Re: [asa] Biologic Institute

It seems to me that ascribing similarities between computer hardware and
cell structures is rather futile. The genome contains the information
needed to construct RNA which can be translated into proteins and other
compounds used by the cell. Both RNA and its products have feedback, as
well as acting in ongoing processes. The cell wall reacts to exterior
stimuli and to interior controls in what seems to be a rather mechanical
type of process. This oversimplifies the situation, for there are other
parts of the cell that act and react to all of these products and
processes, as well as stuff that has to be cut out of the RNA and
proteins. Also, if one tries to find an analog for information, it seems
to be equally in DNA, RNA and protein.

I like analogies, but they seem to do better when restricted to a single
or very few similarities.
Dave (ASA)

On Tue, 13 May 2008 22:01:55 -0400 "John Walley" <john_walley@yahoo.com>
writes:

On a fluke recently I used up a credit on my audio book club and
downloaded some book on epigenetics by cell biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton
who turned out to be some New Age quack, but one interesting thing he did
say I think is relevant to this topic.

He said by way of many examples of differentiated stem cells being coaxed
back into pluripotent state and then differentiated into other types of
tissue, that the real analogy here of the cell is to think of it as a
computer and the DNA is the hard drive since it stores information, but
the cell membrane is the CPU since it interacts with the external
environment and has the programmed intelligence that knows how to respond
to all the various external events, including changing the information
content stored in the DNA by forcing mutations in response to external
events.

I hadn't thought about this before but I think it is apt to point out
that more intelligence is given to DNA than seems appropriate sometimes
especially considering how this epigentic evidence is coming out that DNA
is in at least some occasions actually secondary to other cellular and
environmental forces, and how little is given to the cell membrane which
actually interacts with the environment.

Thanks

John

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of David Opderbeck
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 9:25 PM
To: Randy Isaac
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Biologic Institute

David C. said: The information for biological evolution is the
environment. Organisms
succeed if their genetic information adequately matches this existing
information.

I respond: if we're using these metaphors, isn't the environment more
like the computing substrate in which the information is processed -- DNA
is like code; environment is like computer. You used information twice
above: "their genetic information adequately matches this existing
information."

Maybe what you want to say is that genetic information is an emergent
property of the environment? (This is what seems to make most sense to
me as a critical realist).

Or maybe you want to say genetic "information" is a misnomer. But that
seems like a difficult claim from my perspective: "information is a
difference that makes a difference" (Gregory Bateson).

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 8:37 PM, Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net>
wrote:

David Campbell wrote:

"There are some people on the list with strong backgounds in
cybernetics. As for me, I note that this reflects an incorrect
concept of information as it applies to biological evolution. The
information for biological evolution is the environment. Organisms
succeed if their genetic information adequately matches this existing
information. Mutation, recombination, etc. continually provides new
genetic information to test against the environmental information.
There's no mystery about where information could come from."

Agreed. And as I think I've noted before, the more appropriate technical
term that information theorists use in describing DNA in a cell is
"complexity" rather than "information."

Randy

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-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology 
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