John von Neumann (originally Johann von Neumann) is definitely not science fiction.
You can read the Wikipedia biography here. The machines are called von Neumann machines because he, apparently, first articulated the idea.
The term von Neumann machine refers to self-correcting, self-maintaining and (if necessary) self-replicating machines.
You can read Wikipedia's article on self-replicating machines here.
farmerman wrote:Im now confused what a VN machine is about then. Is this some invention by a science fiction writer?
Von Neumann machines refer to a broad category of self-replicating mechanical devices.
I see self-monitoring and self-repairing systems (which we currently have) as precursor design goals which will eventually result in true self-replicating machines.
Ultimately I anticipate VN machines entering the stage in the form of nano-machines designed to self-replicate from very raw materials (sand/dirt), and embedded with particular code segments which compel them to link together into larger mechanical systems with specific purposes.
In other words, I think that our mechanical creations will eventually mirror biological organisms/systems in the way they are grown and coded. But they will still be mechanical systems, designed for whatever environment we want to put them in, coded to continue autonomously, artificially selected and Intelligently Designed.
rosborne979 wrote:. . . artificially selected and Intelligently Designed.
Oh
My
God
AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa . . .
Setanta wrote:VN machines, in the context to which i was referring, are exploratory machines sent out to survey the galaxy. I think Roswell and i came to a fundmental misunderstanding because he saw VN as the self-correcting, self-repairing, self-replicating technology itseld, no matter how it is used, and i was considering it only in terms of exploratory probes.
I agree, I think this is one of the places where we diverged due to slightly different definitions (or usage) of concepts.
I always thought that they wwere named after von Neuman by some sci fi writer
Ive always known his work from math of hydrodynamics of sudden fluid releases and overpressured systems (like water bombs)
SO, getting back to VN 's. They will have to become self taught metallurgists and be able to reconstruct themselves by what? driving over to a radio shak and buying up all the transistors and IC's
The idea of a VN probe is that it would have the tools necessary to mine, smelt, pour, roll and cut the necessary metals, and the sensors to find the necessary ores--one presumes in planetoids (ain't no sucha thing as a asteroid). The reason why Roswell and i passed one another in the dark is that he spoke of thousands or millions of VN machines in the galaxy, meaning any kind of machine which can self-diagnose, self-correct, self-repair, and self-replicate if necessary. I was thinking only in terms of VN machines used as exploratory probes, in which case to have thousands or millions of them loose in the galaxy, a civilization would need to make an initial outlay of material and energy resources which the population of the civilization would probably consider prohibitive, and upon which basis they would object to the project.
He was talking about VN machines in a general sense though, and the "leading edge" of systems design and industrial engineering these days hopes to have all VN machines all the time in the near future.
On the other hand, i was only thinking of VN probes for exploration. One wouldn't put a lot into them, and the folks who sent them out would need to be very patient--it will be a long time before they call home with useful information. The most obvious reason to employ them would be to look for planets such as their own, with nearly the same gravitational field, and a composition (especially of the atmosphere) which is close enough to their own to be adapted quickly and easily.
If there are or once were other civilizations out there who have used VN exploratory probes, there is no reason for us to assume they have been here, or that if they have, we would know it. Apart from the fact that we wouldn't even have been able to detect such a device with any certainty for more than the last 40 years or so, it is entirely possible that another technological civilization ain't lookin' for an oxygen-rich atmosphere, or is looking for a planet with a significantly stronger or significantly weaker gravitational field. In such a case, a VN probe wouldn't even drop by for cocktails before shooting on past to continue its search.
Some people have suggested that the probability that any advanced technological civilization would develop VN-type machines is strong evidence in support of the alleged Fermi paradox, usually implying without stating that if there were VN probes out there we would know it. I think this argument fails the hubris test, once again. We ain't nearly so slick about what's in our neighborhood, or our hometown (i.e., galaxy) than many people would like to suggest.
Here's a typical example of the argument in support of the Fermi paradox, based on the concept of VN machines:
Quote: Frank Tipler, writing after Boyce et al, and borrowing the idea of von Neumann probes from them, has used the concept as an argument against the existence of intelligence elsewhere in the Galaxy. He proposed a conservative value of 300 million years, or less than 5% of the present age of the Galaxy, for complete galactic colonization. He assumed the von Neumann probe approach to be so logical and economical that it would be commonly adopted by advanced civilizations. According to this view, there should be a significant and obvious presence of such devices within the solar system. Yet, no such presence has been detected. Tipler therefore draws the conclusion that we are the only intelligent race among the Galaxy's several hundred billion stars (Tipler's Argument). The validity of this conclusion has been questioned by, among others, Sagan and Newman (see Sagan's Response).
