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"Any plan where there's a crucial component that must not stop even for a second isn't a very good plan." Our bodies, just think of our hearts or lungs, don't stop for even a second for 80 something years, and even that 80 is most probably arbitrary with very few changes in cellular control (instead of cancer, cooperate; instead of scar, regenerate [1]). No current software artifact can boast with such a performance. That's the main issue, our technology does not establish a hierarchy of competence [2], where each layer is independently able to solve problems such as the cell-tissue-organ-organism continuum. We must start digitizing the material, assemble assemblers that can assemble themselves [3]. [1] Dr. Michael Levin: Xenobots, Limb Regeneration, and The Power of Cellular Communication, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_TyON2xWeQ [2] Michael Levin, What do bodies think about?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVr1OkDqnmo "Nested Cognition, not Merely Structure" starts at 4:32 [3] Neil Gershenfeld, How to Make Almost Anything, The Digital Fabrication Revolution, http://cba.mit.edu/docs/papers/12.09.FA.pdf |
The cardiac pacemaker (as in the tissue that sets the heart rate) is redundant. There's a primary and a secondary, and both are made of many cells which can take some damage and the entire system will still work.