Why? I'd say it's been self-evidently true for at least three decades now.
> Even our cells, with features that look a lot like machinery such as a proton pump, is on the whole several orders of magnitude more complex than any machine.
How many is several? I think that, at the level of a proton pump, individual components comes close to the order of complexity humanity deals with in man-made machines.
Also, at this level, things really look like machines, act like machines, quack like machines - there's no reason to not call them machines, given they obviously are. It's naturally originating molecular nanotech.
> Even a single human cell is more like an ecosystem than a machine.
Certainly. But then, an ecosystem is defined as a system made of bunch of varied stuff interacting with each other, finding balance through a set of feedback loops. An ecosystem of machines is still an ecosystem, and is arguably a machine in itself, too - after all, the term "machine" also applies to self-balancing / feedback driven systems, ever since we invented control theory and formalism to describe feedback loops.
> Let alone entire humans or even just the human brain.
Complex machines don't stop being machines when you keep adding moving parts to increase complexity. Or, at which point between a protein pump and a human being you believe the assemblage of molecular nanotech stops being a machine?
> Consider that both cells and humans are capable of reproduction.
What's that supposed to tell us? Human reproduction involves cell reproduction.
Why? I'd say it's been self-evidently true for at least three decades now.
> Even our cells, with features that look a lot like machinery such as a proton pump, is on the whole several orders of magnitude more complex than any machine.
How many is several? I think that, at the level of a proton pump, individual components comes close to the order of complexity humanity deals with in man-made machines.
Also, at this level, things really look like machines, act like machines, quack like machines - there's no reason to not call them machines, given they obviously are. It's naturally originating molecular nanotech.
> Even a single human cell is more like an ecosystem than a machine.
Certainly. But then, an ecosystem is defined as a system made of bunch of varied stuff interacting with each other, finding balance through a set of feedback loops. An ecosystem of machines is still an ecosystem, and is arguably a machine in itself, too - after all, the term "machine" also applies to self-balancing / feedback driven systems, ever since we invented control theory and formalism to describe feedback loops.
> Let alone entire humans or even just the human brain.
Complex machines don't stop being machines when you keep adding moving parts to increase complexity. Or, at which point between a protein pump and a human being you believe the assemblage of molecular nanotech stops being a machine?
> Consider that both cells and humans are capable of reproduction.
What's that supposed to tell us? Human reproduction involves cell reproduction.