Beyond Electricity?

[Budz]

Never mind "no electricity".


What happened to that golden future in which power would be so cheap to make that we end users wouldn't get charged...?

make your own solar panels..

 

[Metryq]

make your own solar panels..

Right, and after we've shot all the barred owls in order to preserve the order of evolution, we'll blanket the entire planet with solar panels to power the grow lights for our farms.

 

[Ursa major]

Not the whole planet, just the deserts.

 

[RJM Corbet]

... Are there any alternative forces we could use ... Some force not yet discovered? ...

Yes. The spiral energy of 'vortexia' ...

 

[Michael01]

I'm not sure that there will be a place for organic computers. Anything organic relies on an on-going chemical reaction which is expensive to setup and maintain. Stopping the reaction and restarting it might also be difficult. It is difficult to see what the advantages organic computers would have over non-organic ones.

What if it's actually some sort of living creature? Not sure how feasible this is, for computers, but it's a thought. You would not need to turn it off; you just need to feed it. We could probably breed them so that they don't eat too much, either.

Yeah, right....

I was just remembering West of Eden by Harry Harrison. Been so long since I read it that I don't remember all the details. The reptilians (or whatever they were called - think I should read it again) had a purely biological technology. They literally grew their homes and even heated them with living creatures. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure they did not have computers.

Even if it is feasible (and I have my doubts), I suppose "organic" computers would have some advantages then. They'd still be using electricity, of course.

 

[RJM Corbet]

What if it's actually some sort of living creature? Not sure how feasible this is, for computers, but it's a thought. You would not need to turn it off; you just need to feed it. We could probably breed them so that they don't eat too much, either.

Yeah, right....

I was just remembering West of Eden by Harry Harrison. Been so long since I read it that I don't remember all the details. The reptilians (or whatever they were called - think I should read it again) had a purely biological technology. They literally grew their homes and even heated them with living creatures. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure they did not have computers.

Even if it is feasible (and I have my doubts), I suppose "organic" computers would have some advantages then. They'd still be using electricity, of course.

The aliens in Stephen Donaldson's 'Gap' used to grow their spacecraft ...

 

[Ursa major]

What if it's actually some sort of living creature? Not sure how feasible this is, for computers, but it's a thought. You would not need to turn it off...

This would give a whole new meaning to the Blue Screen of Death.

 

[Michael01]

This would give a whole new meaning to the Blue Screen of Death.

Ooh...yes it would. How...horrifying.

RJM: Hey, that's cool. I've been meaning to read Gap. Gonna have to pick it up soon. (Um, probably after I find the time to finish Wheel of Time and Thomas Covenant, both of which I've been working on for the last couple of years; school gets in the way of my reading for pleasure).

 

[Vertigo]

Hamilton's Edenist habitats and spaceships are 'grown' from seeds. The idea of accurately controlled organic growth is very very close now. You can design a new cell now with a language very like a software programming language. So 'growing' things designed for particular high tech purposes is remarkably close to being realised.

The ides of growing an organic computer should not be rejected as being silly either. We have yet to build a computer that has anything like the complexity, storage capacity or indeed speed of the human brain. And before you complain about the imprecision of the human brain; it is only our conscious mind that is imprecise and slow. Scientists estimate that more that 90% of our brain activity is subconscious and that has been shown to be remarkably accurate and capable of phenomenal computations and incredible speed, not to mention absolutely huge storage capacity. Just look at our ability to catch a thrown ball for example. The work required to estimate the ball's trajectory is staggering and we do it almost instantly (well most of us do!).

Now imagine designing something like that that is specialised instead of the very very general purpose computer we carry around in our heads.

 

[Metryq]

The work required to estimate the ball's trajectory is staggering and we do it almost instantly (well most of us do!).

To modify a line from The Matrix: "Catch this!"

I'm not contesting the amazing power of the human brain, but the fusion between mind and matter is blurred. How much of playing catch is mind, and how much physical reflex? What exactly is reflex? Does a case like Phineas Gage demonstrate the mechanics of the brain, the elusiveness of "consciousness," or the subtlety in which they are combined?

 

[Vertigo]

Reflex in this sense is just another word for subconscious. Yes we do have some pure reflex muscle twitches (knees and elbows being the classics) but almost all our muscles movements (and the suppression of movements) is controlled by our subconscious.

A recent Horizon documentary on a couple of nights back showed people chasing a toy helicopter programmed to move randomly. Each person was frantically running around the place trying to catch it. They had cameras strapped to their heads. To all appearances there seemed to be no pattern to their movements. However when the camera video was examined each person had subconsciously moved their bodies and heads so that the apparent movement of the helicopter as seen by the camera against reference points in the background was an almost perfect straight line. This was all controlled by the subconscious and was exactly the same in each person even though each person described very different strategies that they were consciously employing to catch the toy.

So called muscle memory had recently been shown to be generated by a 'rewiring' of the relevant part of the conscious brain; known as brain plasticity or neuroplasticity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity).

It would be a mistake, I think, to rule out organic computing.

 

[Dave]

I can foresee a day when everything is "grown" biologically. There are 3D printers now but they are a long way from being 'Star Trek' replicators, and I don't see that being a likely path taken. We can already harness replication by DNA and fairly soon will be able to grow replacement organs. Once we work out what the genetic programming codes are, then it wouldn't be huge step to start writing our own code. Just think of the advantages of self-replicating, self-repairing vehicles and machines? Giving them brains would prevent accidents but I'd stop short of giving them intelligence. Of course, one day the coffee machine evolves intelligence by itself, and after that??

 

[Vertigo]

I can foresee a day when everything is "grown" biologically. There are 3D printers now but they are a long way from being 'Star Trek' replicators, and I don't see that being a likely path taken. We can already harness replication by DNA and fairly soon will be able to grow replacement organs. Once we work out what the genetic programming codes are, then it wouldn't be huge step to start writing our own code. Just think of the advantages of self-replicating, self-repairing vehicles and machines? Giving them brains would prevent accidents but I'd stop short of giving them intelligence. Of course, one day the coffee machine evolves intelligence by itself, and after that??

As I said we are getting very very close to that now. Some would argue we are there already and merely need to refine and improve.

Qath is a high-level programming language to design genetic information on large scales: to compile or redesign entire genomes.

from here: http://www.qath.net/

 

[Michael01]

As I said we are getting very very close to that now. Some would argue we are there already and merely need to refine and improve.


from here: http://www.qath.net/

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing the link, Vertigo!

 

[clovis-man]

Well, the Krell figured out how to do it "without instrumentalities" and look where it got them. WiFi gone wrong, I guess.

 

[Kaladan]

This would give a whole new meaning to the Blue Screen of Death.

And there'd be no tech support, only an amalgamation of vets and IT professionals.

Just think how many more lolcats we'd have.

The future is bright indeed.

 

[Vertigo]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing the link, Vertigo!

Yeah, it is very interesting and also a little scary. However that is one Pandora's box we'll never get the lid back on.

 

[Michael01]

Hmm. Yes, that is probably so.

 

[Vertigo]

I actually think that if the last century was the century of electronics* this century may well prove to be the century of genetics or maybe more accurately biotech.

* Some people consider the transistor to have been a more significant discovery than the wheel, in terms of its impact on human life. Today every year the world manufactures over 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 transistors. Apparently this is one hundred times more that the sum total of all the grains of rice consumed (by humans) every year!

 

[Cherguevara]

The irony being that steam is not obsolete - we still use this method for generating electricity (including Nuclear Power). All we do is convert the energy from steam to electricity and pass it down the wires.