From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Oct 08 2002 - 11:16:54 MDT
Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> gts wrote:
>
>> So then if we hope to keep our personalities intact while
>> leaving our organic bodies behind, we will need to find a way to
codify
>> the rules that control the endocrine system. That information exists
in our
>> genes.
> ### Be more specific, please. Do you mean the information
> inherent in the subatomic structure of the DNA? Do you mean the
> quantum-mechanical description of the shape of DNA molecules?
> What about the information present in the patterns of phonons within
DNA?
By information I am referring to the sequences of chemical reactions
initiated and controlled by genetic material, that lead to the synthesis
of enzymes and other proteins that then have activity within the cell in
which they are synthesized. Those chemical reactions are "blind" but by
virtue of billions of years of evolution they are nevertheless
"meaningful information" to the survival of the organism, and in this
context meaningful to the survival of the personality.
I am not referring to anything at the subatomic level, though it does
bring up some good questions... quantum effects can affect macroscopic
chemical reactions, and so there may be some need to look more closely
at those effects and find a way to encode then into whatever inorganic
substrate we might hope to find ourselves.
> What do you mean by "genes"? The chemical substance? The
> knowledge of the world implicit in the cell and the DNA
> transcription/translation machinery?
I just a moment ago answered this in reply to Charles Hixson. I wrote to
him:
"I am saying we need to emulate the *rules* that are currently
implemented by organic molecules under the instructions of other organic
molecules that comprise our genetic material. Those rules are encoded in
our genes -- they are the very substance of them -- and so we cannot
dispense with that genetic information. I see no need for the structure
of the molecules... our genetic instructions might just as well be
encoded digitally into 1's and 0's."
> Are you saying that to read a book you need to analyze the chemical
> properties of the paper?
No, but I fail to see the relevance.
-gts
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