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I had been impressed by the fact that biological systems were based on molecular machines and that we were learning to design and build these sorts of things.

Anything that's living is a machine. I'm a machine; my children are machines. I can step back and see them as being a bag of skin full of biomolecules that are interacting according to some laws.

If we are machines, then in principle at least, we should be able to build machines out of other stuff, which are just as alive as we are.

I am very comfortable with the idea that we can override biology with free will.

When I say that human beings are just gene machines, one shouldn't put too much emphasis on the word 'just.' There is a very great deal of complication, and indeed beauty in being a gene machine.

Traditional academic science describes human beings as highly developed animals and biological thinking machines. We appear to be Newtonian objects made of atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, and organs.

We are increasingly becoming cyborg-like beings. We are becoming literally what we create. Biology, physics, and technology are evolving towards one and the same thing.