DNA & Platonic Forms

I am putting this post I made in the Tribes here to encourage overlap between more than the groups but the principles and challenge I am making in formulating this concept.

Perhaps we are confusing the dualist aspects of the analysis with overly extended spiritual metaphor, also those like myself proposing this recognition of 'dualism' (multifacetedness) need to address the idea not only with precision but by seeking valid comprehension of the breadth and depth of information being derived through genetics and the extension genetic awareness brings to the entire fields of biology, chemistry and physics through nanotechnology.

Please be encouraged to participate in this social example of parallel processing and Meta-Brain Growth Process, where I actually posted this proposal. You can ignore the experiment or participate. You can apply aspects your personal understandings and personalities here, at the links provided, in your independent research and lives, or all of the above. You can ignore the ideas too but that is unscientific.

laz


Platonic Forms, DNA, and Memory

Many of us here are also members of the Cognitive Science Tribe Where there are a number of overlapping threads that merit inclusion in further analysis of this tribe's goals.

Interesting News Story

The dark side of neurons

10% of Our Brain

self-awareness

And perhaps most the most important thread:

mind:brain::software...

I am referencing these and I should probably add numerous citations of posts by George and Simon over at the Betterhumans Tribe that are also significant as well as MichaelA and Ben's independent contributions. An aspect of the Tribe and Imminst environments that I find fascinating in-spite of their at times inherent chaotic nature is the way many groups independently simultaneously analyze ideas which are then shared as a continuously growing common record. (practical memetics)

While there is a lot of redundancy there are also some unique elements for each independent thread and the process parallels the manner of human cognition within the mind by how we are able to process data in both a linear and associative fashion.

I am pointing this out because it leads into the actual subject of this post. I have been elaborating on the unique functional qualities of DNA because it is both Code and Component but I have begun to recognize a characteristic of this duality that I found to resemble the paradigm of the Platonic Form: You see DNA is the 'idea of substance' as the 'substance of an idea.'

These are not simplistic word games or philosophical tautologies it is a practical reality we are daily coming to grips with. This recognition is allowing me to address questions of memory and language with a different less materialist perspective than many strict empiricists might be comfortable with but it is not a leap to the dualist arguments many would like to make about function that are not supported by evidence.

DNA as code is a material language, it is not a 'symbolic' one and this means that words don't 'describe' some conceptual object by 'definition' but in how they are assembled (analogous to written) they in fact define the objective form and function. This is a powerful overlap of the duality described by Plato in the analysis of "form".

It also contributes to why memory is not perfect. Because we are not making a true copy of events, we are reassembling contributory association for any specific event because all events are the sum of encrypted sensory data modified by "conscious value". We don't "think" about this consciously but our brains do so functionally because we process all sensory input all the time and our 'consciousness' is the result of an applied selective filtration to focus on specific aspects that relate to behavioral choice at any given moment but our brains are processing the full data flow simultaneously all the time and storing the mountain of data.

This is an aspect of the 10% argument of brain usage that is not addressed well nor is it explained away by detractors of Penrose but he in turn over simplifies the assessment of how much data there is. However he is correct to say it is vastly more data than is being "consciously processed" and this is where the problem lies we really don't have an adequate measure of that data flow and are only guessing at its volume by the slow empirical methods of deduction, investigation, and painstaking associations both intuitive and physical and here is where the form and language issue relates...

Unless we look at DNA as more that just the letters of a language, more than just the words formed by those letters, more than just the sentences formed by those syntactical relationships of words, more than just the concepts of those sentences assembled into constructs of ideas, more than the algorithmic relationship of those ideas as program language but like the leap Plato makes, the very substance of an idea expressed in physical form, composed not merely of material but meaning, we will not understand its complex multifaceted function. It is this aspect that leads to genetics being seen as branch of the still nascent 'nanology'.

In other words DNA goes a step beyond the symbolic 'language forms' we are accustomed to because DNA is the actual building material for the expression of the ideas defined by the logic of matter.

I think this approach is troublesome on one level and enlightening on another. I am sharing my musings rather than proposing very concrete theories here but doing so to encourage both substantive argument against the perspective and an open call to test its validity of understanding by its application.

By calling DNA both component and code I am essentially saying we have discovered a valid example of a Platonic form that is both pure idea and its discernible material expression. Making this a spiritual argument at this point is counter productive but reducing the issue to pure material limits is also deceptively excessive.

DNA defines the manner of our sensory relationship to 'reality' so there exists a 'material determinism' whereby the Language of the code going into the design of its own manifestation is no doubt dependent upon what are the most basic elements of perception possible at the most basic quanta for the chemistry of the code, at least in relation to the environment in which this living form of "code" evolves its material expression. Saying that DNA possesses a language expressed 'en toto' by every organized assemblage is not a leap of faith, it is taxonomic biology.

However my primate friends we have only just broken into this library and we are still predominately illiterate, even the best geneticist is only a functional illiterate of this innate language. We have only just begun to appreciate that the all the letters mean something and what some of the words they form are.

The real debate before humanity is that we are about to go well beyond guessing at what they mean and looking at the whole design for every life form is the difference between recognizing a word or even reading a book, and understanding the entire field of knowledge the book addresses.

So please treat this thread as a place we can share an assessment of the basic proposition I am making and also evaluate how if true this perspective impacts on what is 'memory in biology,' not just what is the physiology of memory?

Obviously DNA itself represents a form of memory far beyond what the individual that is composed of it generally remembers. So again and in closing I ask: Is DNA a tangible example of a Platonic Form?

It is for all practical purposes a molecular interface between material and the ethereal: "Solid Concept."

Edited by Lazarus Long, 10 January 2004 - 04:33 PM.

Hi again my friend Lazarus Long. I wish that I had your depth of words so please bear with me. I am just an old caveyogi who discovered computers seven years ago. Ok? Am I in the loop here? Does the DNA create the mind or does the mind create the DNA? Or are these two concepts playing together.? I know that I am not suppose to bring in spiritual stuff here (hugs), but historical literature says that we can recieve a Heavenly body that is immortal. The Egyptians had a "life energy harness" technology that they used to assist the mind. We have the evidence in our museums. All of the Ancient ones had them. My wife and I both wear one. I think that the mind creates the spirit and the spirit is what creates the body. At all levels. Including the DNA. These "life energy harness" gizmos use the mind to amp the spirit. They work sort of as a pacemake for the energy field that holds the body together. The problem with them is that you can tune the system with them and if you added electricty to them you could put the illegal drug people out of business. So anyway Lazaruz I think that the mind can change ones DNA and after all, we get a new body every seven years. I hope I am in the loop here? Love, John.

