6 ms·

Lists are the most ingenious data structures possible; Nature uses them exclusively -- or what do you think DNA or our brain ore molecules are consisting of? (

by polos 17y ago

Lists are the most ingenious data structures possible; Nature uses them exclusively -- or what do you think DNA or our brain ore molecules are consisting of? (You don't have 'arrays' or 'hashes' in Nature, and why would you need them? Read on:) The only difficulty with lists is interconnection with other list elements; Nature uses this heavily, and our brain would not be possible without these inter-connections. So -- lists as used in our current computer systems may be slow, but they are still the best data structure ever created.

randallsquared 17y ago
Maybe you have a point I'm missing, but I'd think it was obvious that Nature uses mappings... ;)
kleevr 17y ago
What about the parts of the (human) brain that are just some wet-wired differential processing grid. Though their phenotype is ultimately prescribed in DNA (granted a list), I wouldn't be surprised to find that many of those "moving parts" are more efficiently approximated/realized by things like 'hashes' (etc) as opposed to lists. (My apologies if I'm out of my depth here.)
- Scriptor 17y ago
  Could you be more specific about what you mean? What exactly is a processing grid and which parts of the brain do you mean? Not questioning you, just really desperate right now for inspiration.
  - kleevr 17y ago
    Ray Kurzweil's book: "The Singularity is Near" My copy isn't so near, but I think my "intuitions" were informed somewhere in one of his "Reverse Engineering the Human Brain" sections. (Sorry I can't provide a more precise reference.) His book is well footnoted, and if there are in fact scientific studies reinforcing what I claim to remember him having written, I'm sure they would be documented there. If you haven't read it, and your looking for some hyper-tech sort of inspiration, I highly recommend it. It is maybe a bit exhaustive for the casual reader, but well worth it considering it's detail and scope. (And my apologies to RayK if I'm entirely mistaken in my understanding.)
Scriptor 17y ago
How is DNA not an array? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Lisp lists are linked lists, so elements don't have to be next to each other in memory. On the other hand, DNA is stored and processed from one molecule to the next one physically.
- polos 17y ago
  Lists or arrays? Nature doesn't know arrays. There's no index (which is the only real distinctive between arrays and lists), and the next atom of information can be (physically) more or less distant from the previous one, so: Nature only uses lists. Think of it: arrays are only used because of faster accessing reasons, otherwise you never would even think of preferring arrays over lists. Lists are perfect, because they already contain the previous and the after information bit, which is always crucial to us -- we all are enclosed in the time barrier -- and all of other memory alignment and usage, invented by computer scientists, were simply born out of the necessity of speed, and nothing else. Lists contain the information stored in the simplest possible way, without wasting any bit of information (which would be necessary if you would care about an index). Interconnection is the real reason why computers never will be able to substitute a human brain -- and this statement (or better: fact) will never grow old...
  - astine 17y ago
    That is such a bone-headed analysis, I'm not sure how to respond. If by index, you mean the reference we use to access an element of an array, that is just the physical location of that element in memory with the offset of the array subtracted. (High-level languiges do math under the covers to simplify things for the progammer, but that's basically it.) Lists use the exact same information., except they contain it literally. Lists are perfect, because they already contain the previous and the after information bit, which is always crucial to us -- we all are enclosed in the time barrier -- and all of other memory alignment and usage, invented by computer scientists, were simply born out of the necessity of speed, and nothing else. No , they were born because they are much simpler to implement and imagine than linked lists. They continue to be used be used becaue they are faster simpler, and use less space than linked lists. Nature only uses lists. No, Nature uses neither lists nor arrays. Atoms, generally are neither fixed in location (as in the case of arrays), nor do they conain the location of their neighbors (as in the case of lists.) Interconnection is the real reason why computers ne.ver will be able to substitute a human brain -- and this statement (or better: fact) will never grow old... Simply untrue. The fact is that both lists and arrays are abstractions really exist outside of computers. One may argue wither whetehr the human brain is or molecules are more organized as a list or an array, but it's a dumb debate.

by polos 17y ago

randallsquared 17y ago

Maybe you have a point I'm missing, but I'd think it was obvious that Nature uses mappings... ;)

kleevr 17y ago

What about the parts of the (human) brain that are just some wet-wired differential processing grid. Though their phenotype is ultimately prescribed in DNA (granted a list), I wouldn't be surprised to find that many of those "moving parts" are more efficiently approximated/realized by things like 'hashes' (etc) as opposed to lists. (My apologies if I'm out of my depth here.)

Scriptor 17y ago
Could you be more specific about what you mean? What exactly is a processing grid and which parts of the brain do you mean? Not questioning you, just really desperate right now for inspiration.
- kleevr 17y ago
  Ray Kurzweil's book: "The Singularity is Near" My copy isn't so near, but I think my "intuitions" were informed somewhere in one of his "Reverse Engineering the Human Brain" sections. (Sorry I can't provide a more precise reference.) His book is well footnoted, and if there are in fact scientific studies reinforcing what I claim to remember him having written, I'm sure they would be documented there. If you haven't read it, and your looking for some hyper-tech sort of inspiration, I highly recommend it. It is maybe a bit exhaustive for the casual reader, but well worth it considering it's detail and scope. (And my apologies to RayK if I'm entirely mistaken in my understanding.)

Scriptor 17y ago

How is DNA not an array? Correct me if I'm wrong, but Lisp lists are linked lists, so elements don't have to be next to each other in memory. On the other hand, DNA is stored and processed from one molecule to the next one physically.

polos 17y ago
Lists or arrays? Nature doesn't know arrays. There's no index (which is the only real distinctive between arrays and lists), and the next atom of information can be (physically) more or less distant from the previous one, so: Nature only uses lists. Think of it: arrays are only used because of faster accessing reasons, otherwise you never would even think of preferring arrays over lists. Lists are perfect, because they already contain the previous and the after information bit, which is always crucial to us -- we all are enclosed in the time barrier -- and all of other memory alignment and usage, invented by computer scientists, were simply born out of the necessity of speed, and nothing else. Lists contain the information stored in the simplest possible way, without wasting any bit of information (which would be necessary if you would care about an index). Interconnection is the real reason why computers never will be able to substitute a human brain -- and this statement (or better: fact) will never grow old...
- astine 17y ago
  That is such a bone-headed analysis, I'm not sure how to respond. If by index, you mean the reference we use to access an element of an array, that is just the physical location of that element in memory with the offset of the array subtracted. (High-level languiges do math under the covers to simplify things for the progammer, but that's basically it.) Lists use the exact same information., except they contain it literally. Lists are perfect, because they already contain the previous and the after information bit, which is always crucial to us -- we all are enclosed in the time barrier -- and all of other memory alignment and usage, invented by computer scientists, were simply born out of the necessity of speed, and nothing else. No , they were born because they are much simpler to implement and imagine than linked lists. They continue to be used be used becaue they are faster simpler, and use less space than linked lists. Nature only uses lists. No, Nature uses neither lists nor arrays. Atoms, generally are neither fixed in location (as in the case of arrays), nor do they conain the location of their neighbors (as in the case of lists.) Interconnection is the real reason why computers ne.ver will be able to substitute a human brain -- and this statement (or better: fact) will never grow old... Simply untrue. The fact is that both lists and arrays are abstractions really exist outside of computers. One may argue wither whetehr the human brain is or molecules are more organized as a list or an array, but it's a dumb debate.