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."

This post has been edited by Lazarus Long: Jan 10 2004, 04:33 PM

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

This post has been edited by hecksheri: Feb 2 2004, 07:50 AM