Defining life: as emergent protein molecular property (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, May 27, 2016, 01:30 (3103 days ago) @ David Turell

This is a complex essay which I will present in parts. Part one: - http://inference-review.com/article/genes-without-prominence - "The modern synthesis, we now understand, does not explain trans-generational epigenetic inheritance, consciousness, and niche construction.9 It is possible that the concept of the gene and the claim that evolution depends on genetic diversity may both need to be modified or replaced. - *** - "It has been commonplace to understand the second law of thermodynamics as suggesting that increasing entropy inevitably implies increasing disorder.
Evolution demonstrates the reverse. Organisms evolve to become more ordered and complex, rather than less. Erwin Schrödinger thus suggested that life feeds on negative entropy by exporting entropy to its environment. - *** - "In dynamical system theory, an attractor is a stationary state of a system toward which those states that are within a basin of attraction converge. Although this makes an attractor stable under small perturbations, larger perturbations can push the system to a variant attractor. There is no continuum of stable states between attractors. Transitions are true saltations: jumps or switches.
Gradualism is not an option. - *** - "The mathematical biologist Robert Rosen concluded that living systems are complex systems that are closed to efficient causes. They are systems capable of self-regulation. Machines, on the other hand, are systems open to efficient causes. Such systems can be reduced to their component parts and reassembled. Complex systems that yield emergent properties cannot. Only the dynamic cell model satisfies Rosen's conditions for living systems. - *** - "DNA is essential to the functioning of the cell. A great many resources are devoted to maintaining its integrity. DNA serves as an inert database to enable the cell to provide its progeny with necessary peptides. These are the starting materials that when folded and activated become the cell's work horses. - *** - "The cellular phenotype is an emergent property of the cell. Emergence has proved a controversial concept, but simple chemical reactions provide examples. A mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen molecules at room temperature is clearly different from the product of the energy-induced reaction that forms ammonia. ( Comment: two gases become one) - ***
 
"Some proteins catalyze reactions, but many, as Dennis Bray has observed, govern the transfer and processing of information. 
Because of their high degree of interconnection, systems of interacting proteins act as neural networks trained by evolution to respond appropriately to patterns of extracellular stimuli. - "Even primitive microbes exhibit purposeful behavior, such as quorum sensing, chemotaxis, and phototaxis. " (my bold) - Please note the above boldings. Life requires the transfer of information using protein molecules The author presents my idea that protein molecular reactions are equivalent to neural activity. Very clear! More coming as I have time.