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It's pretty hard to compare biology to programming, mainly because analogies start to break down and it becomes fundamentally different. The genome is just a co
by koeng 6y ago
It's pretty hard to compare biology to programming, mainly because analogies start to break down and it becomes fundamentally different. The genome is just a collection of atoms that has figured out how to trick other atoms do work (in order to make more copies of itself). And it will do weird, weird things to accomplish that task.
- throwaway316943 6y agoForgive my limited knowledge of biochemistry but isn’t the gist of it that nucleotides code for and combine to form amino acids which when put in certain sequences form enzymes and proteins whose structure then enables some function so it is much like the paper tape model of a computer except instead of paper with holes in it you have a polymer with a few types of “hooks” that allows it to fold into an origami machine that can manipulate or join with other bits of paper to do things? This is different from programming a computer which relies on reading instructions from such a tape but only in that the computer and its functions/actuators are made of tape. It may be a strained metaphor but it is how I conceptualize it. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
- dsign 6y agoThat's is essentially correct. But even if we discount the steroids this "origami machine" is on, and assume is an un-fancy origami machine, it still defies easy reasoning. Or at least, the kind of reasoning we are used to when programming digital computers.
- throwaway316943 6y agoAbsolutely, I don’t deny the complexity! I still wonder at the mind boggling accomplishments of evolution. It’s like being able to create a working car out of nothing but wet spaghetti!