I know that I am not suppose to bring in spiritual stuff here (hugs), but historical literature says that we can receive a Heavenly body that is immortal.

Not to worry friend this is a different thread and different rules. I made the other thread on the Brain/Mind a strand of 'pure' science as it is generally understood but if you look up I started this in the Hardcore Philosophy corner so your comments may be disputable but they are not only welcome they are certainly appropriate. You are after all clearly entitled to your opinion and are honest enough to state it openly. )

The Egyptians had a "life energy harness" technology that they used to assist the mind. We have the evidence in our museums. All of the Ancient ones had them. My wife and I both wear one. I think that the mind creates the spirit and the spirit is what creates the body. At all levels. Including the DNA. These "life energy harness" gizmos use the mind to amp the spirit.

The concept of an antenna, magnet, lens or other artifice to collect "Life Energy" is pretty universal and I have heard and read of Reich and others that make such claims but our actual "life-force" is more conceptual as code than tangible as energy. You see that is why I make the reference to Plato's Forms.

The energy that is associated with our bodies is real and it is a discharge that is the result of synaptic potential charge being suddenly or slowly discharged, not too different from measuring voltage potentials across a circuit board or when you make a spark. The real complexity, nuance and elegance of DNA is that it is a molecule with a meaning and the meaning is what it seeks to form. As it is code it assembles itself into more and more of what it needs to meet the basic program but also that manifestation is the body itself and DNA makes up a significant portion of the most important aspects of the actual material substance of the body as both matter and function; the two principle aspects of "form," which combined could be the real 'force' (or energy) of what we call life. Why does it need to be also a form of lightning or some other part of the electromagnetic spectrum?

That kind of energy is there too but it is not nearly as powerful as the actual "idea that is alive" at a molecular level. In a way the whole idea of MRI is on one level a distraction from understanding the "Spirit" of intelligence in my opinion.

I will not get into a debate on what I do not know. Mutation occurs all our lives and why all types of mutations occur is not understood, we certainly know why some do. As to whether behavior or attitude can alter DNA is pure speculation but an interesting idea.

Whether it is possible by force of will or not I cannot say but that we are seeking a technological version of the same idea is without a doubt. What I will say is that perhaps the rules about the common idea of energy are flawed and we do not perceive or appreciate the 'power of ideas' as pure energy ( a Platonic Form) outside the electromagnetic spectrum.

Thank you Lazarus for letting me play. I have a BA in botany from a university. When it comes to "yoga science", there are probably only six people in the world today that have acomplished what I have acomplished. And none of them live in the US. I have been studing the concept of Physical Immortality for about twenty years now. And I have been studying the "Life Energy Harness" technology for over fifteen years now and have been wearing one version or another for twelve years now. They had to be tested on somebody so with that said I would like to start here:

Personally I think that anyone who wants to be physically immortal is "nuts", but I also think that those who want to be should have the choice and I feel very strongly about this choice not just being a gift to the rich. So while you guys have been studying "high tech", I have been studing "low tech" for that reason. And to better understand what I am up against here have another look at Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". I have been experiencing reality outside of the cave for about two years now. Ok?

Now the DNA molecule, I am so happy that you brought this up. The DNA molecule is a biological computer that communicates with its self using a form of electromagnetic energy and light (and I would like to throw this in just for fun: God's name YHVH in origional language means "Signal-Rest--Back and Forth-Rest" and is the key to the DNA computer of all living things. )

A single DNA computer generates noise as light and a form of electromagnetic energy. This noise is how it communicates with itself and its neighboring DNA computers. Because this noise is so small it takes a billion of these little buggers running simultaneously to generate enough noise to the run the body. The brain is an amplifier that translates this noise into gross body functions and movement. This is why science can't find the mind in the brain. The mind is actually in the DNA computer. And this is also why the body knows what is it and what isn't it. The reason that science is having trouble understanding how viruses work is because they don't understand about the noise that the DNA computer generates. What is insidious about a virus is that it actually sets up a jamming signal that disrupts the noise communication between the body's DNA computers. And if you get enough of these little jamming devices operational they shut the body down and/or some part of it and the body or some part of it ceases to be functional. Ok, how am I doing so far Lazarus Long? Love, John

God's name YHVH in origional language means "Signal-Rest--Back and Forth-Rest" and is the key to the DNA computer of all living things. )

This is very interesting...do you have any references that I could find that support this? Others say the sense of the original Hebrew is "[the one who] Causes to become" i.e. I am Causality. This seems to be the sense that Isaac Newton had regarding the tetragrammaton.

Hi Methuselah Mouse! It is nice to meet you! Iam sorry but I have no references. I am the originator of the concept. "Origional Language" is a working hypothesis that I have created to study language and how different groups of people used the same simple basic building blocks in different ways to convey complex concepts, that were beyond the ability of the basic building blocks themselves, as a way to peek at the way that these groups of people approached things based on their personal experience as a group of people. When I correlated what I knew about the DNA computer with God's name in Hebrew, hello nano technology! And the science of the DNA computer! And major thanks Methuselah Mouse for the information you have posted here, "[the one who] Causes to become"! What a gift! Love, John

Ok? Am I in the loop here? Does the DNA create the mind or does the mind create the DNA? Or are these two concepts playing together.?

I'm OK your OK, yes I think we are caught in a circuitous logic together on this. )

So to reverse the order, yes these concepts are "playing together" but I should say that the adaptation of DNA to existence redefines it every moment as the Mind, but if you wanted to answer the first question first, then DNA creates the mind.

However this is a little bit of a chicken/egg dilemma and that is why I answered backward so that we could begin with the reference to what is perceptually known.

The DNA molecule is a biological computer that communicates with its self using a form of electromagnetic energy and light (and I would like to throw this in just for fun:

I am not clear about this. The DNA molecule does create electron potentials and there is an obvious electrical discharge that is what is being measured at the synapses but this is more like a digital circuit being turned on/off and the amount of complex information is negligible, though it does possess some basic elements of code itself. The "molecule" of DNA is complex and simple. First of all we are using this term improperly as DNA is not a single molecule.

It is four molecules that combine to make a self replicating double helix assembly which we treat as a molecule but really is a form of liquid crystal. I offer this perspective because the very principle of genetics is founded on the idea that this molecule DOESN'T have one single chemical 'form' but uses the same essential elements to makes composites of various forms and these forms represent genes.

http://www.accessexc...a_molecule.html

A gene is not exactly a single molecule but in the manner most people refer to DNA that is its 'molecular state.' Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid is composed of molecules of four more basic substances that combine to form our familiar double helix that we describe as a paradigm. But this is a flawed perspective because it is not a single form but more analogous to isotopes at the atomic scale. What is important about DNA is its 'form' and this can be a very large complex gene, or very simple ones and the tens of thousands of 'genes' we have now typed can be seen as different molecules of DNA chemically by weight and overall composition, or I suggest are better seen as isomeric (reflective of isotopic) for characteristics.

