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I can imagine a world where you can simulate a simple organism like a worm without knowing how to simulate the cells that make it. This is because emergent beha

by typon 2y ago

I can imagine a world where you can simulate a simple organism like a worm without knowing how to simulate the cells that make it. This is because emergent behaviour of complex systems can be much simpler than the constituent parts of that system (temperature vs. knowing particle velocities).

amelius 2y ago
How are you going to simulate the administering of a medicinal molecule? Or the knocking out of a gene?
- typon 2y ago
  My modelling the relevant parts of the worm that are involved in these processes. You don't need an atomistic DFT simulator to get a good enough simulation of fluid dynamics, enough to design jets or rockets that go into space.
  - amelius 2y ago
    > modelling the relevant parts of the worm that are involved in these processes. You mean cell chemistry?
kingkawn 2y ago
But none of that means you should take a drug bc someone’s elaborately technologized guess is that it’ll be okay
yathern 2y ago
I can write a program today that can simulate a worms "emergent behavior" without simulating the cells. Maybe a little 3D model that wriggles around. I can even do a human! But I think what we're looking for here is something closer to emulation. In the same way that video game console emulators seek to reproduce the exact bugs that the original hardware produced - the value here does not come from abstracting away the lowest levels of behavior.
- JPLeRouzic 2y ago
  > the value here does not come from abstracting away the lowest levels of behavior I totally agree.
SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
It seems to me that if you can fully simulate a worm you're probably only an order of magnitude of difficulty away from a person, but to get there you need to have crossed dozens across many domains.
Palomides 2y ago
there's https://openworm.org/ https://openworm.org/ for simulating a c. elegans, but think you're underestimating the complexities

by typon 2y ago

amelius 2y ago

How are you going to simulate the administering of a medicinal molecule? Or the knocking out of a gene?

typon 2y ago
My modelling the relevant parts of the worm that are involved in these processes. You don't need an atomistic DFT simulator to get a good enough simulation of fluid dynamics, enough to design jets or rockets that go into space.
- amelius 2y ago
  > modelling the relevant parts of the worm that are involved in these processes. You mean cell chemistry?

kingkawn 2y ago

But none of that means you should take a drug bc someone’s elaborately technologized guess is that it’ll be okay

yathern 2y ago

I can write a program today that can simulate a worms "emergent behavior" without simulating the cells. Maybe a little 3D model that wriggles around. I can even do a human! But I think what we're looking for here is something closer to emulation. In the same way that video game console emulators seek to reproduce the exact bugs that the original hardware produced - the value here does not come from abstracting away the lowest levels of behavior.

JPLeRouzic 2y ago
> the value here does not come from abstracting away the lowest levels of behavior I totally agree.

SketchySeaBeast 2y ago

It seems to me that if you can fully simulate a worm you're probably only an order of magnitude of difficulty away from a person, but to get there you need to have crossed dozens across many domains.

Palomides 2y ago

there's https://openworm.org/ https://openworm.org/ for simulating a c. elegans, but think you're underestimating the complexities