Thanks Tom, for your clarification. I’m about to bolt out the door, I’ll take a closer look at this tomorrow. Cheers, sj
From: Ozzie [mailto:ozzie...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, 22 October 2015 6:31 PM To: Stephen Jarosek Cc: Peirce-L Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Show us the computer - reasons for DNA entanglement Stephen ~ At the close of your posting on DNA, you wrote: "Anyone else interested in exploring this further? There seems to be a reluctance for people to step beyond their spheres of expertise, perhaps for fear of ridicule." Following that invitation, I commented on the role played by DNA in Pragmatic logic. Your response (below): "Your explanation is an example of those self-consistent narratives that people construct in order to rationalize their assumptions." I am not the first to suggest that DNA is a polymer, so I'm not rationalizing my assumptions. It's a common view among experts: "DNA is a polymer." http://www.blc.arizona.edu/molecular_graphics/dna_structure/dna_tutorial.html. I simply explained how to interpret the DNA polymer in terms consistent with Pragmatic logic: DNA memorializes evolutionarily successful "habits" in the polymer, and those habits are later engaged (as "instinct") when electrochemical changes in the environment trigger the polymer/habit into action. I also suggested an empirical test for your view DNA that "communicates" at a distance. DNA as Pragmatic logic: Successive generations of humans experience "random" variations in their genes. People with those variations are (mainly) unaware of it, and go on living their lives. However, in Pragmatic logic those variations are functionally equivalent to abducted hypotheses about superior habits that would generate greater survivability. Life experiences following the abducted hypotheses are functionally equivalent to inductive activities (tests). A gene variation that eventually proves to have greater survival value represents a new/superior version of the human gene: The offspring of the hybrid-human expand to dominate the population. That updated gene functionally corresponds to a deductive model (in the polymer) on how to successfully navigate the environment. Subsequent generations will carry that habit. Then the process begins anew: Deduction, abduction, induction, deduction, abduction, induction ... Regards, Tom Wyrick On Oct 21, 2015, at 11:47 AM, Stephen Jarosek <sjaro...@iinet.net.au> wrote: Tom, your explanation is an example of those self-consistent narratives that people construct in order to rationalize their assumptions. We all do it on occasion, some more than others, and we all have to be on guard against this predisposition. One of the ways we might do so is to formalize our thinking in terms of axioms – a framework of best guesses. Within the context of my axiomatic framework, your explanation does not work. Within an infinite universe, minute, complex structures might stumble into existence according to the laws of chance... and then blink out again just as quickly. With all the forces of entropy arrayed against them, the minutest, most complex structures won’t last. It is their persistence across time that is the deal-breaker. Of course I could be wrong, but then I do emphasize that my axiomatic framework is a best guess. Yours is a rationalization... a “just so” story... that is absent of an axiomatic framework to anchor to. sj From: Ozzie [mailto:ozzie...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, 21 October 2015 6:09 PM To: Stephen Jarosek Cc: Peirce-L Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Show us the computer - reasons for DNA entanglement Stephen ~ DNA is a polymer that represents habits that persisted and experienced evolutionary success. That is an exercise in Pragmatic logic. The polymer is later activated by electrochemical energy in its immediate environment. That is Pragmatic logic, too. The knowing-how-to-be behavior you emphasize may be the result of the DNA a polymer expressing itself as instinct. No computer is required for polymers to work, so the absence of a computer is not evidence of anything (other than a confused analysis). The logic involving the polymer has already been performed (perhaps millions of years previously), so it responds to a trigger from the environment -- a logical "abduction" that the situation has changed. If a polymer is cut in two, I am not familiar with any rule of polymers that prevents each segment from reacting to a common field of electrochemical energy. The "correlation" that exists between the segments is due to the common field (of electrochemical energy) they share. Why not separate the two DNA strands (or neurons if you prefer) and immerse them in different electrochemical environments? If they're still communicating or their behavior is still correlated after that, then your hypothesis has empirical support. This is a good illustration for my observation yesterday that any deeper analysis of logic must be grounded in physical reality. Regards, Tom Wyrick On Oct 21, 2015, at 6:34 AM, Stephen Jarosek <sjaro...