5 ms·

Aren't those electrical field patterns still somehow encoded in the DNA?

ethbr0 6y ago
Everything is deterministic if you're omniscient. In our more limited experience, certain levels of complexity mean unpredictable outcomes. As for why-not-DNA, I think about it in terms of "If there were some way that was faster able to adapt organisms than DNA changes, wouldn't most organisms accumulate substantial functionality via that pathway over time?"
- sssilver 6y ago
  > Everything is deterministic if you're omniscient Is this true, given https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle ?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - frutiger 6y ago
    It is indeed not true, even omniscient beings can only produce probability distributions. However it is not clear if quantum effects are relevant at a biomolecular scale. Some experts[1] suggest so but these ideas are considered fringe by the mainstream. 1. Sir Roger Penrose
  - Ixio 6y ago
    I'm of the mind that randomness is only an approximation of complexity, if you're omniscient then randomness doesn't exist and everything is deterministic. However it seems to me the deterministic vs randomness debate is of the same order as the existence of god(s) : we will never be able to prove or disprove it and we aren't able to make useful predictions out of the information one way or the other so we might as well just agree to disagree and move on.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
They don't need to be. I'm not sure what the conclusion of biologists is today, but I have a feeling a lot of important mechanisms aren't encoded in the DNA - or, at least, not anymore. The key insight here is that cell reproduction doesn't happen out of nothing, it's always an existing mechanism working on a new mechanism. The seminal paper of Ken Thompson, "Reflections on Trusting Trust" (1984)[0], demonstrates how you can encode a backdoor in a compiler in such a way that the compiler embeds this backdoor in every program it builds, and embeds the backdoor-embedding machinery in every new compiler binary it builds. You can use it to build a "vanilla" compiler and make it backdoor-embedding, even though the source code doesn't have backdoor-embedding instructions in it. I suspect similar things happen in biology - there is computationally relevant information embedded in the runtime state, that's not explicitly encoded in the DNA - but it carries on, because every new living cell is built by a previous living cell. -- [0] - https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...
- fktnktofk 6y ago
  I get your point and I agree, the DNA runs on hardware, which is why you can't take cat DNA and put it in a salamander cell and expect to get a cat. The resulting cell will just die since the hardware is not compatible with the DNA. My point was that there is only so much information capacity in the cell if you exclude DNA, surely much less than needed to store electrical fields patterns for a whole embryo.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - FartyMcFarter 6y ago
    A cell has a lot of atoms, which may store a lot of information?
    - Robotbeat 6y ago
      But not error corrected like DNA.
WClayFerguson 6y ago
DNA is basically digital information. Every rung on the helix ladder is either an AT or GC. Nature found the simplest say to store information in our chemistry set. Couldn't really store any field patterns though.
- Robotbeat 6y ago
  RNA is simpler but doesn’t error correct as much like DNA. It’s possible the first life forms had only RNA.
oconnor663 6y ago
Speculating for fun based on what scientist people have told me at parties :) I think the idea is that DNA will directly and literally encode things like "the genes for proteins A and B tend to get activated together". But the next thing that happens is that protein B catalyzes some chain of chemical reactions that winds up activating a different gene for protein C. And then maybe protein C causes some sort of mechanical change in the cell, and the resulting mechanical stress triggers the production of protein D in adjacent cells. Mapping the mechanical relationships between cells in an animal with developing bones and muscles gets super complicated. So the question of "does the DNA encode the relationship between A and D" ends up depending on what you mean by "encode".

Everything is deterministic if you're omniscient. In our more limited experience, certain levels of complexity mean unpredictable outcomes. As for why-not-DNA, I think about it in terms of "If there were some way that was faster able to adapt organisms than DNA changes, wouldn't most organisms accumulate substantial functionality via that pathway over time?"

sssilver 6y ago
> Everything is deterministic if you're omniscient Is this true, given https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle ?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- frutiger 6y ago
  It is indeed not true, even omniscient beings can only produce probability distributions. However it is not clear if quantum effects are relevant at a biomolecular scale. Some experts[1] suggest so but these ideas are considered fringe by the mainstream. 1. Sir Roger Penrose
- Ixio 6y ago
  I'm of the mind that randomness is only an approximation of complexity, if you're omniscient then randomness doesn't exist and everything is deterministic. However it seems to me the deterministic vs randomness debate is of the same order as the existence of god(s) : we will never be able to prove or disprove it and we aren't able to make useful predictions out of the information one way or the other so we might as well just agree to disagree and move on.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

They don't need to be. I'm not sure what the conclusion of biologists is today, but I have a feeling a lot of important mechanisms aren't encoded in the DNA - or, at least, not anymore. The key insight here is that cell reproduction doesn't happen out of nothing, it's always an existing mechanism working on a new mechanism. The seminal paper of Ken Thompson, "Reflections on Trusting Trust" (1984)[0], demonstrates how you can encode a backdoor in a compiler in such a way that the compiler embeds this backdoor in every program it builds, and embeds the backdoor-embedding machinery in every new compiler binary it builds. You can use it to build a "vanilla" compiler and make it backdoor-embedding, even though the source code doesn't have backdoor-embedding instructions in it. I suspect similar things happen in biology - there is computationally relevant information embedded in the runtime state, that's not explicitly encoded in the DNA - but it carries on, because every new living cell is built by a previous living cell. -- [0] - https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...

fktnktofk 6y ago
I get your point and I agree, the DNA runs on hardware, which is why you can't take cat DNA and put it in a salamander cell and expect to get a cat. The resulting cell will just die since the hardware is not compatible with the DNA. My point was that there is only so much information capacity in the cell if you exclude DNA, surely much less than needed to store electrical fields patterns for a whole embryo.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- FartyMcFarter 6y ago
  A cell has a lot of atoms, which may store a lot of information?
  - Robotbeat 6y ago
    But not error corrected like DNA.

WClayFerguson 6y ago

DNA is basically digital information. Every rung on the helix ladder is either an AT or GC. Nature found the simplest say to store information in our chemistry set. Couldn't really store any field patterns though.

Robotbeat 6y ago
RNA is simpler but doesn’t error correct as much like DNA. It’s possible the first life forms had only RNA.

oconnor663 6y ago

Speculating for fun based on what scientist people have told me at parties :) I think the idea is that DNA will directly and literally encode things like "the genes for proteins A and B tend to get activated together". But the next thing that happens is that protein B catalyzes some chain of chemical reactions that winds up activating a different gene for protein C. And then maybe protein C causes some sort of mechanical change in the cell, and the resulting mechanical stress triggers the production of protein D in adjacent cells. Mapping the mechanical relationships between cells in an animal with developing bones and muscles gets super complicated. So the question of "does the DNA encode the relationship between A and D" ends up depending on what you mean by "encode".