Is it the end for Silicon Valley? That’s the question Walter Myers III will be addressing this November at COSM 2021 – an exclusive national summit in Bellevue, Washington. Dozens of brilliant minds in science, business, and technology will come together to explore how technologies are remaking the world as we know it.

Who is Walter Myers III?

Myers is a managing engineer at Microsoft, an adjunct professor at Biola University, and is connected with both the Discovery Institute and the California Policy Center.

Myers has been with Microsoft since 1993, where he currently works as a principal engineering manager. He likes to say he coaches – rather than “manages” – a team of highly-skilled engineers within Microsoft’s FastTrack for Azure organization.

He is also adjunct professor at his alma mater, Biola University, where he received a Master’s degree in philosophy from the Talbot School of Theology. He now teaches on Darwin, evolution, and design in the school’s Master of Arts in Science & Religion (MASR).

Additionally, Myers is a member of the Advisory Board for the California Policy Center (CPC), an educational non-profit advocating for freedom in several state-level institutions.

You can find Myers’ writings at Discovery Institute’s Evolution News, where he is a regular contributor.

As you can see, Myers’ interests are broadly spread – from engineering to philosophy to evolutionary biology to state policy. He is well-equipped to contribute a wealth of knowledge to the quickly-approaching COSM.

Here’s an excerpt from a recent article Myers wrote exploring how hierarchical systems in biological organisms relate to computer systems:

The second case I have been thinking about for some time, which is my subject here, is the hierarchical nature of the helical DNA molecule within the cell that carries the genetic instructions to build proteins that perform the work of the cell. It is truly remarkable to see 1) how such a large volume of information can be packed into so little space with its “supercoiled” architecture, 2) the degree to which this information is compressed and packaged within the nucleus of the cell, and 3) how it can be precisely unpackaged where needed to access the instructions for any new protein the cell needs for continued operation.

…So how do you package one meter of information content into a space 1/100,000 that size? Very carefully and quite ingeniously. The storage of DNA is very much like hierarchical file systems on Windows and Linux desktop computers compressed into a .zip file. In the same manner that there are folders within folders within folders in a desktop computer, with the actual files at the terminal level, individual genes within a DNA molecule are equivalent to “files” that in this case specify the building of a protein needed for the cell to function. DNA packaging is far more complex, however, with several levels of packaging into a highly compressed and compact structure called chromatin.

Walter Myers III, “Hierarchical Systems in Biology — DNA Packaging” at Evolution News

You can also read his Mind Matters News article, published in 2019, entitled “We Went Back to Visit Gödel, Escher, and Bach…”, in which he revisits a book by Douglas R. Hofstadter on the relationship between the immaterial mind and the physical brain. In that article, he critiques Hofstadter’s views on humanity and artificial intelligence.

Register now to reserve your spot at COSM 2021 and join us in Bellevue, Washington November 10-12.