Genome complexity: what genes do and don't do (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, January 30, 2019, 15:17 (2124 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: [...] To this I would add that I do not accept the term "reaction information". Information is passive, and new stimuli provide new information. Cells, as you say, become aware of it and use it. I don't believe passive information can actively instruct passive information to become active.

DAVID: 'Reaction information' is my term for instructions as to how to respond to various stimuli.

dhw: Why mess about with language? Information means passive facts or details about a subject. Instructions are not facts or details, they are commands. And the article you initially agreed with said specifically that the passive data base could NOT serve as instructions.

Of course there are instructions in the information. The cell must activate those instructions and follow them as the cells react to a stimulus.

DAVID: What are your thoughts about this issue of information in this context of what makes life operate?

dhw: My thoughts favour the hypothesis described above, using your very own words: “life "runs on" cells being aware of and actively using the passive information that is lying there inactive.” To complete the picture, I must add that for me there is a 50/50 chance that the active awareness and ability (or intelligence) of cells to use the information may have been designed by your God.

DAVID: Agreed.

Still hope for a red letter day!

dhw: […] in the context of heredity and evolution, I need to repeat the caveat I have always offered in response to your posts highlighting automaticity and ignoring origins and problems. Every innovation does require “de novo” instructions from the cells, but once any process has proved successful, I agree that the cells will then follow “stored instructions”, as the successful process has to be passed on. And the cells will go on performing that process automatically unless problems or new conditions arise. It is the solution of new problems that provides us with the evidence that cells (including bacteria) are aware of passive information and, in your own words, “use it in various required actions”. That is when they create instructions on the hoof/de novo. And that is the basis of my hypothesis: we know cells can solve new problems and can restructure themselves in response to environmental change, and although we don’t know the extent to which they can do this, I suggest that by the same process they can also invent the new structures that constitute evolution.

DAVID: We disagree about automaticity, since I think almost all of what cells do or respond to is automatic in multicellular organisms.

dhw: That may well be so, but the crucial word in your statement is “almost”. Once the process has been successful, it has to be repeated “automatically”, as described above. Only when there are problems/new conditions do the cells have to – in your own words – become aware of them and actively use the new information to perform the required actions. Your "almost" is the area in which cellular intelligence comes into play.

The 'almost' is carefully included as I discuss multicellular life. A kidney cell has no ability to do anything different than its assigned tasks. But we know the brain has plasticity and perhaps some neurons may follow your concept of cell intelligence. Remember your concept is based on Shapiro who studied all-in-one bacteria who carry a different set of responsibilities. I do not think Shapiro generally carries over to multicellular organisms.

DAVID: Shapiro's work is on bacteria which is a whole different ballgame. They have to have some way to alter themselves. That doesn't really translate to what happens in multicellular. I also disagree with cells cannot create new species. That requires design beyond their capacities.

dhw: Correction: you disagree with the hypothesis that cells can create new species. I know you do. We also know that bacteria, like all cells and cell communities, “have some way to alter themselves”. That’s what the discussion is all about! Shapiro thinks it’s cellular intelligence, and I keep emphasizing that since we have never witnessed any innovations leading to new species, cellular intelligence as the means of innovation is a hypothesis. So too is your fixed belief that your God designed every species so that they could all eat one another until he designed the only thing he wanted to design.

I think you are not discussing my points as presented above. To change a leg into a flipper you will first find the bones have a very similar pattern with altered joint shapes. The blood vessels and nerves will be the same. The muscles will have changed to allows the wave motion of flippers instead of the walking motion. The brain's controls will be changed to use this different way of locomotion, Nothing like Shapiro's bacteria and how they adapt. Your concept is a huge extrapolation to accomplish this design change.