[ Follow Ups ]
Posted by Ramellini on November 19, 1999 at 12:04:18:
In Reply to: Re: Is there an attack against the concept of genetic program? posted by Dov on November 07, 1999 at 16:07:07:
Dear Dove,
About information: if we say that "information is data,
characteristics, of the order in a matter and/or in a system, that may explain
their state and their future", then it is obvious that the <
So that, information in your sense includes at least GP (anything it may be;
the question is always the same: what is the definition of GP?), environment
and cytoplasmic arrangements.
About recipes: a recipe sounds as "take something and do something with
it"; it is an instruction, more than a process. Now, nothing in this sense
is present in DNA. Along certain sections of the double helix we find a chain
of nucleotides somewhat inactive; when a complex made up of RNA-polymerase, ATP
and other factors contacts that section, some ribonucleotides become attached
and form a RNA.
These DNA sections do not instruct the cell to build RNA or protids; to pick up
the linguistic metaphor, we can compare them to a written text, which doesn't
furnish the instructions to be read. The book 'The Origin of Species' doesn't
contain instructions for its reading; on the contrary, it is a reader that is
able to read it, if he knows latin alphabet. If we put the book in the hands of
a Chinese who doesn't know latin alphabet, he cannot read the book; an Italian
who knows latin alphabet but doesn't know english can read (apart the
pronounce, if he reads aloud) the book, even if he doesn't understand the text.
Owing to the RNA-polymerase complex activity, some ribonucleotides are chained
in linear correspondence to some desoxyribonucleotides. This point of view, I
now notice it, attaches more importance to the polymerase complex than to DNA
sections; DNA is seen as a passive, static, inactive macromolecule (a mass
memory, maybe; note that in this context memory is not, again, a process, but a
physical support of conservation, persistence, retention of something), while
the HERACLITEAN activity, processuality, becoming is performed by other
cellular components.