ABSTRACT
Our ability to arrange atoms, observes K. Eric Drexler, lies at the foundation of technology (Drexler 2006:55). It is merely variation in the arrangement of atoms that differentiates sand from computer chips, cancer from healthy tissue, and gold from bauxite. Now imagine a series of technologies that change the molecular structure of biological entities, proteins, DNA, and the building blocks that generate and control biological outcomes. Or, imagine a series of technologies that are capable of engineering molecular and atomic variation in the composition of compounds to produce new materials with new properties and characteristics. Imagine further, as Drexler does, that ‘DNA engineering builds precise, million-atom frameworks’, such that ‘engineered proteins can bind to precise locations on these frameworks’, and ‘proteins can bind other components’ that are electrically or chemically active so that these proteins and the biological structures on which they are attached can ‘serve as construction machinery’ (Drexler 2006:12). If you can imagine all this, you can imagine nanotechnology: a diverse collection of academic specialisms centered around engineering and manipulating molecular and atomic structures and, in the process, creating biological and non-biological nanomaterials whose characteristics can be ‘made to order.’ Penultimately, imagine self-replicating nanobots able to organize the atomic outcomes we desire, carrying out molecular level construction and repair work.
