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I think it might actually be in Civ5 that I first heard the following quote: "Asking whether a computer can think is about as useful as asking whether a submar

• marcosdumay 12y ago
  That's from Djigstra. I digress. Most of the times, mimicking Nature works very well. We tend to always remember our most spectacular failure, but that's a selection bias.
  • Houshalter 12y ago
    Cars don't run like horses, solar panels don't use photosynthesis, engines don't work like muscles, computers don't look like biological neurons, etc, etc.
  • andreasvc 12y ago
    His name is Dijkstra. I'm curious how you arrive at the conclusion that mimicking nature works most of the time, do you have some examples?
    • marcosdumay 12y ago
      Looks like the post is too old, and I can't correct it anymore. On my defense, I was quite tired when I wrote it. You don't have to go very far looking for examples. The fictional Nautilus submarine was named after the animal Julio Verne copied its depth control system (the same one all real submarines use till today). Also, the first submarines' shape copied whales, a design that was adapted (but not completely replaced) because it does not work as well witout also copying their propulsion system. By the way, birds wings are better than planes ones in several important ways (but worse in a few others). We don't copy them because we don't have good enough materials, not because it's not a good idea.