Category: Uncategorized

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

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

ADVANTAGEOUS ERRORS. “Mutations are replication errors with selective advantage, i.e., instabilities in this system represent irreversible thermodynamic processes.” https://lnkd.in/dWwkKpD View in LinkedIn

CONTEST OF THE GODS. "We may hope that machines will eventually compete with men in all purely intellectual fields...Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess would be best." (A.M. Turing, 1950). http://www.abelard.org/turpap/turpap.php View in LinkedIn

INFORMATION-FUNCTION LOOP. “Nucleic acids (information) and proteins (function) represent a closed system, because there is no function without information, and information gets meaning from function.” https://lnkd.in/dWwkKpD View in LinkedIn

UNPROVEN CONJECTURE. "The popular view that scientists proceed inexorably from well-established fact to well-established fact, never being influenced by any unproved conjecture, is quite mistaken. Provided it is made clear which are proved facts and which are conjectures, no harm can result. Conjectures are of great importance since they suggest useful lines of research." (A.M. Turing, 1950). http://www.abelard.org/turpap/turpap.php View in LinkedIn

CONDITIONS PRECEDENT. “If certain chemical properties exist on a planet and certain physical conditions obtain, life will start by self-reproducing macromolecular cycles which act in a complementary way.” https://lnkd.in/dWwkKpD View in LinkedIn