Am I the only one that feels uncomfortable when reading this?

http://datascience.columbia.edu/researchers-store-computer-operating-system-dna

 

Why ?

DNA is a molecule juste like water or H2O which you are 60% made of. Should we stop using it ?

By the way it's synthesized DNA they are using.

 

So... a blood drop in a multimedia hardware and I could watch a short movie.
Nice.

 

This seems as if it is reasonable strategy for storage of data, though much depends on a fairly narrow enviornmental window, a cool dry place in order to insure the multi-thousand year recovery of any data stored in this manner. And since this DNA is not animated by the life force of a living being in concert outside with mutation factors such as radiation and enviornmental toxins, should, if the article is honest and correct and as well as it is stored adequately, ensure an error free recovery of that which is encoded within it created strands. I wonder if the being that originally synthesized DNA for use in creating and replicating life as we know it realized that one of its creations would eventually use the stuff of it's own physical being in such a way. It sort of reminds me of this vision that I though of a long time ago where man is able to create microscopes more and more powerful, able to see smaller and smaller sub-atomic particles until one day a scientist looks into the microscope and sees the Milky Way! A circle of 5ths, a circle of life, the circle of creation.

 

Lovely. I don't feel uncomfortable at all, about it. It's just a non-living DNA. Let's hope they make it usable for masses as soon as possible. Just imagine having a 2x2cm cube of some kind that's able to store all your data and you still have like 80% of free space left. I'd gladly kick out of the window all these hard disks and tons of [obsolete but still useful] DVDs.

In a perfect world you would use a computer with only large amount of fast memory, and use this for storage. Simple. Efficient. I wonder how fast read/write times are with this thing.

 

Well, what makes me feel uncomfortable about this is not the current state of that biotechnology. I looked ahead and imagined people running around with their computer storage in their bodies, just connecting some usb 8.2c with a pc to run the os directly from the appendix, or wherever it is stored. Hmm, maybe that's the real purpose of the appendix? Science never really found out what it is for...

 

Great! So now we will pay our Health care provider for data storage and retrieval.
Johnny Mnemonic here we come.

 

At this stage in development, cool tech, for sure. I can see the potential. Three things about this make me feel uncomfortable.
1. In my mind, the natural evolution of read/write on a manufactured synthetic medium is read/write to a naturally organic one.
2. We humans never know when to quit.
3. GATTACA

 

Shame there's no "funny but thought provoking" rating, Pinkman.

Loved "Gattaca" and "The Island", too.

Yes, we will never surrender.

 

Which is quite the follow through of my concept. The creator creating itself in an endless cycle. The concept of beginning, the first, the which came first, the chicken or the egg scenario is always my problem though. How do things begin if there came nothing before?

 

That's the error in your thought. It's a cycle as you said. A cycle doesn't know the concept of beginning and end.

 

I can't take personal responsibility for a philosphical flaw that is inherent in the argument itself. I am just stating the obvious. And as well, a cycle is not sentient so cannot "know the concept of beginning and end". All I am relating is an idea that I explored while being guided by an ungodly amount of magic mushrooms three decades ago. I couldn't find a mooring to latch onto about originality and the concept of something coming into existence out of nothingness then, now or most probably in some moment in the future either near or farther down my wobbly line. It is beyond my ken.

 

I had first read about this a few years ago. While we're all wringing our hands and fretting over hardware upgrades and software incompatibilities, the "scientific community" is awash in infinite technological possibilities.

 

You walk into the park. There's a carousel and the first you see is a boy in a yellow shirt. How did he come into existence from nothing? By you observing it. You may argue "but I know this boy was born sometime earlier then walked to the park and got on the carousel". But that's just an assumption. All you observe is a boy in front of you on a carousel.
The next day you observe a girl in a red shirt. Now, who was first? The boy or the girl? You might tend to say "the boy", but in fact you only started to observe, when the boy was on the carousel. Just an hour earlier and you might have observed the girl on that carousel.
You simply can't tell who was first, because there is no beginning and no end to the scene. You just started to observe at some point, which tells you nothing about what happens before or after your observation.
And the point I was trying to make about your own words "concept of beginning" was exactly what you understood. There is no conscience involved, so there is no concept!

 

Well...yes, though for an object to be witnessed it must be created. What cannot be explained is something existing before existing, occupying thought before the thought, the glimmer before the glimps. But this is not really the forum for this discussion, not the thread. It seems to me a tangent running off of a tangent, jumping off the edge and into a black hole only to reappear yesterday in the same place, but it cannot be the same place as there is no place.