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Topic: Multiple Realizability---Once Again
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James A. Barham
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Member # 50
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posted 29. May 2002 12:31
On several different threads, Warren Bergerson and I have been having a conversation about whether his algorithmic description of the functional logic of the cell in itself constitutes a complete explanation of the teleology manifest in life. I believe that this question lies at the heart of all our concerns here at ISCID, so it is worth trying once again to gain some clarity on this point, at the risk of repeating ourselves.
Here is how I view the essence of the problem. Leaving aside the Darwinians for a moment, both ID and self-organization folks (or at least ones like me) agree that teleology is real, not just some illusion of perspective. So, the question is, What conclusions should we draw from this fact?
There seem to be only two ways to go: (1) The teleology arises somehow out of the material constitution of the cell itself, which means that the cell has some kind of sui generis physics going on that we do not yet understand; or (2) If the material constitution as such is accidental, and all that matters is the logical structure of the way the parts are put together, then we have no choice but to posit an external intelligence or designer who imposed the teleological order on the inert parts.
Now, Warren seems to be saying that there is a third way, here (or fourth, since he too rejects the Darwinian "illusion" pseudo-explanation). But I have been unable to grasp exactly what he means. So, I have started this thread to invite him to reformulate his ideas in such a way as to address directly what I (and I believe most ID people) take to be the nub of the problem: How is it possible to explain the functional or teleological organization of life? Through ACTIVE matter, or through the external intelligent manipulation of INERT matter?
This is a very deep and general problem. It goes to the heart, not just of evolutionary biology, but also of cognitive science, AI, AL, and the philosophy of mind.
Let me try to put it very simply one more time in this way. There are folks out there who claim that robots should be accorded legal status as "persons." I find this absurd. Why? Because I don't care how well a robot simulates intelligent behavior, it will never BE an intelligent agent. Now, if all there is to intelligent agency is just abstract organization, then clearly I am wrong. But how many of us are really comfortable with the "Kismet" scenario? (That is the name of the robot the theologian Anne Foerst believes is entitled to personhood.)
But if we are not comfortable with the Kismet scenario, why not? It is simply taking the "multiple realizability" thesis to its logical conclusion. We can go farther, and say that computer games (as in ALife) are themselves "alive," and it is a crime to turn them off! So, Warren, if you could instantiate your programs successfully in a real hardware system (maybe you already have?), would you consider it murder to turn the system off? If not, why not (given that you seem to be saying that only the abstract organization matters)?
The bottom line, I feel, is where the causality is coming from that can explain the teleology. If it is coming from the outside, as in the case of machines, then that points straight to a Deity. If it is coming from the inside (as I claim), then that points to new physics. If there is a third way (other than the Darwinian way) of looking at this problem, I still am failing to grasp it.
[ 29 May 2002, 12:52: Message edited by: James A. Barham ]
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Zia H. Shah
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posted 29. May 2002 15:23
You write:
"The bottom line, I feel, is where the causality is coming from that can explain the teleology. If it is coming from the outside, as in the case of machines, then that points straight to a Deity. If it is coming from the inside (as I claim), then that points to new physics."
There could obviously be a mixture of causalities "outside" and "inside". As the deity can put certain artificial intelligence or self developing processes in the genome for example. These processes in the genome could work like the neural networks in software. The software needs the hardware to work and the genome requires the cell structures for its execution. Would you call such scenarios as a "mixture" or fall back on the deity and call it "outside" causality?
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James A. Barham
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posted 29. May 2002 17:53
Zia:
Yes, of course, you are right. I did not express myself well.
I of course realize that most theists will want to say that God works through natural law, although even here, the Occasionalists (namely, al-Ghazali and other Ash'arite Mutakallimun in Islam, Malebranche and others in the West) will demur. But there are not too many Occasionalists left today, so far as I know (although I could be wrong!).
