ULTIMATE COMPUTING - Quantum Consciousness Studies

Toward Ultimate Computing 7
1 Toward Ultimate Computing
1.1 Mind/Tech: Merger in the Nanoscale
Biology and technology are both evolving toward more efficient methods of
information processing. With a head start of a billion years, biology has evolved
human consciousness; technology appears to be catching up rapidly.
Ultimate Computing is the common destination for the evolution of
information processing systems in both biology and technology. At this point it is
an extrapolation of converging trajectories, but Ultimate Computing may soon
exist in the nanoscale. Nano = 10 -9 , one nanometer is a billionth of a meter, and
one nanosecond is a billionth of a second. Subunits within biological protein
assemblies (cytoskeletal polymers, organelles, membrane proteins, virus coats)
are of nanometer size scale and undergo conformational oscillations in the
nanosecond time scale. Nanoscale excitations, which may be coherent and
coupled to intraprotein dipole shifts, can generate communicative “collective
modes” within protein assemblies and provide a substrate for biological
information processing. Thus the “nanoscale” (Figure 1.1) may be where living
intelligence has evolved. Coincidentally, nanoscale devices including molecular
computers, Feynman machines and von Neumann replicators are becoming
feasible through technologies such as scanning tunneling microscopy. A
nanoscale marriage of biomolecules and nanotech devices, providing direct
communication and information transfer, could have profound benefits for
biomedicine and our culture in general.
Figure 1.1: Sizing the Nanoworld. The diameter of each circle is given in
nanometers (nm). A) 0.30 nm—a carbon atom, 0.15 nm in diameter. B) 0.50
nm—alanine, an amino acid with 13 atoms including 3 carbons, is about .33 nm in
diameter. C) 12 nm—a tubulin dimer protein, the subunit of microtubules, is 8 nm
long. It is composed of 2 similar monomers (alpha and beta tubulin), each made
of about 440 amino acids. Cross hatching suggests the approximate amount of
space available for each amino acid. D) 50 nm—a microtubule, 13 sided tube with
an outside cross-sectional diameter of 25 nm. E) 1900 nm—a small 1000 nm
diameter nerve axon might contain 100 microtubules (shown) and 1000 smaller
filaments (not shown). Microtubules associate in informal clumps of 1 to 5
microtubules each, represented by dots. F) 40,000 nm—a nerve cell grown on the
surface of a Motorola 68000 computer chip. The wire thickness is 15,000 nm
wide. G) 170,000 nm—a nematode is a small worm of less than 1000 cells, 300 of
which are neurons. Nematodes have a brain, teeth, muscles, gut, and sex lives.