[moonchrome]

> extremely programmable computational work: 99.99999+% of newborns have 2 hands, 2 legs, and 1 head, and they all started development from a single cell [1].

Just on the risks of early miscarriage from wrong number of chromosomes I'd say your numbers are way off.

> Miscarriage is the most common complication of early pregnancy.[21] Among women who know they are pregnant, the miscarriage rate is roughly 10% to 20%, while rates among all fertilisation is around 30% to 50%.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage

So 30-50% failure rate.

[testtesttesst]

Don't forget that the infant mortality rate (post birth) is 0.5%.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/infant-health.htm

Number of infant deaths: 19,582

Deaths per 100,000 live births: 541.9

Leading causes of infant deaths:

– Congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities

– Disorders related to short gestation and low birthweight: not elsewhere classified

– Sudden infant death syndrome

[ly3xqhl8g9]

You are nitpicking, nevertheless, newborn, noun, a baby that was born recently [1], hence the 99.99999+% figure is applied for the full term pregnancies, once the fetus is decoupled from the mother and has been born as a, well, newborn. And furthermore, the point is not that they live or die, but that they have 2 hands, 2 legs, and 1 head after developing from one single cell through deterministic computation in the morphospace.

[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/newborn#...

[moonchrome]

I'm not nitpicking - I'm saying the reason most babies are born with 2 legs hands and a head is because genetic defects die off before birth (plus the screening we have for early termination nowadays) - and the failure rate starting from a single cell is huge.

[ly3xqhl8g9]

The genetic defects failure rate is irrelevant, TSMC also throws away bad batches [1], mistakes happen, life is complex and multifaceted, etc. The issue is if biology is a deterministic computational platform, and the argument I was making, using the hyperbolic figure of 99.99999%, I will grant you this, is that not only biology is a deterministic computational platform, but it is better than the one we can achieve currently in our CPUs: no CPU is able to regenerate a melt down core, axolotls can grow back a limb as if it was never gone.

[1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/13905/tsmc-chip-yields-hit-by...

[moonchrome]

But at that point your argument is almost tautological - all children born alive are fit to survive ? Being born with such huge asymmetry (missing limbs) and still surviving is low probably (impossible without a head).

I'd say a more convincing argument for deterministic machinery is identical twins - I don't know how much variation there is to put in numbers.

[ly3xqhl8g9]

"But at that point your argument is almost tautological"

Yes, that is the point: biodevelopment is deterministic and computational. Watch the Michael Levin video linked above: they cut the head of a planarian worm, it grows back a head; they cut the tail, it grows back a tail; they cut the tail and the head and change the bioelectric gradients, it grows back two heads or two tails.