From: everything-list@googlegroups.com
[mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2014 9:43 AM
To: everything-list@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: AI Dooms Us
On Sun, Aug 31, 2014 at 3:18 PM, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List
<everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:
> Just want to point out that the process of DNA expression is highly dynamic
> and is multi-factored
Yes it certainly is, but however dynamic the DNA information is it's still just
750 meg (actually it's much less than that considering the massive amount of
redundancy in our genome). And Telmo's 1000 lines of lisp would also have to be
highly dynamic.
Amazing isn’t it. The elegance of self-assembling processes that can do so much
with so little input. I doubt 1000 lines of computer code is a large enough
initial instruction set even for a highly self-generating system. Maybe a few
million lines of code might do it though, if it was code that generated other
code and so forth in a cascading process similar to embryogenesis in eukaryotes.
> The mammalian genomes undergo very extensive genomic reprogramming during
> embryogenesis.
And where did the information about how to do that reprogramming come from?
From the original 750 meg.
Much of it did certainly. But it also comes from the environment… e.g. from an
external source. The outcome of embryogenesis is affected by epigenetic
influences that alter what genetic information is expressed and also crucially
when (at what point in sequences of expression) it occurs. This external
epigenetic programming instructions are completely outside of that original
bundle of genetic information.
> This is especially so during the process of embryogenesis, an unfolding
> developmental choreographed switching process that is controlled by
> epigenetic programming (methylation /demethylation and other mechanisms).
Methylation means that occasionally a Methyl group might be added to one of the
DNA bases, a base would have a Methyl group or it would not so it's still
digital. There are 4 bases so AT MOST each of the 3 billion bases would
represent 3 bits instead of 2, so the information content would increase from
750 Meg to 1.12 Gig and with a file compression program like ZIP you could
still fit all of it on a CD.
But the fact is that the epigenetic external information is not available until
run-time. It exists outside the organism in its environment.
But in reality Epigenetic information is pretty clearly of minor importance
compared with the DNA sequence information, so I doubt it would even cause it
to increase to 751 Meg. And the evidence that Epigenetic heredity exists for
more than one generation is very meager.
I do not agree that the understanding and quantification of epigenetic
influences on human development (especially during embryogenesis) is as settled
or of minor consequence as you state. There is evidence for example that it
persists for three generations in studies of cigarette smokers progeny, and I
have read studies that point to high stress in one generation resulting in
epigenetic hereditary outcomes in subsequent generations. Even identical twins
as they grow and live through their different lives – even their originally
identical DNA diverges in its expressed outcome due to epigenetic affects.
> DNA is not a direct single layered – single meaning -- instruction set
> encoded and fixed.
You can assign as many layers of meaning on it as you like but nothing can
change the fact that you could put all the information in the entire human DNA
genome on a old fashioned CD and still have enough room on it for a Beatles
album from 1965.
And 32 or so fundamental values define (fix, quantify) all the laws of our
universe. Amazing complexity can emerge from simple initial conditions.
> The same strand of DNA, depending on the dynamic action of the large number
> of transcription factors
A transcription factors is just a protein that binds to specific DNA sequences.
And where did the information come from to know what sequence of amino acids
will build that very important protein? From the original 750 Meg of course.
>From that original bundle of genetic code + environmental influences. 90% of
>the living things in a human body DO NOT have human DNA (not by weight of
>course but by census)… our behavior, our desires, our decisions, our thoughts,
>dreams, cravings, fears… our volition… is at least in part being driven by
>these other non-human organisms (especially the huge diverse community of
>microorganisms living in our guts).
The kind of flora and fauna we have in our guts in many ways determines who we
are, what we think and what we desire. It affects out well-being (or lack of
it), our emotions and our goals. This genetic information is not part of the
human DNA, but humans have coevolved with these communities of microorganisms
and many of them play important (perhaps vital) roles in our Darwinian fitness.
The information that triggers a whole slew of affects resulting in a changed
outcome for the organism could very well have originated in some microorganism
inhabiting that individuals gut. Our immune system especially seems to have
co-evolved to work symbiotically with many different species of microorganisms.
We require a vast library of CDs to live healthy lives…. Not just our DNA CD,
but all the DNA CDs of the thousands of organisms that a healthy human animal
requires (or greatly benefits from having within them). We are not isolated
organisms apart from the many other cohabitating organisms that journey through
life living inside our bodies.
> It is – IMO – necessary to understand DNA as [...]
I'm not saying that understanding how 750 Meg of DNA information manages to
produce a human being will be easy, figuring out how Telmo's 1000 lines of lisp
works will not be easy either, but I am saying that's all the information there
is.
John K Clark
I agree that it is amazingly compact. We may differ on where we draw the line.
I do not see a single human (or other eukaryote) only in terms of its own DNA +
epigenetic meta-programming over the DNA base, but also in terms of the
ecosystem that exists within. Both the beneficial and the parasitic species
within us hugely affect our lives – as they do with every multi-cellular
species we know about.
We are walking talking ecosystems with biotic auras as unique as fingerprints
(in fact forensic science is beginning to study this as a potential
investigative tool)
-Chris
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