quote for the day

ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope image


"What we know is not much. What we do not know is immense." - Pierre Simon Laplace

Ray Kurzweil and Eric Drexler discuss nanotechnology

The above link is a youtube video of Ray with Eric Drexler.  I couldn't seem to find the youtube by means of the blogger tools; so, I'm just giving the link. It's an alright interview for those who haven't heard of nanotechnology.

Eric Drexler comments that by keeping everyone on Earth(by implication), one can through advanced surveillance nanotechnologies, one will get rid of terrorism.  He does mention that the same institutions/technologies can suppress others.  But, overall, I feel that Eric Drexler's understanding of social  problems is not quite where it needs to be.  I don't think he understands anti-science groups.  He says terrorism is just a passing problem. I've tried to explain to him how people don't question assumptions, and make over-generalisations all over the place; and, they incrowd, and these phenomenon grow.  His reaction was to say the least irrational in perhaps my opinion.

I'm not totally against putting the Earth under one government roof; but, to confine all of humanity?  I think those who refuse to learn will take over and suppress new science. Seems to me that in the past, when someone finds entrenched irrational interests in a given group, some groups leave and go somewhere else.  I would say this is why Homo Sapiens at least spread throughout the world.  I would think that those in a nanotech world facing entrenched interst would simply go out to space further and further.  Going out to space would reduce human conflict.  They wouldn't come back; they'd leave forever. I hope lifeboat.org puts the whole Earth under one roof; but, I hope those who want to go out to space get to.  I think those who want to confine everyone on Earth is Nazy.

I should say the value of putting the whole Earth under one roof is the preservation of knowledge.  The disadvantage and the advantage to freeing people to go out to space is that of new knowledge and freeing people from Tyranny of one way for everything.

Dna-assembly of structures from micrometers to millimeters

"The programmable DNA glue could also be used with other materials to create a variety of small, self-assembling devices, including lenses and reconfigurable microchips as well as surgical glue that could knit together only the desired tissues, said Ali Khademhosseini, Ph.D., an Associate Faculty member at the Wyss Institute who is the other senior coauthor of the study."

I'd say the nano-era is on now.  Between dna-nanomanufacture at least(it's not quite Eric Drexler's single atom assembly; it self organizes atomically precise nanostructures and then combines those building blocks) and Memrister electronics, just the next year promises to be very exciting!