I just meant to say that one of the two possible explanations of teleology is that the teleological organization itself is imposed on matter from the outside by God. This is consistent with the idea that the matter, of its own accord, acts strictly in accordance with mechanstic law. It is just like what happens when human beings impose teleological organization on metal and plastic to build a machine. Left to their own devices, the metal and plastic will never spontaneously self-assemble into a machine. Indeed, left to its own devices, a machine will inevitably lose its functional integrity due to the operation of the second law. Thus, while a machine of course operates according to natural law, it is only functional insofar as a teleological organization transcending mechanistic law has been imposed upon it from the outside. The ID theory, if I understand correctly, is that the teleology in living organisms is analogous to the teleology in machines.
The other possible explanation---the one that I advocate---is that teleology may be an intrinsic manifestation of living matter in a way that we have yet to fully comprehend.
[ 29 May 2002, 17:55: Message edited by: James A. Barham ]
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Leonid Andreev
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posted 29. May 2002 19:09
James:
I fully agree with you on that “teleology is real, not just some illusion of perspective” and that “there seem to be only two ways to go”. However, I cannot agree with your saying, “if it is coming from the inside (as I claim), then that points to the new physics”. I will explain my point by an example. As is known, chemical catalytic processes differ from homogeneous reactions in a very specific way. In most cases, a molecule attacked by another molecule is adsorbed on a catalyst in a highly peculiar way, thereby contorting the electronic structure which is otherwise stable and does not cause the processes that occur in it when adsorbed by a catalyst. Calling it “new physics” would sound ridiculous to both chemists and physicists as the said phenomenon is no longer a mystery.
It is my opinion that if “teleology arises somehow out of the material constitution of the cell itself”, then such an element of the material constitution of the live cell in its present form must have been teleological by its nature at least in the conditions that existed when life was emerging, i.e. it must have had a teleological potential – not in a vitalistic but purely conventional physico-chemical sense.
Assume that such an element of the material constitution of the protocell and, then, the cell in fact existed, underwent modifications, and still exists. What are the chances to discover it logically or experimentally? Almost none. If that element, the mainspring of evolution, in its active state remains unnoticeable amongst its inactive analogues – just like that molecule adsorbed on a catalyst in an “unnatural pose” – or gets replaced by certain functional analogues, then there may be a long way to go until we happen to spot it. And there is another impeding factor – human psychology. To speak about the simple elements of the alive in terms of teleology is looked upon as poor taste, at least in the present century science. It is considered to be acceptable to “animate” the DNA, although DNA in its main function can be a materialization factor in the ontogenesis program designed by the evolution. Some twenty years ago, the question of the possibility of the DNA spontaneous self-origination was being debated on with a dead serious interest (and, if I am not mistaken, with a Nobel Prize on stake) – although it can easily be calculated that the probability of such an occurrence is expressed by such a fantastically small value as, for instance, the reciprocal value of the total of hydrogen atoms in the Universe.
In general, mankind in its scientific perception of the living substance is not departing from the Creator as the evolutionists may think, but instead is steadily moving toward creationism. So, if there indeed has been a certain basic mechanism possessing the teleological potential that has pushed forward the living from the non-living, the biological progress in research of anything that may qualify for obtaining grants will preclude the research community from recognizing that mechanism even if someone points finger at it.
What could it be that might have the teleological potential in the conditions of pre-biological and biological evolution? Apparently, we do not need to leave the platform of old good classical physics to give an unequivocal answer: it was the ability to accumulate energy from the energetic noise through chemical mechanisms involving, as a condition, the formation of certain special, unusual spatial positions of molecules, conserve the said energy and utilize it as a development matrix and stimulus – at the time when DNA and even proteins had yet to come into existence, and the latter both look by far more biological than that which has been responsible for making the living substance emerge.
Leonid Andreev
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complex
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posted 30. May 2002 01:16
Hi James,
I am trying to figure out the terms of reference.
You seem to say that on the one hand are systems that have teleology and on the other are systems that do not. What is it that differentiates the two of them according to your terminology?
Is it function? (A robot has function). Or is it something else. I am essentially asking you to clarify what you mean by teleology. It is only after this one is clear that we can say if physics and teleology are compatible or a contradiction of terms. I don't mean to be pedantic, and perhaps it is clear to others, but it is not to me. If it has been stated in a previous post, please refer me to that. Thank you.
