinking it as a machine, we may walk away with wrong conclusions if we hypothesize, set up a test, and study results, thinking that this machine is expected to work the same way every time.
- omginternets 4y agoI suppose that's fair. I guess I'm lamenting the missed opportunity for an interesting philosophical discussion, and perhaps wishing the author had presented his (otherwise very interesting!) thoughts through a more nuanced lens. I don't think he would even need to change the title. I still enjoyed the article, and would upvote it again if I could.
- mxkopy 4y agoGEB explores a similar idea in investigating where a program is written It's implied that the distinctions are somewhat arbitrary. For example, a song is "written" on a record with a bunch of grooves, and the record-player is the machine that plays it. But if the record-player spun backwards instead of forwards, you'd hear something completely different. So in some sense, the record-player also holds part of the program. And all this runs parallel to the idea that a program is also data, IMO. I think a 'non-arbitrary' definition of a machine would be very general.
- bsder 4y ago> Nobody is hearing "the cell is a machine" and then goes off thinking "ah, what they clearly mean is that it is a whole lot of goop interacting in shocking complicated ways with each other all the time resembling literally nothing else a human calls a machine". Erm, a lot of the "nanomachine" people think exactly like this. Even simple things like "gears" do weird things an the nano level. Nevertheless, the biggest problems with the conception of a "cell" would be solved if we quit drawing them in 2D. Draw some cells as spheres. Draw muscle cells as slightly elongated cylinders. etc. If we drew the cells in 3D with chunks missing for labels, students would have a much better conception. Starting with: "Oh, hey, there isn't a huge amount of empty space--there's crap everywhere. These things are packed".