Genome complexity: what genes do and don't do (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, January 27, 2019, 19:16 (1917 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Information is instructions as to how to respond. Information is not active in and of itself, but is reference material which can be used to create actions.

dhw: Your second sentence is precisely what I keep saying, so we can now dismiss your earlier statement that information is a “central active component”. The article you agreed with states that “the information in the DNA code “cannot possibly serve as instructions” for creating a “fully functioning being”, and that “cells “learn” and “create instructions on the hoof” and create them “de novo”. It also tells us that information (= passive “reference material”) is used by the organism, and organisms are communities of cells. We are left, then, with the hypothesis that cells use passive information to create actions.

DAVID: The information just lying there is inactive, of course, but the cells are totally aware of it and use it in various required actions.

dhw: Your last sentence sums up the hypothesis I have been trying to put to you for the last few years. Cells are aware and they actively use passive information to decide what actions to perform. Thank you for putting it so succinctly.

QUOTE from Davies: The resolution to this paradox seems to lie in the fact that the demon must gather information about the properties of each molecule, and for this it requires a recording device, such as a brain or a miniature notebook.

dhw: In our context, the “demon” would therefore be that part of the cell which is the equivalent of a brain.

DAVID: It is all in the interpretation. If the cells are programmed to review instructional information and follow algorithms of necessary choices, it can all be automatic. That is still my position.

dhw: So your interpretation, just to sum up all the bolded statements above, is that information is passive reference material and cannot serve as instructions, and the cells are totally aware of it and use it in performing their actions. However, (latest statement) the information does contain instructions and cells are not aware of them but are programmed to follow them in performing their actions. I suspect I am not alone in finding these two sets of statements confusing.

Davies is coming to agree with my ID folks who believe life runs on information. In my mind I break this up into procedural information which runs most of life's activities automatically and reaction information which instructs appropriate reactions to new stimuli. I believe the cells are instructed to use the information and instructions appropriately.