On Jan 27, 2008 8:40 AM, Mike Tintner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Ben: MT: Venter has changed everything > >> today - including the paradigms that govern both science and AI.. > Ben: Lets not overblow things -- please note that Venter's team has not yet > > synthesized an artificial organism. > > Here's why I think Venter's so important - to quote a post of mine to an > evo-psych group [I also recommend here BTW Dennis Noble's "The Music of > Life" - re "genetic keyboard"]: > > "Over and above its immediate, technological significance for Artificial > Life, I see this as the end of an era in science. I think the defining > scientific paradigm of the last 50 years - the genetic code, or program, and > with it the idea that we are determined by our genes - is now dead (or in > its death throes). [I would define genetic determinism BTW as ALLOWING for, > and in no way excluding, environmental influences].
Genetic determinism is long dead. No serious scientist maintains that we are totally determined by our genes. Countless studies have been done with identical twins to demonstrate this. > I think the replacement for that paradigm is now clear, even if it hasn't > been exactly defined, and that is - the genetic keyboard. That might not be > immediately obvious. But if you think about it, what has happened - Craig > Venter & co creating a new genome - is an example of the genetic keyboard > playing on itself, i.e. one genome [Craig Venter] has played with another > genome and will eventually and inevitably play with itself. Clearly it is in > the nature of the genome to recreate itself There's nothing in the genome about modifying the genome. When the genome was written, modifying the genome was physically impossible, so there's not going to be any code for it. > - and not just to execute a > program. (And indeed, had the computational paradigm been properly thought > through, it would have been noted that it is in the nature of programs - as > actually produced and existing on computers - that they are NOT stable > entities but are normally, and more or less demand to be, endlessly > reprogrammed - by the use, as it happens, of a keyboard). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life Conway's Game of Life is Turing-complete. It can do any calculation you, me, or a computer could do (this has been mathematically proven). It requires absolutely no human interference whatsoever. > Craig Venter has disavowed genetic determinism: "There are two fallacies to > be avoided," Dr Venter's team write in the journal Science. > "Determinism, the idea that all characteristics of a person are 'hard-wired' > by the genome; and reductionism, that now the human sequence is completely > known, it is just a matter of time before our understanding of gene > functions and interactions will provide a complete causal description of > human variability." Both of these views were discredited decades ago. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin#Identical_twins. > More significantly for EP, Venter has also disavowed natural selection: If anyone here thinks that natural selection is in any way not confirmed by an unimaginably huge mountain of evidence, please read the Talk.Origins FAQ (http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-qa.html). > "The key problem is that far from being the simple computer code we once > thought it was, DNA is fabulously complex. DNA itself is very simple (phosphate, sugar, one of four bases). DNA's effects are extremely complex, but be careful not to confuse the two. > When I last interviewed Venter a > decade ago, he said our DNA was too complex to be designed by man A full Linux distribution is probably roughly as complex as the human genome. See http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/11/natural-selecti.html, http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/jcollie/sle/. > and > probably even too complex for natural selection. There had better be math to substantiate this. A vague feeling of "this is much too complex for evolution!" does not override a hundred and fifty years of experimental evidence from every subfield of biology. > The problem has worsened: > "With the publication now of the full genome, it's clearly more complicated > than ever. When the human genome was published, it actually turned out to be less complex than people had thought. We only have around 20,000-25,000 genes, less than half of some earlier estimates. > "All our data from the environment and other places is telling us there are > different components to our personalities. Certainly step by step everything's > just a point mutation and things change. But I don't think that can explain > everything. People have this simplistic view of Darwinian evolution as > random point mutations in the genetic code followed by natural selection. > No, I don't think that would have got us out of our genome." > > http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2752196.ece > > P.S. I would acknowledge that there is still philosophical/scientific work > to be done - the case for the changeover of paradigms has been not fully > made. But it is now inevitable. > > P.P.S. The full new paradigm is something like - "the self-driving/ > self-conducting machine" - it is actually the self that is the rest of the > body and brain, that interactively plays upon, and is played by, the genome, The genome is not modified by the body/brain 99.99999% of the time. Acquired characteristics are not inherited. Protein translation is one way only. > (rather than the genome literally playing upon itself). And just as science > generally has left the self out of its paradigms, so cog sci has left the > indispensible human programmer/operator out of its computational paradigms. You keep insisting that the human is "indispensable". Where's your evidence? Where's your supporting arguments? We know that computers can run highly complex programs for years on end with no human interference (see http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html). > To bring in the Gudrun discussion, you could say that science is about to > tell us that what you - your self - do with your body (as distinct from how > it works) is not science but art (and, let's not forget, technology). The > idea that you are deterministically destined to play only one kind of music > on your keyboard is quite mad - a keyboard, by definition, like your body > and brain, offers you an infinite range of possibilities. > > > > ----- > This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email > To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: > http://v2.listbox.com/member/?&; > - Tom ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&id_secret=90335438-6c9c5a