This is vitally important because DNA does not change its basic substrate but dramatically alters its behavior (information) based upon its overall "quantity of composition" and "sequenced order of data" (code). These sequencings are important within the gene to define function and regulate activity but also as composites of genes in relation to one another in larger more complex expressions like chromosomes and perhaps even the specialized cases of organs and other complex tissues.

Also DNA in my opinion, while classed as a true molecule in itself, behaves more as a 'mixture' on a molecular scale than a true single chemical compound. The chemical bonds of the lattice for the double helix are weak as opposed to strong atomic force and the actual four chemicals (Cytosine, Thiamine, Guanine, Adenine) never lose their individual chemical composition.

I am raising this to suggest that we have been squeezing DNA for 50 years into a chemical paradigm that it is not entire comfortable with. It isn't exactly what we mean when we normally use the word 'molecule'. It is not a single 'molecule' that its basic chemistry suggests but thousands of variations of a molecule (isomers of shape and size), each with a different associated message/meaning. The message is how it communicates data to a larger and more complex assembly of its own related linked 'cousins' in a living cell(s) and its meaning is ability to manifest itself in physical functional form.

I am raising this little primer on DNA so as to return to the importance of its isomeric character because that is how information is not only encrypted but as you suggest also how it is communicated. You see the other thing DNA does is that it links itself up to other DNA molecules in larger assemblies and these become the various functional systems of the cell, starting with chromosomes and then on upward to nuclei, organelles, and through RNA and proteins into the basic material of the entire biome, but even at the level of the brains' neural network and the vastly more complex idea of social networks that are not directly linked physically but emotionally and intellectually the way we here in the web are.

So on one level that information is communicated by a 'shout' (energy discharge) in the form of electron potentials at the atomic scale of the bonds within the double helix and on another level as a 'shout' in the form of synaptic discharges that convey on/off binary signals but on a vastly more subtle way the protocols of DNA are like a 'secret handshake' where if two molecules do not possess the precise correct form they are unable to be 'keyed together'. Though I am shouting this idea across the ether of our social web to convey it to another DNA based brain (you and all that read this). The words here carry a message but DNA also can be said to communicate by touch not merely energy sort of the way a key can communicate just sufficient data (not too much or too little) to open a lock.

The parallel of this is happening at the atomic scale of force within the molecule and is paralleled by how we see functions of the brain built in to complex neural network structures and even how a molecule like a "prion" might work to store long term memory.

A prion is more like a "chemical codex" and here we are beginning to cross disciplines in a way that makes most materialist scientists too uncomfortable so they tend to overly limit their perspective of the problem in order to make sense of it. But these crystals of memory are able to combine a vast quantity of associated data into long term storage but also they appear to be allowing a filtration process to go on that makes the volume of data tolerable for daily survival function. This filtration process can be overridden by seemingly extraneous sensory data and clinical psychologists have studied this phenomenon since the beginning of their profession.

( This article is good for a day or two and I will try to copy/paste it to our archive)
http://www.nytimes.c...nce/09MEMO.html

What I mean is that the prions of memory are like copies of your Operating System Registration data that are constantly being manufactured and stored in the brain, but generally when we access them we do not want all the data so we extract just the parts that relate to shorter term memory demand or to a specific long term extraction (recall process) like reminiscing.

The prion like structures we are finding associated with memory are more like a Mayan Stella, a sort of molecular marker that says the sate of the body at a given moment, that is perhaps why sensory information can trigger access to the memories because the body remembers the smells, the sensory "ambiance" associated with an event or idea and this complex association allows a sort of programmers back-door access to long term memory. The brain is storing a vast quantity of these prions all your life and they are probably delicate structures that decays or are broken by how they are handled so this is one of my concerns about cryo.

Also every memory prion is possibly duplicating a lot of data the other ones possess (again analogous to how a registry file works) and this wold allow for a remarkable plasticity with respect to the recovery of lost data after damage to some centers of the brain because as the brain heals its pathways and accesses the old stored data it is able to rebuild function by adapting the sensory memory and seek alternative pathways to achieving the same form of function.

This also may explain such a phenomenon as phantom pain.

All right, I am way out on a limb here and I am not sure I have explained well enough why what I am saying is that the "energy" paradigm you and most people are trying to fit into "life force" is not working.

Let me try this, our DNA also communicates by a form of molecular sign language predicated on the ability to encrypt "functional form" in a manner analogous to how we understand Plato to have been describing the concept. The word is not emanating down however from a spiritual plateau, it is making itself into being by virtue of its expression. Though the duality is valid to examine and this is why I am still classed as a dualist even though I am not describing the classic model for such a relationship.

However this model allows for adaptation of the 'form' predicated on its "instantiation in the moment". To use the metaphor I applied earlier, DNA is the "perfect form of the table" but the table to be "real" must get assembled from the available material at the moment it comes into being, and to sustain itself it must be appropriate to the environment into which it is born or it doesn't survive.

For example the table designed for Jupiter would work on Earth but it would be vastly larger and stronger than it needed to be and visa versa one designed for Earth would collapse back onto itself (die) if given form on Jupiter. The basic "form" of the 'idea' of the table is not altered, anymore than a number like (1) but what is altered is how the form is expressed.

The interesting parallel to the "Platonic Forms" is that it may reflect a whole series of Quantum Harmonic Relationships that may overlap other areas of Physics from the subatomic that would define nanological relationships to macrocosmic aspects of Astrophysics. It is in these "Harmonic Resonant States" where we may be sensing an overlap to what we perceive as "spirit."

BTW, John light is electromagnetic energy. Most of the different ways we think of energy have more to do with wave length than substantive meaning. For example photons of "light" translate readily into being electrons as they impact on a molecule that is sufficiently unstable enough to absorb them and then emit an electron at a different valence level to compensate and this is how photosynthesis operates as well as photoelectric cells.

Pass a flow of electrons around a ferrous core and you can produce a polarized electromagnetic field, but take magnets and rotate them in relation to empty wire coils that are surrounding the rotating magnet and the coil will induce an electron charge (a current of specific voltage and amperage defined by variables associated with the spin, strength of magnetic field, capacity, and the number of coils etc.) that can be made to flow through the wire of the coil and on out through a conductive medium electrical wire) or transmitted as waves of energy without a conductor as light, heat, and radio waves. By the way a vacuum can be said to be a conductor of electrons like a wire because there is no resistance and this is why a cathode ray emitter for an 'electron beam' can send a coherent flow of electrons through it. If it couldn't you probably wouldn't be looking at these words right now.

