What I find fascinating is the extreme efficiency of what is effectively an electric motor, reaching nearly 100% efficiency. At human scale we struggle with heat dissipation and friction
ssivark 54 minutes ago [-]
But at the same time the motor is extremely finicky/fragile in the source of energy (negentropy) it will accept, while natural life is extremely hardy and adaptable.
I wonder how much of machine-like "efficiency" is actually "overfitting" at the cost of robustness.
Almured 33 minutes ago [-]
That is a fair point to be honest! I guess when you a 20min lifetime you can probably compromise on reliability in favour of extra efficiency
For some context, a billion years at a 20 minute breeding cycle is 26.3 trillion generations.
ur-whale 36 minutes ago [-]
> For some context, a billion years at a 20 minute breeding cycle is 26.3 trillion generations.
Which if you want an actual feel for the true scale of things, must be multiplied by (order of magnitude) the number of bacteriums on the planet.
f6v 4 minutes ago [-]
> Which if you want an actual feel for the true scale of things
The caveat is that more zeros do nothing for our comprehension of the scale. That's the problem because most people can't comprehend how evolution is even possible. We just don't have a mental model for a trillion, it's all the same to us after a certain threshold.
zimpenfish 17 minutes ago [-]
Good point, forgot about that. Add another 10-20 zeros?
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I wonder how much of machine-like "efficiency" is actually "overfitting" at the cost of robustness.
Electric motors are sort of like hermit crab shells - Hard and long-lasting, but they only exist because they piggyback off of a living species.
there's a good richard feynam video about how things feel when they're that small https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eRCygdW--c
Which if you want an actual feel for the true scale of things, must be multiplied by (order of magnitude) the number of bacteriums on the planet.
The caveat is that more zeros do nothing for our comprehension of the scale. That's the problem because most people can't comprehend how evolution is even possible. We just don't have a mental model for a trillion, it's all the same to us after a certain threshold.