[ma1069]

I don't believe it's a fair comparison... modern CPUs can run, by definition, a pretty basic range of operations, and every intent has to be encoded in a extremely complex sequence of commands. Given a certain CPU architecture and a certain algorithm to implement, someone might be able to properly infer the expected size of a compiled binary. But, by pushing the concept to the absurd, one day we might build a super-sophisticated CPU that runs code at such an high level of abstraction that the Dawrf Fortress game is encoded in a single binary digit, whose sole meaning is "Play Dwarf Fortress". Between the 10MB binary running in modern CPUs and the single 1-bit binary running in our hypotetical "super-CPU" stand all the possible devices that have been existed and that will be ever invented... How can you place a living cell in this scale? Unless you can do it, any discussion about binary size is simply pointless...

[fraytormenta]

The "super-CPU" that you have described has to come from the same DNA. So if you take bits away from behavior to make "super-CPU," the definition of the "super-CPU" has consumed the data that used to encode behavior, leaving us with the same problem.