Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!nanotech
From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: sci.nanotech
Subject: Re: Why I think Nanotechnology is Bogus
Message-ID: <Jun.27.01.46.24.1989.12893@athos.rutgers.edu>
Date: 27 Jun 89 05:46:25 GMT
Sender: nanotech@athos.rutgers.edu
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
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Approved: nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu


In article <Jun.24.01.04.41.1989.23818@athos.rutgers.edu>, James.Price.Salsman@cat.cmu.edu writes:
> First, I think nanotechnology is bogus, because I think that
> information requires finite space.  I believe that there is
> a fundamental volume that a "bit" must occupy in order for
> it to be stable as a memory cell.  I think that dreams of
> embedding a typical "AI" program in an object the size of a
> mitochondria is silly.

Admittedly, the average cell's nucleus is a couple of order of
magnitudes larger than a mitochondrion, but it contains a very
complex program that directs the creation of a new person.  For
that matter, the mitochondrion contains its own complex program
that directs much of the metabolic pathway.  Your "impossibility
results" are belied by known counterexamples.

Since such programs exist, perhaps you wish to argue that we
cannot create such programs, rather than that they are impossible. 

Russell