TAISHON@uwacdc.acs.washington.edu (derouter) (06/30/89)
Anyone who has been following the ABM Treaty negotiations between
the USA and USSR (see "Testing Weapons in Space" Sci Am July 1989)
has a good idea of how complex defense limitations negotiations can be.
You have to constantly redefine interpretations as the technology and
social situations change. Needless to say any future NT "Arms Negotiations"
will be vastly more complex and touch upon even more diverse issues.
(1) How do we check each others treaty comlpliance ?
(2) How do we outline limitations given the vast future capabilities in
fabrication ?
I don't know if this has been mentioned before and I apologize if it
has. In the Dec 1988 issue of Analog there was a letter written by
PH.D. Stephen L Gillet. I mention it here because, although I don't
credit him with an entirely valid argument he does represent one of the
few reasonable opponents of Eric's view. Basically, here is Mr.
Gillet's argument as I understand it;
1. "Atoms will try to spontaneously reconfigure until they
reach the most stable configuration." You cannot hook together atoms
in any conceivable way.
2. Large assemblages of atoms can exhibit unexpected behavior. Furthermore,
completely deterministic systems (both in nature and in simulations)
exhibit unpredictable behaviour. Indeed, some systems show their
behaviour only when actually in running mode.
3. Cellular proccess and the like are typically statistical in nature
involving concentrations and solutions rather than individual atomic
properties.
4. As an anology- you cannot recreate the art of shakespeare by understanding
how the letters of his works are arranged.
Eric and Chris, I think, give a good response;
1. "Thermodynamically unstable compounds often have lifetimes at room temp.
that exceed the age of the universe." (Gillet's first point was raised primarily
2. NT involves engineering and not science. In engineering you can design
systems to have predictable properties based on atomic structure. (This
is my first emotinal response to Gillet's letter - why couldn't we design
the parameters of a system to have predictable behaviour and also have
very useful properties. Eric has given examples of such systems).
3. This point merely says that Nanomachines will likely give you more informn th
4. This is related to point 3. You can copy a Shakespearean piece of work
by copying the letters etc. without understanding his genius just as you
can recreate certain biological mechanisms by building them from
the atomic level, without understanding how they come to behave the way
they do.
Gillet primarily was trying to raise some arguments against the
simplistic and reductionist view given by "Engines". In that I don't
think he entirely failed.
Steve "Spike" Salkovics, humble president: student NSG at the UW