h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Jim, Julzes, Fred, bert, whatever your name is:

We both agree that you have not had an experience.
I am completely fine that you are curious to see what is discussed here.
You are welcome to make coherent comment when something interesting comes up, like everyone else is.
"These streams are all a little chaotic" Yes, life has a habit of doing that and I like a little chaos.
"...and I was responding when I first came here to the current topic--within a few threads, at least" Well, we both agree then that you did "Drift" off into something completely unintelligable to virtually all of us.
"I did think I might have been a number of famous personages and that people on the same pages of the 1913 Britannica were often the same people for a while. That's somewhat related." No, it isnt. Thinking "people on the same pages of the 1913 Britannica were often the same people for a while" is, quite frankly, unintelligable. What the heck does that sentance mean? No, dont bother answering, I'm keen to guess....
Also, the vast majority of people I have conversed with on the subject have never claimed to have been "Famous Personages" - they have described experiences of ordinary, mundane people. To think you might have been one famous person is fairly egotistic - to claim that you "have been a number of famous people is an ego waaaay out of control.

I have to respond. There are a combination of things I should respond to. What I used to think is nothing to attack me on. I'll spare you an argument.

Right - glad thats over then.

You can all come out now people!

hello everyone, it's me. Yesterday I said in frustration that I give up. I apologize for my testiness and I take it back. I never give up-for long.

Julzes, It's true that I don't know enough about information theory but I do know enough to say that you are misapplying it here. I also know enough about biology to know that you know NOTHING about biology.

DNA is not information. It is a complex chemical molecule that, by straightforward chemical rules, makes other molecules that make…and so on. The end result is the physical body including the physical brain.

Some writers use the word 'pathway' to describe a sequence of chemical reactions. This could be where you got the idea of biological pathways. The metaphor is unfortunate because it brings to mind the idea of a track which can be traveled in both directions. Chemical 'pathways', especially biochemical ones have only one direction. There is no way back. The products of the brain, such as memory have no way of getting back to the genes.

Captain Black, The answer to the original question is no, I haven't and neither have you and neither has anyone else. It's fun to imagine though and I guess that's a good enough reason to imagine it.

Now steady there, this thread is becoming a bit chaotic.....stop that at once!

I'll restart this biology argument with you again in 13 months if you're still here. I only know a small amount of genetics compared with what I will then. My main goal in life these years is to be an adult education example. Don't continue this argument with me now. You won't get a response for a while. Study maths or something and we can compare notes on our relative progress in 13 months.

Preferably on a "Biological Argument" thread........

Hope you're keeping a diary of when you're going to restart all these arguments, Jim. You seem to be accruing quite a few...stretching out to 2053, IIRC.

RF

>> DNA is not information. <<

I respect your obvious knowledge on the subject but I am obliged to ask
why they refer to a 'genetic code' if its not an information storage device.

I realise that DNA itself is not 'information' but popular interpretation has it
that DNA stores information. A four symbol set with thousands of subset
variable attachments.

We keep hearing about the next wave of computers being 'organic'. And I have
for some time been under the impression that 'data' can be stored in some sort
of molecular formation.

I happily admit that I'm completely ignorant of the chemical sciences and can only
imagine in a sci-fi kinda way how this data/information could be stored or retrieved.

And from that I speculate that DNA could store all sorts of data including more than
simple blueprints for molecular constructions of proteins and other organic bits.

So I hope you're saying that DNA is not information per se but a data storage
medium. Otherwise I am totally confused.


~jwf~

Whenever a new thing is discovered the discoverers almost always try to describe it in familiar terms. One example is the comparison of the human brain to a computer even though there's absolutely no similarity in the way that the two things operate.

The string of nucleotides looks superficially like a string of letters and there's something about it that makes the thing that contains it. Knowing that, and that's all we knew to begin with, the resemblance to a code or an information storage is the closest analogy that anyone could come up with. In this sense, the analogy works.

The problem with thinking in terms of metaphor or analogy is that it's too easy to ascribe every detail of the working of the analog to the thing that you're trying to understand. A clock is constructed to be an analog for the rotation of the earth. You use the clock as a kind of analog computer to tell you how the earth is turned in relation to the sun. That doesn't mean that the earth ticks or needs batteries.

Julzes was thinking of the DNA of an animal as information as in an information storage device which could be changed with a read/write head in a non random way to affect the next generation. But it's not information in a machine, it IS the machine, at least the first step in the machines operation. It makes imperfect copies of itself (some better and some worse) and it also makes the pieces of the puzzle that will fall together to make the body of the animal that carries it.

You could call DNA information only in the sense that clouds are information. You can use clouds for predicting the weather. You can also look at DNA and predict that it will produce a monkey or a meerkat.

That's not the sense that Julzes was using information theory and that's why I said he was misapplying it.

I apologize for nto being able to describe it better than that, I've got to the age where I'm losing my language and it's very frustrating to have a clear thought and not be able to express it.

Note to self:

Richard Dawkins does a good job of describing why blueprints is a bad word to use here. You can make a thing from a blueprint and you can make a blueprint from measuring the thing and drawing the pieces, but that's not how DNA works. You can use the same DNA twice and it won't make two identical bodies. Identical twins are not identical.

DNA is closer to a recipe where you take flour and sugar and raisins to make a dozen muffins. The recipe doesn't say how many raisins will end up in each muffin or how they will be arranged. You can examine the muffin as closely as you like and you still can't say exactly what the recipe is.

>> ...it's very frustrating to have a clear thought and not be able to express it. <<

You're doing a better job than I am Gunga Din!


"Tho' I've belted you and flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"
-Rudyard Kipling


You are one of the few folks willing to try and explain things
to dummies like me. And your advice on 'blueprints' is well taken.
It hadn't even occurred to me that it was inapropriate because I was still
buying into the data storage/information metaphor of DNA. I will try to stop
making such analogies or at least endeavour to be more conscious of them
in serious discussion.

It does seem that I will have to read Dawkin's latest, 'The Greatest Show on Earth'
and hope he can explain it. Though as I'm sure you are aware I bear him a grudge
for his militancy toward organised religions in 'The God Delusion' but his knowledge
of genetics cannot be denied and I will look forward to having him explain evolution
a little better than I currently understand it. I am still about 50th on the waiting list at
the city library but the rural library has agreed to purchase a copy and I'll be the first
in line for having suggested it. They are still ever so grateful for my donating my copy
of 'The God Delusion' to their stacks. (I didn't want it in the house!)



~jwf~

PS: I will be reorienting all my analog dial clocks on the walls so that the morning hours
are on the East side and the PM side is West. Believe it or not I had never heard of that idea
before, so you have indeed enlightened me on several things. And I thank you.