But as we understand principles different paradigms can achieve similar results by different paths. The liquid crystal displays in the new flat screens use the properties of a circuit to coalesce visual information in a randomly reorganizing circuit over a liquid matrix to provide visual information but electrons are no longer flowing through a vacuum to do this that is why the screen can be thin and flat. The same information is getting to your eye but the path has now altered considerably.

In biology you could say that at times a similar trick is going on with viruses as they are able to plug in just sufficient information to be allowed access to a cells' functional program (like a key) but then based on the information contained by the rogue data they can tell the cell to function differently or the cell simply self destructs (lyses) as it can no longer function as it was doing.

So a virus sort of starts by being able to tune into the cells receptor 'channel' (the radio wave metaphor) by how it is shaped (keyed) and then as it inserts itself into the cell it alters the actual (genetic program) function of the cell. As it does so if the cell does not destroy itself immediately, it usually generates a new appearance that causes the body's immune system to identify it as foreign invader and the body itself comes into play by attacking parts of itself to protect the whole. AIDS works by directly impacting that immune system and tearing it down first, but so do other ailments like non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Back to the idea of energy; there is a misleading tendency to think we are turning one form of energy into another, magnetism into electricity for example, but what we are doing is turning kinetic energy (work) into potential energy (electricity) by altering the state and location of the EM potential of the generator as we put physical work into the generator it converts a percentage of that kinetic energy into a 'higher state' electrical energy that is functionally a form of potential energy (given how we then use it) but it is not converting one energy type into another as most people think of energy, light is EM, magnetism is EM, microwaves are EM, and so on. All we are doing is changing how one type of energy 'EM', is expressed and its level of "excitation" (power).

Gravity is one bone of contention as we do not see gravity behave exactly like all other forms of energy that we class as Electromagnetic. By the way we also have strong and weak molecular forces that also may be variations on EM as they are related to charge and the quantum states of matter (valences) (atomic weight and proton number, etc.) And Van Der Walls force that combines atoms of similar charge into larger matrices even though it is counter to the idea of like charges repelling. But these quantum energy states may be explained within the limits of how we understand EM.

You see we have not found some things we would expect from gravity if it were to conform to the behavior and laws that appear to govern EM. The particle/wave form is fuzzy and the perception of charge (positive and negative) states is also missing from our experiential detection.

Some of this may be resolved by the current vogue study of Dark Force energy and matter, as something is ripping the Universe apart that isn't explained by classical physics and the Heat Death concern of some people looks to be unnecessary as we are more likely to be frozen than cooked and mutilated into subatomic dust before we are burned into a black hole super singularity at the end.

A slow, cold, decay into widely distributed elemental dust that can no longer consolidate into forms because of the distance and energy required is the current prediction of Universal doom and gloom. Of course this depressing hypothesis based on current observations is no doubt subject to revision as we gather more information. [lol]

However when we discuss ideas and my linguistic game of suggesting they have 'power' is not simply poetry applied to physics, it is the idea of a form of energy that is not described by the rules governing EM. If there is this form of energy then I am looking at the Platonic Forms because some of the behavior of this type of energy is parallel to how Plato defines an archetypal form.

But it is this idea independent of EM that I suspect is what must be more closely scrutinized to resolve our understanding of "Life Force" and at this point we should go back and reflect on the Naturalistic Spirituality & Increasing Complexity thread in this forum.

I love you Lazaris Long I love reading what you write it has so much depth. Ok where to start? I think "mostly" that we are talking about the same thing. It is just a definition of terms. I agree that the DNA computer is way more than a molecule. I also agree that there is more going on than just electrical energy and chemistry stuff. In support of that I would like to say that "The Mind" (and I do maintain that the mind is in the DNA computer, not the brain) has the ability to generate some kind of "energy" (for lack of any other term), that is not electro-magnetic in nature. Electro-magnetic stuff can not travel faster than the speed of light. When two minds share oneness the exchange between them is simutaneous no matter what the distance. Based on this information I would speculate that the DNA computer also has the ability to generate this form of "energy" (for lack af any other term). So now what we have (you and I) is a multi level phenomenon going on inside the DNA computer. Too cool! So my friend Lazarus Long, we (you and I) have just brought science's ability to study the DNA computer in its entirety to a screeching hault, with todays technology. Science doesn't know enough about the relationship between subatomic particals. I love it! This is to much fun!

As a master of "Yoga Science" who has been stepped into oneness with God and stepped in to "Heaven" (the top of your head, from your eyebrows up, just disappears and your mind becomes the "Heavens Above"), things all of a sudden make sense. I am experiencing the mind from the subatomic part of the DNA computer. Ah man! Thirty years of studying yoga science and thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of meditation and one Lazarus Long to tie it all together and it all makes sense. Lazarus I like the saying that is under the bottom of your name. Love, john

This post was made to the parallel process of analysis going on in the Tribes here. It overlaps a lot of what we are talking about and provides some links to Penrose/Hamerhoff that are considered vastly more expert than I at this subject and Penrose developed this idea of the quantum mind and the 'idea' of Platonic Forms as they influence the behavior of subatomic particles long before I did. Though I did come to this idea independently.

Others suggest I definitely need to read De Chardin and from what little I have read I see why. Oh and about the little phrase thanks; I wrote that one.

LL

Nexus M says:

Lazarus, thank you for sharing with us your ideas.

Where can I find more information about prions?

Mitochrondrial DNA can give us infor about very old life.

I'm reading Margulis' work. I don't share some of her points of view about humans, but she gaves interesting info in her books about the formation of DNA. She thinks microtubules are the origin of brain: a symbiotic organ.

And throught microtubules I arrive to Penrose, the last platonist I read before you ;-)

Are you aware of Penrose/Hameroff' work?

