Self Replication
Replication is defined in many different ways, but for our purpose we will be using the definition that states replication is a copy or reproduction. Of course we all know what self means but I will refresh you, it means oneself or automatic. So we are talking about automatic copying by oneself. Nature is big on self replication even thought it isn't something that you hear about every day. If scientists are able to use nanotechnology to get tiny robots or factories to replicate, they will have opened a door to our future. Just think about if for a second. We create a tiny nano sized factory that can purify miniscule amounts of water. Next we get this factory to self replicate into billions and billions of copies. We then dump them into polluted water and it is cleaned up without having to build a treatment plant. Next the water goes through filters before it enters the homes as drinking water and the tiny nano factories are filtered out of the drinking water. But here is a hitch, how do you stop the marine life and plants or even the birds from ingesting these things? Another point would be, how do you stop them from spreading, say into other bodies of water or on land? There are many problems to be overcome even with this technology. It may be that it will have to be used in a different way. For example maybe the nano factories would sit in an area between the water to be purified and the plant that pumps the water into the homes and they would do their work from there, thus not getting into the environment. But this is still dangerous since one little factory would have the ability to replicate into billions upon billions. Just one getting out could cause a huge problem. Nature has been using self replication for quite some time. Unfortunately for us, viruses are self replicating but usually only when they are inside a host cell. Viruses are considered non living as are crystals which also replicate themselves. A crystal forms from a rock and eventually over a long period of time degrades and then begins to reform all over. How does something that is not alive have this ability? Chemists have been able to produce some chemical compounds that have a limited ability to replicate, but this is a recent development. Living things use a different technique for self replication, they all use DNA. DNA is the engine that powers self replication in everything alive. The catalysts for replication in all cells are proteins while the information and reproduction tasks are carried out by DNA and RNA. At least 50 different proteins are required to decode the information and still more for the task of replication. Every stage of the replication process is controlled by coded commands that have to be uncoded. Nature has gone to great lengths to keep the whole process quite a secret. Now there is another area where self replication is starting to take place and that is in robotics. I often think about the movie Terminator, the premise of the movie was that machines had become self aware and were taking over the world and reproducing themselves in large number. They had created many different types of robots which they were constantly improving. Could this ever happen in real life, could machines become self aware in the future? Unlike most of the scientists out there who argue over what 'alive' or 'self aware' really means, I think a more important question is whether their programming will make them autonomous. Just because a thing seems to be alive or self aware doesn't mean it is. A machine might misinterpret it's program and that could lead to being locked out while the machine carries out what it "thinks" are program commands and this could make it seem alive while it really wasn't. Cornell University is carrying out experiments in self replication by robots. Remember that self replication doesn't mean identical replication. A robot may construct a square but it might not be exactly the same size or depth as the copied one, yet it is still considered replication. The University is running programs that allows machines to do this without human intervention. The following images, movies and all other graphics were supplied by Cornell University:
These are examples of 2 dimensional robots. They use an algorithm to find the correct replication. The next thing that Cornell did was use a three dimensional robot to carry out replication functions. Click on the movie below to watch a robot forming different patterns and then copying them:
Windows Media, size 5.42 Megs The following are some frames from the movie showing individual shape formations:
Click on the photo above to enlarge Think of what the ultimate machine might be. It might not be one that could replicate itself, but one that could replicate ordinary objects. Star Trek had the right idea. They had a machine that would duplicate almost anything. Think of it, you buy one machine and let's say for the sake of argument, that it costs about the same as a good tv. Now you could have it replicate anything else you needed that would fit into it. Need a new computer printer, presto, in about five minutes you have one. Rip your wallet, no matter, you can replicate another in seconds. Donate one of these machines to a civic center in a poor area and suddenly everyone is being helped by acquiring items they need. Now if the machine could reproduce itself, then suddenly life becomes much better for everyone. We know that this would be a death blow to commercialism however and the economy would have to be adjusted some way to make up for the loss of jobs and income that this would cause. This one machine could be responsible for changing everything. Money might even disappear because it wouldn't be needed by anyone to purchase most items. If the machine could duplicate food then that would put the cap on the bottle, the economy that we know would be a thing of the past. Maybe the only thing that would differentiate the rich from the rest of us would be the fact that they had a huge duplication machine capable of duplicating very large items like cars and planes while the rest of us could only duplicate things up to tv size. |
Make Comments On This Article |
 |
 |
This entire site with all contents, except where stated otherwise, is Copyright © 2005 by About Facts Net and its licensors. All rights reserved. |