[ Follow Ups ]
Posted by ramellini on November 02, 1999 at 09:53:52:
In Reply to: Re: The genetic program: creator, demiurge, or neither? (Re: Program God) posted by Pierre on November 01, 1999 at 18:05:12:
Dear Pierre,
rightly you return to me the question of the definition of 'genetic program';
indeed, many theoretical problems are more semantic than biological ones.
I have not a definition to give you; the meanings I quoted were the result of a
preliminar survey of some general textbooks. I think in fact that the notion of
genetic program (GP) is unclear and vague; it pertains more to the field of
analogies than to that of rigorously defined terms; so that, while I tend to
avoid the use of this notion, I always ask to those who use it to declare their
definition.
Now, all the arguments I presented rested on the (wrong) idea that your notion
of GP was related to polynucleotides (PNs). Now I aknowledge that you have a
very broader concept of genetic program, to include for instance cytoplasmic
information, like that stored in the topological arrangement of organules. This
large concept is more satisfactory to me, apart of its analogic nature, even if
I'm sure that most biologists restrict the sense of GP to PNs.
Having shown that, considering GP related to PNs, the GP is neither the
creator nor the demiurge of biological entities, let's take in account your
definition: we call GP "something which pre exist (by transmission) and
build the organism".
The questions are:
1. What kind of entity is signified by this definition?
2. Can we consider this entity as a biological demiurge (being evident that it
cannot surely be a creator)?
1. If we say that GP is "something",
we are encouraged to imagine nearly anything as a GP. For example, let's take a
bacterial cell (P generation) that divides into two bacterial cells (F1
generation). The P cell pre-exists to F1 cells and builds them. Can we say that
the P cell is the genetic program of F1 cells? Obviously, this is not the case.
A program is not a concrete entity, so we should say at least that GP is
"something abstract".
2. If we say that GP is a builder, it is certainly a sort of demiurge, by
definition. It is comparable to the aristotelean 'form' or 'psyché'.
Nevertheless, I find it difficult to understand how an abstract entity could
build anything; it is as if a plan of a new house were considered as the
builder of the house.