@iinet.net.au> wrote: List, The more that I think about DNA entanglement, the more I am of the opinion that it needs to be factored into the semiotic narrative. Because we do not have all the facts, we should do so in a way that keeps open the option for expanding our narrative to include nonlocal phenomena (such as DNA entanglement). The established narrative on DNA theory, based as it is in the information technology (infotech) metaphor that compares the brain to a computer, is fundamentally flawed. It is flawed for a number of reasons, but the most obvious one is that for all this purported data “software” in the DNA, there is nothing resembling a computer to process it. If the mainstream life-science community is to persist with this infotech narrative, then they need to be consistent. But how can they remain consistent if, in violation of the principles of complexity and the laws of thermodynamics (entropy), it is impossible for anything resembling a computer to occur in nature? Thus, what we are left with at the heart of any cell, is DNA molecules... with no evidence of any infotech mechanism that might process the “data”. SHOW US THE COMPUTER! NO COMPUTER, NO DNA INFOTECH (and no genocentric paradigm). It’s that simple. This topic should be of interest to us in semiotics, because ultimately, I suggest, the principles on which DNA function are semiotic in character. In their experiment testing for the possibility of non-local correlations between separated neural networks, Pizzi et al (2004) conclude that “after an initial stage where the system interacts by direct contact, also in the following stage where the system has been separated into two sections, a sort of correlation persists between sections. This is what , at a macroscopic level, we verify in our experiment: it seems that neurons utilize the quantum information to synchronize.” Given what we know of entanglement between particles, the only way in which correlations between separated neural networks can occur is via the DNA molecules within the neurons . Other similar experiments in biophysics arrive at similar or analogous conclusions. And the most common question raised among researchers in quantum biology, including Pizzi et al above, is along the lines of... how do mechanisms within the cell utilize entanglement? I would suggest that they have their reasoning back-to-front. It is not the mechanisms that utilize entanglement, but entanglement that is the source for the mechanisms, properties and predispositions. And this reframes the problem as one that relates principally to semiotics. As a tentative description for how this might relate to semiotics, here’s one of my conjectures: Entanglement between DNA molecules, I suggest, enables the body's cells to access the shared mind-body condition, to be informed by it. In this way, DNA entanglement plays a crucial role in knowing how to be. This would be analogous to how our telecommunication technologies provide every person in a city with immediate access to the city's options, to inform its people on how to be. For example, people growing up in working-class or middle-class suburbs are more likely to know how to be tradesmen, shopkeepers, nurses, police or the unemployed, while people growing up in upper-class suburbs are more likely to know how to be professionals, investors, office-workers or, simply, the idle rich. This interpretation would be consistent with how stem-cells develop, contingent on their location within the organs of the body. A stem-cell has to know how to be before it can become a productive cell with its role in an organ properly defined. And the stem-cell’s proximal/local context is what teases out its predispositions, in order to define its ultimate purpose. This line of thinking seems to resonate with aspects of David Bohm’s implicate/explicate order. [What I have in mind here is also analogous to Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of morphic resonance, where he regards the DNA molecule as analogous to a receiver (antenna).] In summary, proximal context (face-to-face or synapse-to-synapse) is what teases out both the neuron’s AND the human’s nonlocal predispositions, to define their ultimate trajectories. Anyone else interested in exploring this further? There seems to be a reluctance for people to step beyond their spheres of expertise, perhaps for fear of ridicule. But in any interdisciplinary endeavour, this needs to be done. We are ill-served when we allow The Establishment to dominate with a broken genocentric narrative. At the very least, these ideas merit brainstorming. sj Pizzi, R., Fantasia, A., Gelain, F., Rosetti, D., & Vescovi, A. (2004). Non-local correlations between separated neural networks (E. Donkor, A. Pirick, & H. Brandt, Eds.). Quantum Information and Computation (Proceedings of SPIE), 5436(II), 107-117. Retrieved August 2, 2015, from http://faculty.nps.edu/baer/CompMod-phys/PizziWebPage/pizzi.pdf ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
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