Some info about:

Playing with Penrose

Roger suggested platonic values were embedded in the fine structure of the universe at the Planck scale. My mind was blown. What an incredible, crazy, utterly brilliant idea!
by Stuart Hameroff

Full article at: http://www.science-s...?article_id=332

quantum consciousness, theories of - Theories which explore possible connections between quantum mechanical phenomena and consciousness

http://www.artsci.wu...ct/quantum.html

Quantum computation in brain microtubules?
The Penrose-Hameroff "Orch OR" model of consciousness
Stuart Hameroff

http://www.conscious.....l Society.htm

Commentaries on the Hameroff-Penrose Model by Jack Sarfatti

See also Henry Stapp
Stuart Hameroff 's recent letter to psyche-d

http://www.qedcorp.c...r/hameroff.html

It is a difficult stuff but maybe you can find interesting clues ;-)

This article is in today's NY Times


Brain May Be Able to Bury Unwanted Memories, Study Shows
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR
Published: January 9, 2004

Unwanted memories can be driven from awareness, according to a team of researchers who say they have identified a brain circuit that springs into action when people deliberately try to forget something.

The findings, published today in the journal Science, strengthen the theory that painful memories can be repressed by burying them in the subconscious, the researchers say.

In the study, people who had memorized a pair of words were later shown one of them and asked to either recall the second word or to consciously avoid thinking about it.

Brain images showed that the hippocampus, an area of the brain that usually lights up when people retrieve memories, was relatively quiet when subjects tried to suppress the words they had learned. But at the same time, another region associated with motor inhibition, called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, showed increased activity.

The scientists also found that the more the subjects were told to resist thinking about a word, the more likely they were to have trouble recalling it later.

"This suggests a neurological basis for how people can actually shove something out of mind," said Dr. Michael C. Anderson, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Oregon and lead author of the study. "There's no question that we're tapping into something that's relevant to the experiences of people who survive trauma and find the memories become less and less intrusive over time."

Dr. Anderson said the burst of activity in the prefrontal cortex, an area that manages higher-order cognitive skills like planning, could represent an overriding mechanism, in which the hippocampus is prevented from dredging up unwanted memories.

Over time, continued suppression of those memories by the prefrontal cortex, he said, can push them from awareness.

"We could predict how effectively people would forget these words just by how much activation they showed in their prefrontal cortex," Dr. Anderson said. "I think this explains why the tendency to be reminded of something horrific, for example, eventually diminishes."

Dr. Larry Squire, a professor of psychiatry and neurosciences at the University of California at San Diego, who did not participate in the study, said it was difficult to say exactly what the brain images meant. Still, concluding that the activity in the prefrontal cortex points to a brain circuit that can block memories, particularly emotional ones, he said, might be too narrow an interpretation.

"This is a much debated issue," Dr. Squire said. "It's possible the subjects are simply directing their attention elsewhere and using a lot of energy and brain resources to think of something different. I don't think it is necessarily an indication of active repression."

But Dr. David Spiegel, professor of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine, said diverting thoughts away from something was the first step to forgetting about it completely. And the study, he added, supported the notion that people could suppress traumatic memories and still regain them later.

"People have to manage vast amounts of information by keeping most of it out of mind, which is true of emotional memories and all others," said Dr. Spiegel, who was not involved with the study. "At any given moment you couldn't remember most of what you know or you'd be overwhelmed. But the memories are there, and you can still recover them down the line."

If it doesn't kill you it usually makes you stronger. You should see the yard rabbits tease the dog. Close calls really give them a rush! I knew Lazarus that that saying was yours. Only you would have the depth to come up with it.

Lazarus I am not sure where I fit anymore. The yoga masters say that the mind can affect things at a subatomic level but I didn't ever associate this with the DNA computer. But if one does this, alot of things make sense. If I correlate what you presented with what I know about physical immotality science and yoga science, I have already achieved physical immortality if I wish. I am abit stunned. The DNA computer at a subatomic level is the key. I don't know how I missed that. The Lord works in mysterious ways I guess. I came here to help you guys and you ended up helping me. Thank you for your gift Lazarus. Whoa! Catch you on the fip side. Love, john

I see the physics of emotion as an addition to the physics of motion John. Love attracts and hate repels but while the spread of ideas is usually well below the speed of light there is no limit to this waveform such that it cannot be simultaneous in transmission rate. Love (and sadly hate too [cry] ) can travel faster than light because they are NOT Electro-Magnetic.

The power of ideas is unlocked by strong emotion and this I suspect is (a)key to this analysis. I think our life is predicated on a creative energy, a force reflective of the "WILL" what I call the Will to Love. I argue the "Will to Love" is even stronger than what Nietzsche identified with the "Will to Power," which is not in itself hate but is most often (though not always) unlocked by the power of hate.

I have a strong personal recognition of resonate states of being and this influences my logic because as in all physics, the beginning of scientific study and development is with observation and a testing of the validity of our perceptions. Now comes the work.

Emotive force is the "energy form" we are talking about but it doesn't register on an oscilloscope but it does register at the polls. Is it a coincidence that these democratic states all coexist with the golden ages of history?

Why does everyone sweat the small stuff?

Because they confuse the first step with the last and the path with the goals.

BTW John,

I came here to help you guys and you ended up helping me. Thank you for your gift

Sharing is what I do, and many of us here do so freely. It is a pragmatic application of the "Power of Ideas" and an example of a practical violation of the Laws governing the conservation of matter/energy because in sharing thoughts I am never lessened for having done so. By freely exchanging ideas we all profit, consider it exemplary of game theory's Win/Win scenario.

If some of us don't do it already I am confident that through such exchanges we will inevitably overcome the physical limitations of 'light' and as we travel faster than energy in the material universe so will our ideas. In fact through love some of our 'spirits' already resonate with one another faster than electricity in a vacuum.

Well I am sort of over my shock. All these years to trying and then to I find out that I have done it. Whoa. Lararus I know that you resonate love energy I can feel it in your posts. I have been asked not to leave by Susma and I can feel that you would rather I didn't. So I am going to hang around for a while. But the proplem is what I now know about physical immorality can't be put in to words. I now inderstand how the mind interreacts with the DNA computer and why the ancients say that every cell in your body become a brilliant sun. But I can't discribe how it is done, because there are no words. Lazarus I am a freak. Everything I knew before is kindergarden stuff and what I know now is just the beginning. Lazarus my friend if you and I are going to exchange information you are going to have think between the lines, because from here on it is probably going to sound Zen. What would you like to know? Love, john

Lazarus if I haven't said so already I really appreciate your enthusiasm for life as it resonates with me and I'm sure others you represent the fighting force for immortality in my small world thank you!

I have been asked not to leave by Susma and I can feel that you would rather I didn't.

I never thought you would be going very far because though like a child with a new toy you are eager to enjoy the new object of your pleasure, you had never fulfilled the claimed purpose of your return. Perhaps that is the finding of the words you state still elude you.

But since Susma is concerned you are leaving and others like myself are glad you have only just returned then let me add my voice to those that are asking you to stay.

