So who needs DNA to do that ?

Is it worse being a theoretical physicist? (Perhaps it sounds better if one can claim to be a high-energy physicist.)

DNA has already been shown to have the ability to search for solutions to problems, and with reasonable performance.

By making DNA imitate a binary computer’s method of operation we are limiting DNA and limiting our thinking.

Yes, Youtube can be used for good, but this was not an example of. Too dull; didn’t watch.

No, not just a “bit overbearing”. It’s ALOT overbearing. This video is the mark of an enormous ego who found an opportunity to exhibit his or her imagined pianistic wherewithal. Unfortunately for the listener – whether trying to understand what the narrator is saying OR paying attention to the ‘music’ – it is an insipid excuse of a composition that has no business whatsover being there – along with the fancy BOOK graphics. Absolutely unlistenable. “Other than that”? NO, it is NOT good. Its absolutely unlistenable. Utterly unwatchable. Its horrible.

Followed by the narrator’s compelling voice-over, “Once upon a time there was a magic book”…with a graphic showing a book entitled, “The Computational Power of DNA Molecules”

Oh, wow. Holy friggin’ cow. EGAD.

See, that’s what bothers me. Pardon me for expressing my annoyance at such pathetic declarations (besides the incredibly foul solicitation of the woo contingent in the target audience) but I will just point out here in this ostensibly physics-oriented forum that there is NOTHING ‘synthetic’ under the sun of physics.

Not when genetic molecules have been doing their thing in splendid fashion without any ‘conscious’ (there’s another ridiculous concept) guidance for several billions of years. And not when upstart engineers pretend (as the handsomely-produced video emminently implies) to have developed something profound out of coaxing DNA molecules into achieving a desired computation.

The chronic technologist conceit (wherein we have, for example, historically and quite frequently bragged about ‘conquering’ nature, as if we have discovered some means of circumventing the laws of physics rather than opportunistically utilizing them) is as if that mindset regards nature as an opponent to defeat or circumvent nature rather then treat ‘her’ as an ally to cooperate with: according to the inventor spiel, if ANY human contraption works at all, it MUST be because they have found a way to flout natural laws, the better to lard their claim with the appearance of ingenuity. It is rarely pointed out that the laws of nature permit their contraptions to operate in the first place. Without those laws, they could not even enjoy their contraptions.

There can not be anything remotely ‘synthetic’ about it. The very use of the word automatically constitutes a lie.

As ‘applied science’ technologists, we are all plagiarizers: we pretend to ‘create’ circumstances that are somehow ‘unnatural’ or our efforts somehow render the laws of nature impotent, and we frequently brag about it as a matter of habit. How many times have we read about how we have ‘conquered’ everything from disease to space? Yet the truth is that ANYTHING we come up with to meet a challenge posed by nature must ultimately defer to the laws of nature. We are nowhere near clever enough to generate our own set of laws which can somehow replace those which nature already provides.

MAYBE one day synthetic molecular technologists (and technologists and explorers in general) will be ethically “robust enough” to scale up to something comparable to honesty and an admission of humility befitting their inescapable deference to the laws of nature, no matter how cute their contraptions are.

I suppose now that a great noise might arise over a proper definition of the terms “synthetic” or “artificial”, in an effort to clarify such terms we are used to. Might as well throw in that dilapidated strain of concepts like ‘consciousness’ or ‘sentience’ or ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ while we’re at it. Defining such is a fool’s errand. Save your breaths. False concepts don’t require definitional refinement. If anybody thinks they have found any that are at once CONSISTENT WITH as well as INDEPENDENT OF nature, a refutation of the necessity for any such particular definitions is immediately available.