The biological cell (was: Erlang)

Alan Kay Alan.Kay at squeakland.org
Mon Nov 17 19:44:07 UTC 2003


In hardware, an inverter that sends a message back to its input 
becomes a clock (this is because there is a delay). Two of these can 
be made into a flip-flop which is a more interesting delay. Etc.

Of course, this is only one way to think about these ideas (but this 
perspective is often useful).

Cheers,

Alan

At 7:45 PM +0100 11/17/03, Hans Nikolaus Beck wrote:
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>Hi,
>
>Am 17.11.2003 um 06:17 schrieb Alan Kay:
>
>>Hi Rob --
>>
>>At 6:58 PM -0800 11/16/03, Rob Withers wrote:
>>>Alan, your hint did the trick.  I keep forgetting that
>>>Smalltalk is based on the simpliest of ideas.  We have
>>>objects and messages.
>>
>>Actually objects and message-sending (since messages are also objects) ....
>>
>>>   If objects have no "state",
>>>only references to other objects, then it's all
>>>messages.
>>
>>It's worthwhile contemplating that most bits in computers are 
>>dynamic relations between processes, so "state" is really a kind of 
>>process .... Quite a few of the ideas in Special Relativity on "how 
>>one knows about things going on" apply to these ideas.
>>
>
>That's exactly the point I don't understand and to which I want to 
>think about. ... For me it sound's like a more as a definition than 
>a  experience....but I don't force the start the discussion again 
>from the very beginning
>
>Greetings
>
>Hans
>
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