[ Follow Ups ]
Posted by Dov on November 24, 1999 at 11:23:13:
Here is an e-mail dialog between Dov and Sergei about Dov's preprint :
(S)Hi, Dov, I do believe that your essay can be of interest to many
professionals. I provide my personal vision below in a very straightforward
manner. I think that in order to bring this to real attention of those who
do visit the HBG web site, the manuscript has to be modified so that it
moves to the Essays page.
(D) Insurmountable problem. Will never find time to bring it to acceptable
format for this purpose.
(S) I also believe that it has to be re-written in a language more
acceptable in biological community.
(D)Sorry. Don't know how. Not familiar with the terms. I can only state
what I think in MY words.
(S)I think that many of your introductory paragraphs discuss points
well-accepted among biologists. Those should be stated briefly, and the
references should be provided, at least to books or other common
sources. Check the Amazon link on the HBG web site, just to see the most
common references on the subject (http://www.heraclitean.co/amazon/).
(D)When you think or talk do you constantly search your memory for the
source of your sentences,if you heard or read them somewhere,or otherwise
search the literature for who/where/when might have stated something
similar ?
(S)I find paragraph 4 to be a central part of your manuscript. The
statement "intelligent PURPOSEFUL beings" is a very bold one. If you
say
that,you have to define "purpose". I know you do define it "to
survive
and propagate" but is every piece of DNA aware of its purpose ?
(D)Yes. I think that every piece of DNA,or of other duplicable template,
is as "aware" of THIS purpose as apolycell organism including us.
(S)Within present human culture, the idea of "thinking" molecule
is
difficult to accept.
(D) We need to adjust our concepts. A polycell organism is a collection of
monocells with inhabitants that developed a system of
spaceships-associated-as-spacestation. There is "thinking" in both
levels,
the thinking of the polcell conglomeration being an extension of the
thinking of cell's inhabitants.
(S)On the contrary, the idea of PNs combined in clusters as "chemical
societies" with very complex mutual interactions is very attractive. PNs
thus may be considered as parts of some kind of "molecular brains".
The
question now is whether those socities are driven by conscious (chemically
conscious) understanding of their purpose, or they just follow energetical
considerations in purely stochastic mechanisms ? This is where I see the real
question,and this is how youe essay is related to the favorite
discussion of HBG - determinism vs stochasticity.
(D)To proceed with adjusting concepts : Determinism for a scientist is
"determined by antecedent causes". Stochastic events are "those
affected by
an element of chance". I do not see these two as different and certainly
not
as opposite things, as all matter is held together in some degree of order,
and order can be characterized and predicted, and even though we are NOW yet
incapable to predict "chance" it will most probably be predictable,
thus
deterministic, in the future.
(S)The issues that you bring up in your essay are very broad and
controversial. That is why it is difficult to go through all of them in a
letter. I do believe though that if you can somehow relate your ideas to
what is already known, that would help enormously. You can start from as
early as Alexander Oparin (spell?) and Swante Arrhenius (spell?) and go
closer to recent articles in the last two-three decades. You will be
surprised by how few real things are written on the issue.
(D)Sergei, my hope has been and still is that some
"professionals/scientists" will eventually notice this posting and
react to it.
However, if it is not noticed or evokes reaction I would not be offended or
disappointed.
I am old enough to accept realistically that HBG is just one of many
similar websites and that scarcely would a professional/scientist bother
to read such a posting and especially comment on it .
(S)I would give up the idea/hope of the essay "being noticed by
sdomeone". If you enjoy thinking on this subject and consider continuing
doing so, just go on, and let us see if someone becomes interested. But if
not, what have you lost. Just enjoy what you loke and keep going.
(D)I just looked at the HBG discussion page. I may be a primitive
uninformed observer in the subject of Genetic Program, or indeed
the boy of the Emperor's New Clothes, as to me mitosis is akin to a
human's well-planned 4th millenium split of a spaceship comprising several
hudred individuals plus their living accessories. I realize that it is
impossible to write this on the Forum in such plain words as part of the
discussion re the GP, yet I am convinced (of course this is not scientific)
that this concept furnishes many explanations of the nature of life.
Well, one the day the just emerging human may be able to grasp the
relationship between himself and the very old constituents who are
the inhabitants of his cells and of other cells. end.