3 ms·

Luca Cardelli has a very famous article elaborating on this topic, which I recommend for a slightly more hopeful perspective: https://worrydream.com/refs/Carde

• fastaguy88 2y ago
  I'm sorry, but I could not get beyond the first sentence in the abstract: "Living cells are extremely well-organized autonomous systems, consisting of discrete interacting components." Living cells (and most other biological systems) are extremely poorly-organized. They work. Often very inefficiently, with lots of duplication. Any "organization" is purely accidental (in some sense, by definition, since it arose through evolution). Reading a bit farther (RNA is lists, DNA doubly-linked lists) is embarrassing. DNA is double stranded, which does not make a doubly-linked list. And somehow we fail to recognize the difference between template-driven molecules (DNA,RNA,proteins), which have a genetic history, and lipids and carbohydrates, which do not.
  • nextos 2y ago
    Living systems are not hyper efficient, because efficiency leads to fragility, and they have evolved to survive on many scenarios.