I am aware that esoteric study has for eons claimed the "power" to achieve what we are seeking technologically, is within us. This mystical perspective is no doubt imbued with a grain of truth and some may be able to achieve this level of awareness as a consequence of innate ability combined with applied focus but most cannot. However we as a species have always turned to technology to augment such incapacity and it is by this means while we possess no feathers some of us have successfully learned to fly.

Read between the lines?

Of course I do but when gazing upon the infinite reflections in the mirrors before and behind you which are the images that are most comprehensible and which fade into obsurity?

How many lines deep does one have to read to get enough of the message to understand (or intuit) the entire message?

And Devon you are welcome. It is true that I like to keep it fun.

Thanks Lazarus you do read/think between the lines and "out of the box!" Sometimes knowledge needs someone like you who is between "Science" and folks like me. Part of the gift that you have given me is that I now understand that what I have done is probably beyond most folks. After all who has the time? I always thought that if I could do it anybody can do it. But God has given me the time and the loved ones, who allowed me to do it. You are right, I want to go play with my new knowledge ! Thirty years of stuff and things just got really interesting. I am a child with a new toy!

I don't know where we go from here "Mr One" who is between my world and science. But I do know that you understand. Between the two of use we can figure stuff out for the good of mankind. So anyway just throw stuff at me and I will throw stuff back at you and things will at least be interesting. "Hugs and Love"! John

OK Lazlo, here I am. I have skimmed most of this stuff for the sake of time, but I read your opening post in detail. I haven't ever read any of Plato's stuff. I guess I am going to start by referencing a post I made in the DNA, Does it have a goal thread.

DNA is life

I have seen enough DNA, denatured in a test tube to tell you that DNA is not life. It is a molecule which obeys the laws of physics same as any other molecule. DNA molecules are not in themselves alive, but they do can carry a program for what we have come to call life. It is a very complicated program, but as I said, it all obeys the laws of physics, and and that tells me that there is no fundamental reason why we cannot get to a point where we completely understand DNA and all of the ways that it reacts with it's environment and with the organisms that it creates. There is also the possibility that something exists in this universe that is "alive" that doesn't have DNA.

Doesn't all life exhibit a goal/instinct for staying alive?

No, absolutely not. I have seen nothing that would lead me to believe that. The overwhelming trend in organisms is actually to exhibit a goal/instinct to reproduce, even at the cost of life.

I don't see why it is unreasonable to believe that DNA, the very root of life, has an inborn instinct to ensure its own survival.

I am not arguing that DNA does nothing to ensure it's survival, I am saying that this is not the result of an "inborn instinct", but the result of the fortuitous combination of the right molecules in the right environment. Once a thing which could reproduce came into existance, the continuation was inevitable, as long as things which could reproduce themselves existed. Once these molecules existed, it was inevitable that variation would eventually occur, and of those variations, the ones that reproduced more would be more prevalent. There is no "instinct" involved. Life is merely the result of circumstances.

Does our DNA have some greater goal in its function; that is; through its continual replication, does it seek to exist forever in itself? If you begin to look at the need for organisms to continue to survive and produce as many offspring as possible, could it be that DNA wants to continue to be, forever?

The need for organisms to continue to survive and reproduce as much as possible, is a result, not a goal. I am not sure what you mean by "greater goal", and I have much difficulty ascribing cognitive functions such as "wanting" to DNA.

To live longer and reproduce less, now that is a goal, one which is counter to the laws of natural selection and the survival of DNA, because it is "putting all your molecules in one basket". The technology and science that we are developing may trump the old strategies of DNA and allow us to try to live forever and put reproducing on the back burner, but I do not for one second believe that any of this was the "goal" or "purpose" of DNA, merely a side effect of the evolutionary path that our species happened to take. I am obviously purely atheistic and I am used to my purposeless view of existance being at odds with most everyone else that I meet, but I feel the need to add that I do believe that we can, despite the lack of inherent purpose in our existance, make our own goals without the need for justification. Being alive and human is pretty damned entertaining, and I must admit that I am in it for the adventure of it. Dieing is not on my agenda...though I fully realize that it is a very real possibility. The "greater goals" of my DNA are just going to have to take a back seat to it all.

Allright, now to make some comments on this thread, sort of building on my earlier comments:

To reiterate what Lazlo has been saying on the duality of DNA--DNA is a blueprint, but it is also part of the machine which builds the thing described in the blueprint, and indeed is part of the result of the blueprint.

On DNA and Memory--Our DNA does not change as our memories change. Memory is not coded in the blueprints. Memory is not thoroughly understood, but it is formed by neuronal pathways in a brain that was built by and from DNA blueprints. Memory, like DNA, is not outside the laws of physics, and when we come to completely understand how memory is formed and stored, a thing which is not fundamentally impossible, we should theoretically be able to apply this knowledge in order to transfer our memories to a new brain built by the same genetic blueprint.

Who we are is not contained in our DNA, but in our minds, which were "built by our DNA".

For an excellent way to understand the duality of the blueprints, a basic (and up to date) text on molecular embryology would be a great idea. It is all very amazing and astounding and wonderful...but it is not magic.

sherlock

A more specific Text recommendation:

"Developmental Biology, Sixth Edition" by Scott F. Gilbert

This text has the traditional whole organism approach and the molecular approach and most importantly it also gives huge bibliographies from peer reviewed journals at the end of each chapter.

If you are interested in how the single cell with a DNA blueprint became you, this book contains an overview of most everything we (humans) have figured out so far.

It was your dialog with Randolf that reminded me of this thread and inspired me to invite you here to discuss the "evolving model of DNA" {pun}.

Anyway, while I think about your contribution above I would suggest you review recent work linking long term memory to a "prion like body" and the reason is that DNA may not in fact change with experience {essentially true except in respect to mutation} but DNA does appear to be able to create complex protein that are essentially spin-offs of itself to accomplish far more than simply assembling flesh.

If this current discovery and I have links in a separate thread I will go look for later, then in response to experience {both conscience and subconscious} the DNA of the brain is spinning off these 'protein particles' {for lack of a better term} through essentially a similar mechanism to RNA and these form a repository of long term memory that is far more complex than how we utilize it.

I say far more complex because it is also storing a complex array of sensory information associated with long term memory and that is how such things as smells and ambient conditions can trigger "nostalgic response" or recall of complex events in great detail. We see this from the study of psychology all the time and it complicates the matter when analyzing neurosis due to the association of pain (as in trauma) with aspects of recall (memory).