Source
Now this is pretty damned hilarious . . .
From the same source, Sagan's rebuttal to Tipler's argument:
Quote: A rebuttal of Tipler's Argument, put forward by Carl Sagan and William Newman of Cornell University: They first pointed out that Tipler had underestimated the number of von Neumann probes there ought to be. With exponential growth, a single self-replicating probe could be expected to convert the entire mass of the Galaxy into copies of itself within 2 million years. Any species intelligent enough to build such a probe, Sagan and Newman argued, would also be intelligent enough to realize the danger of it and so would not embark upon the project in the first place. In the event of a von Neumann probe being released either accidentally or maliciously, it would be a prime duty of other, responsible civilizations, said Sagan and Newman, to stamp out the "infection" before it could spread.
Sagan, C., and Newman, W. "The Solipsist Approach to Extraterrestrial Intelligence,"
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 24, 113 (1983).
rosborne979 wrote:Chumly wrote:rosborne979 wrote:.....the precursors of VN type machines (self monitoring and self repairing) are already embedded as a core goal in systems design.
Without a doubt!
One of the big problems I had maintaining the morale of my design teams at Oracle was convincing people that they weren't actively designing themselves right out of a job. Because essentially, they were.
The answer is to get everyone to view the loss of one level of work, as a push to the next level of work. As more and more of the low level errors in the system were handled autonomously, manpower was diverted to higher level problems. Ultimately, the highest level problem everyone will be working on will be redundant autonomous (and eventually) self replicating systems.
The sea change from employment for subsistence to vocation for (hopefully) purpose. A popular SF theme: will man find meaning if the need to work is negated, and who/what will provide said traditional material underpinnings.
BTW the overly simplistic math of uncontrolled exponential growth as per VN machines is clearly in error, unless you want to entertain yourself with the notion that everything already is the result of VN machines.
farmerman wrote:SO, getting back to VN 's. They will have to become self taught metallurgists and be able to reconstruct themselves by what? driving over to a radio shak and buying up all the transistors and IC's
One current approach to nano-system "design" is almost like a chemical reaction whereby a substrate of some material is exposed to a bath of nano elements which then bind to the substrate in an orderly fashion. The process is not too dissimilar from clays and mica being used by prebiotic chemicals to form larger "biological" molecules.
The similarity in biological structures to nano-mechanical structures is not surprising to me because I fully expect that as our mechanical structures become microscopic in scale, they will begin to rely heavily on emulation of natural chemical evolution. Our software designs are already beginning to leverage recursive natural selection to explore multiple solutions to problems.
And we haven't even talked about "Information Singularities" yet.
real life wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:No one has suggested that RNA or anything like it suddenly appeared. We have been talking about a much smaller and simpler first replicator.
Actually, chemists like Shapiro AREN'T looking for a 'first replicator' leading to life because they consider it akin to believing in miracles.
Shapiro hopes that he can show that simple self replicating molecules FOLLOWED the establishment of life, not preceded it.
Whatever, stop saying that we're claiming that DNA or RNA formed randomly. We're talking about something much simpler.
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The idea of a VN probe is that it would have the tools necessary to mine, smelt, pour, roll and cut the necessary metals, and the sensors to find the necessary ores--one presumes in planetoids (ain't no sucha thing as a asteroid).
WOW, no small feets there. Its like making an omelette with the instruction to " First Go Create a Chicken"
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When did the term asteroid stop being used? I remember , in geology, the term planetula never had legs and died, but ASTEROID??
Brandon9000 wrote:real life wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:No one has suggested that RNA or anything like it suddenly appeared. We have been talking about a much smaller and simpler first replicator.
Actually, chemists like Shapiro AREN'T looking for a 'first replicator' leading to life because they consider it akin to believing in miracles.
Shapiro hopes that he can show that simple self replicating molecules FOLLOWED the establishment of life, not preceded it.
Whatever, stop saying that we're claiming that DNA or RNA formed randomly. We're talking about something much simpler.
The reason I have used dna/rna as examples is that you have NO evidence that any other self replicating molecule that can support life has EVER existed.
So to even speak of them is little more than speculation. It surely isn't science to say that they 'had to have existed'.
