Perplexed comments on The hard limits of hard nanotech - Less Wrong

19 Post author: lsparrish 07 November 2010 12:49AM

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Comment author: Perplexed 08 November 2010 05:28:47AM *  1 point [-]

Ok, yes, I understand that anything interesting we find in the wild must have arisen by evolution, and hence that it must be evolvable. But I understood your reference to "engineering" to mean "designed by an intelligent human being". In which case, evolvability is rather irrelevant.

You apparently are anthropomorphizing Nature as an engineer. That is OK with me, but please don't imagine that we are not capable of doing some biological nanoscale engineering on our own, making no further use of evolution than to utilize the enzyme systems and ribosomes with which Nature has already presented us.

Comment author: Johnicholas 08 November 2010 12:01:56PM 0 points [-]

Yes, you're correct, I was anthropomorphizing evolution as an engineer; my "biological" corresponds to your "in the wild".