I could have told them that this would work, it's pretty obvious!
For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides
311–320 of 323 posts
Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, mechanically constructing life would be absolutely stupendous for science. The real tragedy of modern sci-fi is that everyone read the books and decided it was reality. “Penicillin?! A poison from fungus that kills living cells?! Haven’t you played the sci fi game The Last of Us?” Stories are stories, man. Story-logic is biased towards interesting tales. And “discovery from the natural world turned to human aims…
I think the issue is that those stories are rooted very much in the failures of human systems that we see every day. They are us imagining what could go wrong based on what has gone wrong and is going wrong. It would be a lot easier to set those warnings aside if we didn't have so many examples of the very things they warn about happening in real life. We currently have a system where private individuals can fund pri…
It's regretable you got modded down.
Ever since the industrial revolution, humanity has stumbled from one environmental disaster to the other.
Heavy metals, CFCs, acid rain, radioactive elements that don't occur naturally, microplastics, PFAS, large scale oil spills, greenhouse gasses, deforestation, over-fishing, species extinction, the list goes on & on.
And in each case, early warnings are ignored & the harmful activity is only curbed many decades after deployment at scale, when environmental harm becomes too serious to ignore.
Imho AI is no exception to this rule. Its energy usage alone adds to CO2 emissions at a time those should be reduced. Higher efficiency says anyone? No! Higher productivity. Read: same # of humans can consume even bigger amount of resources per time unit.
Yeah I can envision the wonders AGI/ASI could bring to humanity. But as deployed right now, it mostly helps to worsen a number of problems in human society (CO2 emissions, wealth inequality, concentration of economic/political power, to name a few).
Synthetic life? Absolutely, would be a fantastic scientific milestone. But could also turn into yet another eco disaster.
Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides
#313With these kind of 'demonstrations', the key question is what have we learnt as a result?
Not sure what that is in this case.
Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides
#314Earlier quoted context omitted.
that's a very condescending view from you, to be honest.
Condescending? That's the mission of a scientific journal / conference / etc. Doesn't mean practical development work is "less worthy", but it's not a fit for them.
I disagree. I think it's very important to see how can those papers be turned into real things. Rejecting something for too practical is a joke, and if I ever find out who gave us that review, I'll have a talk with them.
Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides
#315That is closer to consciousness than AI will ever be. :)
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Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
The streak of light generated by a small astronomical body as it moves through the atmosphere of earth (or another astronomical body).
Meteoroid then. Asteroids and meteoroids are the same, except for where they are positions. Mothers and women are the same, except for their relationships to others.
And notice how we have those two different words - mother and woman? You can have words that describe relationships, in fact that is really good! You can even compound words or create whole new ones to encompass multiple types of attributes! What we should avoid is taking widely used words and changing the definition to add a criterion that is of a whole other type of attribute.
Your mother and woman example is perfect! It would not be appropriate to most people to change the definition of woman to a female that had or has an offspring. You are taking a definition that describes an attribute of the subject (gender) and throwing in criteria that is based on a relationship. That makes no sense!
If it is important for you to make a distinction on whether an astronomical body has cleared its neighborhood then you can create a new word or compound word.
Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides
#317Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
> cars are the leading source of carbon emissions. WTF? cars are less than 7% and even including trucks we are barely around 11%. when you look at greenhouse effect instead of "just carbon", the percentages are even tinier. If you are looking for leading sources of climate change look at electricity/heat, industry and agriculture. just because (bad) politicians are always talking about cars when talking about climate…
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
transportation is NOT "passenger cars"
Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides
#319Earlier quoted context omitted.
The commenter was talking about biology and you are talking about physics. Just because your view of one field stagnates doesn't mean the rest of science doesn't, and your quip about stamp collecting (referring to that sneering quote) means you are thinking in memes and are not a serious interlocutor
Understanding how a bunch of baroque proteins interact is the definition of stamp collecting. As a meat bag made up of such machines I appreciate it for what it is. As a intelligence capable of abstraction I don't measure our progress in science by the number of stamps in our collection. There are no big ideas, biology included, because peer review is only there for small ideas.
So you think biology is just proteomics and use meme expressions like 'meat bag', got it. Not updating my prior on you being unserious
Re: For first time, a cell built from scratch grows and divides
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
Understanding how a bunch of baroque proteins interact is the definition of stamp collecting. As a meat bag made up of such machines I appreciate it for what it is. As a intelligence capable of abstraction I don't measure our progress in science by the number of stamps in our collection. There are no big ideas, biology included, because peer review is only there for small ideas.
So you think biology is just proteomics and use meme expressions like 'meat bag', got it. Not updating my prior on you being unserious
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