Computer Science and Other Items

[Zack]

Not too big...as I recall from my slim ASM knowledge, to do that in pure assembly (no MASM or TASM assembler DEFINE BYTE (DB) directives), it would take, maybe, 70 instructions? Less.

[na_th_an]

Yeah, but stuff all that in one single number

Imagine that you have 70 bytes... Don't try to cound how many decimal digits would be in a (70*8=) 560 bits integer .

2^560 = 3,7739624248215413522415545809883e+168

that is a 168 digits number

[Zack]

Still, it wouldn't be enormous...it would be more like a 5-dimensional array (10 elements of 10 elements of 10 elements of 10 elements of 10 elements) of the C type "long long":

Code:

long long program[10][10][10][10][10]

[edit] oops, didn't see your edit...

[Agamemnus]

DNA alone doesn't make a human being.....

[Zack]

Aga, I agree with you completely.

[na_th_an]

Well, it makes its physical shape and the way it works (including brains: character, charisma, intelligence, abilities...).
Living a life (or a lack of it) makes the rest .

[Agamemnus]

Well, *actually*,

Think about the human brain. Billions, trillions of neuron connections. DNA would have to be millions of times larger to encode a human brain!

The DNA makes for a general shape for the brain which then expands out into various brain areas inside the mother. Most areas aren't even close to developed at birth, too!

Very interesting stuff.. I happened to read a lot about it.

Human DNA is like a computer program that generates creates a massive amount of data from its instructions and a random component, which occurs even before birth inside the mother. Shape that the baby has to grow in, any viruses (influenza is very bad for a growing baby), drugs... these all affect the growth process of humans inside the mother.

And outside, ohh baby there are so many factors that it's impossible to predict anything..

[LooseCaboose]

Think about the human brain. Billions, trillions of neuron connections. DNA would have to be millions of times larger to encode a human brain!

I was only using DNA as an example to /represent/ a person. IIRC (from 7th form biology) DNA is individual to each living organism.

The point was that because the set of positive integers is infinitely large then they can be used to represent any infinitely large population. If we knew for instance everything that is required to define a human (including appearance, mannerisms, memories, etc) then we could encode that information as an integer an represent every person with a number.

Another program which would input a number, decode it and generate a program is called "the Universal Program".

Of course the universal program is simply one of those numbers, so in effect it already exists ;-)

[relsoft]

DNA alone doesn't make a human being.....

"The Whole is Greater than the sum of its parts"

:wink:

[TheBigBasicQ]

BTW some researchers say that 90% of the human DNA is trash. I dunno what to think of it. But it may be true =P.