Do you agree with Shapiro that the idea of even a simple replicator (what he called an RNA substitute) forming in the open environment is not plausible?
Or do you have a better grasp of the chemistry that is needed than he?
farmerman wrote:setQuote:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The idea of a VN probe is that it would have the tools necessary to mine, smelt, pour, roll and cut the necessary metals, and the sensors to find the necessary ores--one presumes in planetoids (ain't no sucha thing as a asteroid).
WOW, no small feets there. Its like making an omelette with the instruction to " First Go Create a Chicken"
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When did the term asteroid stop being used? I remember , in geology, the term planetula never had legs and died, but ASTEROID??
Yeah, well, it wouldn't be a genuine VN probe if it couldn't function in that manner. As for Chumly's typically less than coherent objection to Sagan's riposte to Tipler, even if the math is in error, and two million years is much too optimistic a figure, it could have occurred within two billion years, which is not even close to the probable age of the galaxy.
As for asteroid v. planetoid, that was just an incident of self-amuse on my part.
real life wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:real life wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:No one has suggested that RNA or anything like it suddenly appeared. We have been talking about a much smaller and simpler first replicator.
Actually, chemists like Shapiro AREN'T looking for a 'first replicator' leading to life because they consider it akin to believing in miracles.
Shapiro hopes that he can show that simple self replicating molecules FOLLOWED the establishment of life, not preceded it.
Whatever, stop saying that we're claiming that DNA or RNA formed randomly. We're talking about something much simpler.
The reason I have used dna/rna as examples is that you have NO evidence that any other self replicating molecule that can support life has EVER existed.
So to even speak of them is little more than speculation. It surely isn't science to say that they 'had to have existed'.
Do you agree with Shapiro that the idea of even a simple replicator (what he called an RNA substitute) forming in the open environment is not plausible?
Or do you have a better grasp of the chemistry that is needed than he?
First of all, it just doesn't seem implausible to me that after billions of years of random chemical reactions, in a planetfull of oceans, one single self-replicating molecule would form. You haven't offered any quantitative evidence that it's implausible, you just bandy some smart guy's name around.
And I really must point out that you're the advocate of a rival theory of the origin of life on Earth for which you can't produce even a particle of evidence. If you are unwilling to provide any reason at all why your theory is plausible, then you simply aren't eligible to demand that we have conclusive proof of every step of ours. Why should anyone in his right mind believe that the Judeo-Christian God created the world? Do you have a speck of proof? Maybe the universe just operates as it appears to, by physical law. Maybe the Hindus have it right and the universe is ruled by Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Maybe the God of some obscure sect in a remote region of Africa is the real one. Offer me an argument supporting the Judeo-Christian belief.
real life wrote:The reason I have used dna/rna as examples is that you have NO evidence that any other self replicating molecule that can support life has EVER existed.
As I told you before, science builds on itself, and it's perfectly reasonable to make deductions based on known scientific facts. Biological evolution is a known fact so we can make deductions from it.
If you're going to deny various scientific facts and refuse to make deductions from them, then you are essentially refusing to use science as a foundation for your thinking.
You're a Creationist.
your wrong again there RL, amino adenosine esters do replicate by bond attraction. They collect and combine other esters and then the two left and right haned (racemate structures) split and go on their ways to combine again and again. Chemicals do that, they also oxidize, and hydrolize (an a gazillion others), To say that theres no evidence is BS again on your behalf. Im sure that there are scientists working on just these type investigations in some Universities and College labs.
Read my post carefully , fm. Don't just read the part you want to see.
We're talking about dead chemicals producing life, not just chemicals having the ability to react and combine, even replicate.
Do you have any evidence that any of the replicating molecules you are referring to have EVER been the basis for a living organism?
The scientists you that you hope are working on this are scientists like Shapiro who have abandoned this line of investigation.
The odds of a self replicating molecule that can support life being able to self generate are simply astronomical, beyond believability.
Shapiro cites in agreement:
Quote:Nobel Laureate Christian de Duve has called for "a rejection of improbabilities so incommensurably high that they can only be called miracles, phenomena that fall outside the scope of scientific inquiry."
real life wrote:The odds of a self replicating molecule that can support life being able to self generate are simply astronomical, beyond believability.
No one has ever suggested such a thing. We're suggesting that a simple self-replicating chemical appeared randomly, and that over a long period of time, natural selection and mutation increased its complexity until it reached a stage where one might call it life.
