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by maaku
4548 days ago
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This is not atomically precise, mechanosynthetic manufacturing. Can you use such a construction to create carbon nanotubes or equivalent and then lay them out in a three dimensional lattice structure with nanometer precision and six-sigma workpiece reliability? Biology does not scale to Drexlarian nanotech. The domains are completely different. |
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I can use biochemistry to build second-generation machines which might be capable of doing that. We might not have a diamondoid nanomachine but we can eventually synthesize it, since biology gives us atomically precise positioning of atoms. This looks like a feasible way to develop Drexlerian nanotech.
An analogy with computer programming could be that biology is like assembly language. Using that you can make a higher-level language such as C, and from there you can develop much more powerful abstractions and technologies (Python, Perl, Lisp, Ruby, etc.)
The domains of biochemistry and molecular manufacturing are not completely different because the former could be the foundation of the latter. Also, the science behind biology can inform nanotech. Transforming mechanical energy into chemical processes and viceversa are common processes in cells (e.g., motor proteins.), this is very similar to the type of processes molecular nanotech aspires to make.
Another thing is that cells are capable of correcting errors in DNA synthesis to a substantial degree, 1 mistake for every 1 to 10 billion nucleotides. Reliability isn't an insurmountable problem in biology.
"This is not atomically precise, mechanosynthetic manufacturing."
But we can agree that biology can do atomically precise synthesis. And enzymatic catalysis can sometimes be described in terms of mechanical bending of molecules, such as the ATP synthase.
If biochemistry were so irrelevant to molecular manufacturing, Drexler wouldn't have written so many pages talking about it or suggesting it as way to develop nanotech.