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Jesse
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posted 30. May 2002 03:06
quote:
Here is how I view the essence of the problem. Leaving aside the Darwinians for a moment, both ID and self-organization folks (or at least ones like me) agree that teleology is real, not just some illusion of perspective. So, the question is, What conclusions should we draw from this fact?
How do you define "teleology?" It seems to me that all the reductionist "self-organization folks", which probably includes everyone at the Santa Fe institute as well as others like Stephen Wolfram, are no more or less teleologist than your average Darwinist. In fact most of them are Darwinists in the sense that they'd agree that while "self-organization" may explain all sorts of interesting patterns and features in organisms, only RM&NS can explain the origin of adaptations. Self-organization theorist Cosma Shalizi makes this point well in his review of "The Self-Made Tapestry":
quote:
It may, admittedly, look like we're in trouble with some obvious facts, that this argument leaves genes and natural selection with no purchase at all on morphogenesis. But not even the most enthusiastic of the self-organizers, the ones with the least use for Darwin (e.g., Brian Goodwin) goes that far. It's very clear that developmental traits can be inherited. Individual mutations can cause the organism to grow six well-formed fingers on each hand (in human beings), or legs in place of antennae (in fruit flies); somehow changes in one protein have to ratchet up into large modifications of the organism. One way to achieve this is to recognize that the same mechanism can form many different patterns depending on its parameters, which, in the case of morphogenesis, will involve the chemical properties of the proteins and protein-products in the embryo, which are just what the genes control. The genes twiddle the knobs, so to speak, and then let self-organization do its voodoo.
This is a pretty convincing line of argument; at least, I'd like to think so, since it convinced me for years. No longer; let me try to say why with a fairly concrete example. There is, as I mentioned, a very nice theory about the markings of mammalian coats, developed by Hans Meinhardt and his collaborators. It explains them through spontaneous pattern formation, using some ideas invented by Alan Turing in the 1950s, and, depending on the parameters of these ``activator-inhibitor'' systems, they can give you tiger-stripes, or leopard-spots, or even giraffe-blotches, with controllable size, density, wiggliness, etc. Suppose we established that this is really the mechanism at work; could we then finally close the books on how the leopard got its spots? No: it is a conspicuous fact (or, rather, an inconspicuous one) that tigers are tiger-striped, while leopards and leopard-spotted, and there is nothing in the activator-inhibitor story to say why this should be so. It's not enough for a pattern to form, it must also function. Pattern formation is in general unable to create adaptations, to produce something which fits with the organism's environment. The case of tiger-stripes and leopard-spots could be resolved by appealing to parameter-tuning, as above, but this doesn't go far enough. There are, after all, many, many different pattern-forming mechanisms, producing many different sorts of patterns. Assuming an organism employs such a mechanism, why that one rather than another, producing very different patterns? The only answer, so far as I can see, is that, in the organism's environment, the patterns it makes are more adaptive than those of rival mechanism. (Lipids are just as capable of forming open ``plumber's nightmare'' surfaces as closed vesicles; cell walls are vesicles because it helps an organism if it doesn't leak all over creation.) So even the kind of self-organization which happens in morphogenesis is under evolutionary control.
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James A. Barham
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posted 30. May 2002 09:20
Leonid:
I agree with much of what you say, but let me just make a couple of observations (I must obviously defer to your technical expertise on questions of fact, but I wonder if we have the same domain of reference):
(1) There is some dispute whether we do in fact understand even the working of individual enzymes. Hans Fraeunfelder, Peter Wolynes, and others claim that there is a "minimum frustration principle" at work in the functional action of proteins which does not accord with the standard statistical-mechanical picture. If I undersand this work correctly (a big "if," perhaps!), then there may well be "new physics" lurking even in individual enzyme function.
(2) But be that as it may, the deeper question is how to explain the massive coherence and coordination of the individual chemical reactions in the cell. I don't see that you address this problem in you post. Do you believe that this teleological (which just means "goal-directed" or "purposive") coordination can itself be explained in conventional biochemical terms?
I very much agree with you that the essence of the problem is explaining how energy was accumulated out of random background noise. But you don't say how this might have been done, in terms of conventional physics.
Finally, you write:
"teleological potential – not in a vitalistic but purely conventional physico-chemical sense."
