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> Biological organisms are much better organized than us. We can do better. If you’re referring to the fact that an organism like a human body can function wit
by nneonneo 4y ago
> Biological organisms are much better organized than us. We can do better.
If you’re referring to the fact that an organism like a human body can function with trillions of individual cells, it is indeed marvelous and quite well organized. But, cells and people are different. Cells in your body are all genetically identical, and lack any form of “individuality”. Indeed, they possess genetic fetters that will cause them to commit suicide should they become too unique, and should a cell manage to throw off all of those limitations they will become cancerous and potentially kill the entire host.
Regulating a large and diverse set of individuals is a much harder problem than regulating an army of clones, after all.
- dekhn 4y agoI disagree with your assertion that cells in a body are all genetically identical- in addition to any cell-specific mutations (which occur any time cells divide) and epigenetics (which provides every cell with unique modifications), at any time a particular cell's RNA complement is unique and this can be used to cluster cells in a high dimensional space. If you just mean "all cells in a body have chromosomes ultimately descended from the gamete", then yeah, sure, but that doesn't really say anything about the full state of a complex organism (which depends on the instantaneous protein concentrations, damage, etc).