Now to be fair lets put aside questions of "magic" as I am not promoting anything like that and neither was Plato. He in fact, against all the pundits of his day, logically identified the brain as the seat of consciousness. A singular view, which stood out starkly against the grain for almost two thousand years; till the beginnings of modern science vindicated him. He reached the conclusion not for any anatomical reasoning but for purely logical considerations of form and function.

If he could do that then I suggest his considerations of the importance of "Forms" is one that is worth further analysis. Does DNA possess a primary language?

If it does then this begs a lot of questions even if the 'language' is predicated on Natural Law, Physics, and Mathematics. If there exists such a language then a lot of issues of memory are raised, not just issues involving an individual's experience but the ability of any species to remember 'form' from one generation to the next.

I am asking such questions, not offering mystical explanations and please set that aspect aside as I invited you here to engage in a dialog predicated on science not mysticism. I do not however reject or edit out the musing of individuals like John the Cave Yogi because I have learned that often even when I might disagree with someone their perspective has merit to evaluate. In science as you are well aware we learn as much, if not more at times from defining what we do not know (falsehood) than what we are able to ascertain with a high level of certainty (truth).

I am also not an advocate of Lamarck, but I have noticed how paleontology and geology had to swallow aspects of Catastrophism when the evidence was overwhelming, but how they had vilified and resisted the implications literally for almost a century. I can visualize the need for a regulator gene for mutation as logically possible {obviously this does not prove such exists but please tolerate the hypothesis} such a gene might be very limited and normally without severe environmental stress encountered but such a gene might manifest itself for example as relating emotional stress to cancer as cancer is essentially a mutagenic response with negative result {as frankly most mutation is}.

I am offering this conjecture to imply that when looking at a mechanism sometimes it is also important to step back and see a larger picture in order to assess "why" in terms that go beyond the limited scope of the specific reaction.

If environmental collapse and near extinction for life forms can be considered a sever stress then one way to maximize the possibility for survival in the face of such an event is to ensure the genome responds by significantly accelerated rates of mutation in response such that a possibly successful mutation results improving a species overall chances of survival. We see such a "divergence effect" after the KT event and we also see it in a way in the events after our own species faced probable extinction some 70K years ago. In a way we are seeing it now.

We certainly can foresee such a divergence if we are to design ourselves going forward by applying a standard of Human Selection and thus altering the principles by which Natural Selection for our species (and frankly all the species we are now responsible for on Earth) continues to survive and develop.

Looking at Human Selection and memetics introduces a different relationship for the importance of "Natural Language" and more over the demands of 'memory' as it defines history and the psychology of culture as defining paradigms for selection that are pragmatically the result.

We humans define already by both intention and default, which species will survive, thrive, or be forced into extinction simply by our choices over our own species behaviors and this is why I insist Natural Selection is no longer at work. This is no longer a simple competition for survival, but a top down revision all interspecies relationships (biological ecology) as the result of the demands of one single species at the very top of the food chain (us).

Unless we impose a kind of "Prime Directive" over wholesale regions of our planet Natural Selection will never again exist. And even in that default mode of "preservation" we are applying Human Selection as a standard for the preservation of safe zones for Natural Selection to continue. This is a separate discussion however from the original point but addresses aspects of the importance of the language of DNA in what we might read into the functions of DNA as defining Natural Law as expressed by Natural Selection.

If we are now writing the rules then I would suggest Natural Selection should not be considered a true Natural Law, but instead a principle that operates under very specific and limited environmental conditions but reflects larger "physical laws" governing the behavior of matter that we are only beginning to grasp in the fullest detail.

Perhaps I should have used a silly smiley or something to more accurately convey the tone which I meant "magic" to be read in. I never for one second thought that you were promoting anything like that. Twas merely a reiteration of my point that everything in our bodies works according to natural laws, even if we have not figured it all out yet. I agree that conjecture is often the starting point of discovery, but also that knowledge is the starting point of conjecture.

I am reading your latest post and I am "sticking" on one sentence. You ask if DNA possesses a primary language. Maybe I am not seeing something obvious. Perhaps a definition of a primary language in this context

OK, while forwarned that I may not be understanding what you are saying--

DNA communicates with cells in many ways, and is far more than just a template for proteins. It has been discovered that all of that "junk DNA" between the genes actually has many important functions, many of which can be described as communication. Maybe I am just having trouble standing back far enough to see what it is that you are saying.

Are you familiar with imprinting (DNA methylation). Methyl groups attach to specific areas on the DNA. One example is in X inactivation (females have too many x chromosomes, if both expressed, it would be lethal, so inactivation of one of the x's is neccesary. Without going into to much detail, methylation of the Xist gene on one of the x's maintains it in the active state. You can see which areas are expressing which x chromosome in calico cats.) Another example is Egg and sperm. These cells have specific patterns of imprinting that allow them to function in certain ways, so even though they are undifferentiated (not destined to give rise to just one type of cell), they still have some differential function from a primordial germ cell. You can't just take the DNA from an egg, put it in a sperm, and fertilize an egg with it (or vise versa). The DNA in the sperm is imprinted wrong and the organism will not develop normally. But eggs and sperm arise from primordial germ cells. The cells which will become the primordial germ cells are determined very early in development and in females, all eggs are formed before she is even born. I cannot rule out the possibility that memory formation, or some other trigger in the brain could affect the next generation, but it is still (in my mind) a stretch (but, as I said, not something I could rule out). Perhaps imprinting could be a mechanism for this, or perhaps some other form of communication in DNA. It is so far from the established facts though, and I am one of those people who (for better of for worse ) is far more comfortable in conjecturing a little closer to home. (note the prolific use of terms such as "theoretically" and "there is no fundamental reason that we should not be able to", etc. whenever I feel myself making uncomfortable leaps)

sherlock

Edited by hecksheri, 02 February 2004 - 07:50 AM.

It is wonderful to have someone that is both skeptical and yet open minded enough to converse with on this topic. I have found all too many seem to have unnecessary agendas they carry to the table that cloud the analysis. I think Sherlock you are not one of these types and I try not to be myself.

Facial expression is useful and a smiley would have emphasized your wry humor as opposed to disdain but I am ever cautious of ridicule (being humor impaired myself) as a distraction in serious science, since it is the introduction of what I call seductive logic as opposed to more rational methods. Regardless, I was not so much criticizing you, as attempting to establish some ground rules because it is very difficult to address some of the theoretical aspects of DNA without stepping on somebody's pet abiogenesis belief.

