Month: September 2022

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE explores an interesting article by Günther Witzany on DNA as a habitat for retroviruses, and its evolutionary consequences, titled Pragmatic turn in biology: From biological molecules to genetic content operators. Witzany, a philosopher, collaborated with virologist Luis Villarreal; in the words of Villarreal: “One of the most fundamental concepts to emerge for me in the last five years has come from talking to the philosopher Günther Witzany about the history of science and language.“ https://lnkd.in/dp4diBc View in LinkedIn

DNA AS NATURAL CODE. “From biological molecules to genetic content operators. Erwin Schrödinger‘s question “What is life?” received the answer for decades of “physics + chemistry”. The concepts of Alain Turing and John von Neumann introduced a third term: “information”. This led to the understanding of nucleic acid sequences as a natural code.” https://lnkd.in/dWwkKpD View in LinkedIn

NATURAL CODE MEANING IS CONTEXTUAL. “Meaning in natural languages/codes and communication is context dependent. In contrast, artificial formalizable (algorithm based) languages employ a “universal“ syntax in order to determine meaning independent of the contextual circumstances.” https://lnkd.in/dWwkKpD View in LinkedIn

NATURAL CODES NEED AGENTS. “It is empirically evident that no natural language speaks itself as no natural code codes itself. It always requires living agents that share a competence to generate and interpret these natural codes.” https://lnkd.in/dWwkKpD View in LinkedIn

CODE AGENTS ARE DNA PARASITES. “Therefore I suppose that changes in the genetic code, which are of evolutionary relevance, are rather the result of fine-tuned processes by a large network of mobile genetic elements, persistent viruses, its defectives and other genetic parasites that alter DNA sequences.” https://lnkd.in/dWwkKpD View in LinkedIn

ECOLOGY OF DNA PARASITES. “In this respect DNA remains as ecosphere habitat for social interacting RNA inhabitants. This represents a pragmatic turn in biology from syntax centered molecular biology to pragmatics centered agents interactions.” https://lnkd.in/dWwkKpD View in LinkedIn

REVOLUTIONARY COMPLEXITY. “The components of DNA are simple chemicals, but the biological complexity that can be generated by the information of different sequences is revolutionary.” https://lnkd.in/dWwkKpD View in LinkedIn

ORIGINS IN TURING’S AI. “The fundamental concept that integrated this new biological “information” with matter and energy was enshrined in the universal Turing machine and von Neumann‘s self-reproducing machines.” https://lnkd.in/dWwkKpD View in LinkedIn

BIOLOGY IS PHYSICS WITH COMPUTATION. “It follows that biology is physics with computation. This was the core paradigm of molecular biology for almost the next half-century.” https://lnkd.in/dWwkKpD View in LinkedIn

EIGEN’S CONTRIBUTION. “Manfred Eigen developed a model of how the essential features of life and its inherent complexity can be explained by physical properties of matter.” https://lnkd.in/dWwkKpD View in LinkedIn