[TheRealPomax]

Not exactly impressive, nature is famous for calling it quits once something works well enough. Anyone who wants to can create a non-biological neuron/axion connection that runs orders of magnitude faster. The real question is "but does it actually do something" because that's where nature shines pretty well.

[TeacherTortoise]

> nature is famous for calling it quits

Yes, evolution builds upon what went before rather than starting fresh, but nature never calls it quits. It's a process, not a thinking entity. In any stable population there will be variances that have neither a benefit or cost until environmental pressures force it to "select" the most appropriate. You have to look at a longer timescale to see the adaptations take hold.

You could say species dying out is calling it quits in a way, but evolution encompasses everything not just the extinct - but I don't think that's what you meant.

[TheRealPomax]

> You have to look at a longer timescale to see the adaptations take hold.

Hence calling it quits: nature will do what it needs to do until things work well enough, and then calls it quits for that particular feature set until such time where what used to be good enough isn't good enough anymore.

[TeacherTortoise]

I think we are working from different definitions of "calling it quits"

[yourapostasy]

> ...nature is famous for calling it quits once something works well enough...

Great, so we're just bags of meat sashaying around with loads of technical debt baggage via the slapdash coding delivered by nature in a multi-billion year project. The ongoing result of always picking good and cheap over fast.

[TheRealPomax]

you bet, nature looked at min-max strategies and went "k but what if min-med instead?" then did that for a few billion years.

[miovoid]

Turing and Church said yes.

[TheRealPomax]

Said yes to... what? That artificial neurons can do something useful? Because those weren't a thing when they were scienceing it up.