We possess much more data today than at anytime in history but in a manner of speaking it is tossed on to the table in front of us like a massive and incredibly intricate jig saw puzzle, a puzzle that is not constructing a familiar image, but one that is composed of pieces that are all almost the same (four primary colors to pursue the analogy). The shapes and sizes of the pieces vary greatly at the extremes but subtly and incrementally from piece to piece and when the entire puzzle is finally assembled what will perhaps emerge is not a single image of simplistic presentation but perhaps like peering into a fractal image describing a three dimensional object to trick the eye, an image within an image.

In this respect the focal distance from the subject offers profoundly different objects and perspectives for resolution. In some cases it is not a question of right and wrong elements as much as trying to fit the elements into preconceived models. We all do this but some of us are more able to honestly reassess our cherished beliefs than others, and I hold this quality up as the truest example of a scientific philosophy, the core of scientific reasoning.

I began the discussion in part by going out on a limb and presenting an unsupported hypothesis. I am looking at somewhat extraneous pieces of the puzzle so to speak, the 'odd pieces'. This is a standard methodology of solving complex puzzles, it does however have its pitfalls (the pieces fit few openings in the larger picture) but they also possess a powerful ability to bond whole segments of the puzzle together. What I am not doing is either ignoring them in favor of methods that just explain how all the simpler pieces fit, nor cheating by trying to take out my knife and clip around the edges in order to make them fit.

OK enough prose, the point is that something as powerful as a gene for mutation logically should not be easily triggered, to do so is counter productive. It is kind of a fail safe mechanism and that is why it would respond to extreme environmental stress as a last ditch strategy against extinction. However it didn't likely evolve into being at the complex eukariotic level as much as at the bacteriological level and I suspect this is the origin of viruses some billion and half years after the origin of bacteria. I also think bacterial sexuality reflects another concept for an effective way of sharing advantageous mutation.

One became a dominant and "standard strategy" while the other became a recessive strategy due to the associated risks it entailed. Most mutation fails while sexuality is less risky for rearranging genomes but also far less dramatic at providing significant adaptive change.

So from this perspective the evolution of sexuality is seen simply as a way of accelerating and increasing the rate of environmental adaptation to normalized shifts of climate, geology, populations, ecology, etc. without incurring the high risk failure rate associated with the kinds of transmutational aspects of severe mutation (speciation, malignancy, systemic imbalance, etc.) but if life on earth has recovered from successive periods of catastrophic collapse as more and more the environmental record demonstrates then perhaps the genome also evolved a deeply recessive fall back strategy that promotes extreme divergence under extreme conditions until a steady state ecology is re-established?

If we are to examine this I suggest it will become more understood through an analysis of pathology than normal biology because most of the time that is how it will be expressed and only under very specific conditions will it be expressed as viable alternative biology (speciation).

If such exists I suspect it is shared by all life, not merely humans, so in fact it is the kind of gene that will be common but might appear as the "junk DNA" that is the subject of revisionist study even as we discuss it. I am not one that believes that biology keeps a lot of 'junk' around as it is counter productive to survival strategies, so I tend to see the idea of "junk" as the judgment of ignorance rather than understanding. Consider this the same logic as why we don't possess extra eyes, limbs, etc. Yes they can occur due to "mutation" but if they are not improving our competitive ability then they are in the way of survival.

Back to "Natural Language", this is the idea that genes are analogous in principle to a word. Now before getting too deep into a discussion on this there is a lot of work in cryptography going on with respect to genetics that supports this analogy. They are not words though as we normally use the concept; they are not derivative of "symbolic logic," and this is why I created this thread on Plato's Forms. They are words the way numbers are.

BTW, numbers are words and are the chosen paradigm of "Universal Language" since the presocratics in the West. In a sense a Universal Language is synonymous with how I am describing a 'Natural' one except for one unique and highly distinct aspect, numbers exist ONLY as theoretical symbolic constructs that emanate from the conceptual into reality through symbolic expression 'logically'.

Genes apparently do this by a far more concrete manner at a molecular level. In other words these are "pure words" (for lack of better terminology at the moment). Words that mean exactly and only the specific functional form they will express by assembling themselves under a given set of environmental criteria. Each gene is a word but the collection of these words forms the expression of a species (like a book written of many words composed of only four letters). These are also not a symbolic expression of a theoretical concept but a precise expression of 'physical concepts' of biological form and function, hence "Natural Language".

So genes exist materially, not conceptually, they express ideas of form and function into reality as "physical life" not symbolically. They express 'fact' in a way not theoretical at all but precisely discrete and concrete.

OK Sherlock ,enough grist for your mill. I am far enough out on this biological Planck's Concept ). Since you are to be the eminent Dr. Holmes on this investigation into the arcane alchemy of defined mutation, I will play the role of Dr. Watson (a name not unrelated to genetics either). We can share hypotheses, for like your namesake, remember the importance of Dr. Watson's often wrong conclusions are that they helped him to routinely eliminate the distracting 'noise' that confounded him on his quest for Moriarty.

The world may have thought Watson the fool but Sherlock knew him as an invaluable partner, chosen colleague, and trusted friend. It is good to have an true foil to keep us honest, our blades sharp, and our skills honed.

Watson

BTW, another perspective to share is the mathematical aspect of algorithmic logic. Most computer language is constructed in a language of 'binary code' a mathematical language in base 2 (0's & 1's).

I am proposing for a lot of reasons derived of biology that 'living intelligence' uses more than binary logic and operates with algorithmic language predicated on Base Four (0's, 1's, 2's & 3's). Look familiar?

Genetics is constructed of a vastly more complex "logical language" that is essentially a discrete variation on Base Four. This is logarithmically more complex to decipher than a binary logic, not simply exponentially more arcane.

It is however where I suspect the next generation of software logic leading to true Artificial Intelligence will come from. I suspect this organic (not simplistic anthropomorphizing) logic will take us to a profound understanding of how to create life both in terms of biological principles as well as in a theoretical manner to create true AI.

It is also more than a symbolic language as I expressed above, as it is profoundly physical and allows a "Form" of intelligence to be assigned to a molecular relationship. This is why I am suggesting this understanding will unravel to a more profound ability to create these complex "logical constructs" for other than organic molecules and then we get into nanotech. This is why in the long run I see genetics as a subset of nanology.

OK I walked this Planck Sherlock and now I am swimming with the sharks. Are you going to throw me a flotation device or a dead weight?

Watson

Interesting that you should choose the spelling Planck, as Planck's constant (and the idea that energy of vibrating molecules came in discreet chunks) was considered quite a radical idea, but it led Einstein to propose that light energy also came in discreet chunks and therefore had a particle nature...hence photons. Of course I am no physicist, nor am I a geneticist. I am merely a herpetologist who reads too much.

OK, I am at work, I will respond to all of the above later when I have time to do it all justice.

sherlock