I'm afraid I don't understand what this means. How do conventional physics and chemistry explain "teleological potential"?
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complex:
"teleology" just means having to do with goals ("telos" = end, finish, or goal in Greek). Now, there is a whole lot to say about this, but to be very brief my position is this.
Modern biology uses teleological reasoning constantly. It cannot help doing so, because (to paraphrase Dobzhansky's famous line): Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of teleology.
The problem comes when we try to explain, not the individual processes in the cell, but the teleological coordination of the processes. Darwinism, I claim, simply takes all of this for granted in its explanatory structure, and so cannot begin to offer a cogent explanation for the existence of a teleological system like a cell.
Now, there is more to say about gradations from nonequilibrium thermodynamics (where we have the rudiments of spontaneous striving or goal-seeking) to actual life (where we have a cognitive component that coordinates action with external conditions using low-energy triggers). But leaving aside all those sorts of issues, you touch on the main point when you say that a robot "has function."
According to me, a robot has no function at all in itself; all of its function is strictly in relation to us, its creators. That is because its own parts have no innate tendency to seek the "functional" configuration. That is why we have to intervene to repair it from time to time.
Organisms are not like that. That are simply not machines at all in the same sense. It is precisely in the capacity of organisms to spontaneously strive to maintain themselves in existence where the mystery lies. That is what I mean by "teleology"---this mysterious and currently completely unexplained ability of living things to act in an intelligent, goal-directed fashion all of their own accord.
Jesse:
Yes, I am aware that most self-organization theorists are Darwinians and reductionists. I simply was reluctant to advance myself as the sole representative of my viewpoint (both because of the apparent immodesty of such a claim, and also because there is strength in numbers, I guess). But you have unmasked me. The number of self-organization theorists who would agree with me about the objective reality of teleology could probably be counted on one hand (Mae-Wan Ho, Giuseppe Vitiello, perhaps Walter J. Freeman, maybe a few others).
Everyone is still in thrall to the consensus that "teleology" is a dirty word (and "vitalism" is even dirtier). In my view, they are going to have to get over it.
[ 30 May 2002, 09:26: Message edited by: James A. Barham ]
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warren_bergerson
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posted 30. May 2002 10:28
James,
Thanks for offering such a concise definition of the issue to be addressed. I will try to be as clear in presenting the concepts underlying my ‘fourth alternative’. To start at the end, it is, in my view, theoretically, possible to build self-sustaining artificial intelligence, a Kismet if you wish. However, we are a very long ways from having the computing and storage capacity to create such a simulation. I also suspect that if and when such systems are built they will look and act a lot different from the television and movie versions.
To more substantive issues. There are a number of different ‘levels’ from which to approach my fourth alternative, let’s call it the adaptive approach to the ‘teleological organization of life’. I am going to start by offering mathematical definitions of the basic concepts underlying my approach to teleological causation. If the issues aren’t resolvable at this level, we can consider real world applications and manifestations.
To begin, scientific theories, IMO, are logically precise mathematical/logical models of causal relationships which meet certain rigorous standards. One of the goals in analyzing life forms is to be able to develop these logically precise models of the causal relationships or ‘laws’ governing life forms. Formulating scientific theories in the life sciences, compared to the physical sciences, is a challenge because the causal relationships involved are complex. The basic challenge in applying the scientific paradigm in the life sciences is finding methods of modeling these complex causal relationships that produce models which will satisfy the rigorous standards of the scientific paradigm.
TOPOLOGY
Theories and models in physics are based primarily on variations of continuous 4-dimensional space-time. The analysis here is based on a discrete, discontinuous change of state topology. In simple terms, this means that space time is divided into discrete finite units. Change, or changes in state, in these models are produced by causal relationships operating between the discrete units. This is like a movie where the appearance of continuous change is produced by a set of still pictures. This approach is useful in modeling the types of discrete or discontinuous changes common in biological systems.
TYPES OF CAUSAL RELATIONSHIPS
The basic "A always causes B’ causal relationships can be expressed in many different forms. The relationship "A always causes B’ for example can be logically equivalent to, translated into, or expressed as "‘A sometimes causes B1’ and ‘A sometimes causes B2’". Of concern here is a type of causal relationship called ‘changeable, dynamic or programmable’. It may or may not be intuitively clear, but programmable causal relationships are not something different or distinct from the traditional permanent and universal causal relationships. [The equivalence is easily demonstrated mathematically.] The scientific determinism assumption does not limit scientific analysis to the simple forces or simple permanent and universal causal relationships.
PROGRAMMABLE CAUSAL RELATIONSHIPS (PCR’S)
A dynamic or programmable causal relationship is defined by:
1. A set S of causes, input or stimuli s1,s2,…sn.
2. A set R of effects, output, or responses r1,r2,…,rm
3. A set F of mathematical functions f1,f2,..fp defining possible functional relationships between Sand R (the set of possible functions with domain S and range R) and
4. A set of processes for changing the PCR from fx a member of F or fy a member of F.
This, it will be noted is a mathematical definition of the concept of a PCR. There are real world manifestations that fit the above definition including a computer. Phenomena fitting or modeled by the above definition also exist in biological systems.
TELEOLOGICAL CAUSATION
In common parlance, teleological causation is a causal relationship with a goal or purpose, or a causal relationship designed to achieve goal. In a more formal sense, teleological causation can be defined as ‘a causal relationship which appears to increase the likelihood of achieving some goal relative to alternative causal relationships’. In terms of PCR’s, teleological causation is a causal relationships, part of a PCR, represented by a function f a member of F which was selected because it had an ‘expected value’ of achieving goal G that was higher than the expected values for alternatives considered’. This is not yet a precise definition, but it is close to what is generally meant by teleological causation.
This definition of teleological causation can be divided into two parts 1)the causal relationship f a member of PCR which increases the likelihood of achieving goal G, and 2)the process for selecting f from F. To make this definition more useful for analytical purposes, we add the concept of efficiency. Thus "Under ideal conditions or if the selection process is efficient, f the member of PCR selected will be the member of F with the maximum or optimal expected likelihood of achieving goal G".
This mathematical/logical definition of teleological causation makes it possible to identify, measure, and model occurrences of teleological causation. Once occurrences of teleological causation have been identified, analyzed, measured and modeled, it is then possible to identify, analyze, measure and model the processes which create and modify teleological causation.
If you are going to scientifically analyze teleological causation, you must be able to 1)precisely define and measure instances of teleological causation, and 2)precisely define, measure and model how these occurrences are created and modified. All I have done to date, is introduced and defined a number of concepts and techniques which might make it possible and practical to perform the desired analysis. I have worked with these concepts so long they seem fairly simple and obvious. They may not be that to everyone(or anyone). If you want more(or less detail) please let me know. Again, this isn’t the answer to issue you raised, but the starting point.
It might be useful to note that the definitions offered above have some similarities to the Darwinian approach. Important difference include 1)Darwin is based on the ‘lifetime’ as the discrete unit of time- My approach involves ‘real time units’, 2)my teleological processes operate on ‘causal’ relationships, not traits (this difference is very important to the issues you raise), and 3) The processes I propose to explain changes in teleological causation are far more complex that mutate-select.
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James A. Barham
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posted 30. May 2002 19:36
Warren:
Thanks for the new and lucid description of your algorithmic model of functional action.
I'm afraid I still don't understand, however, in what sense this constitutes a "fourth" approach to the problem of teleology.
Let me just ask you this. What do you say to Bill Dembski (and he is not alone, by the way) when he gives you a rigorous mathematical demonstration based on probability theory that such a system as you describe cannot possibly come into being by chance?
Are you (1) denying Dembski's claim and saying that maybe such systems can arise through purely stochastic processes? Or perhaps are you (2) saying that they can arise somehow as the result of natural law? If (2), then what sort of laws would you point to as giving rise to the sort of teleological systems you describe?
These are the issues that we are all grappling with here at ISCID.
Thanks again for trying to get your viewpoint through to me!
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Leonid Andreev
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posted 31. May 2002 01:54
James,
The two questions you have raised in response to my previous posting are good and constructive, but the answer cannot be both brief and specific. I will however attempt to provide an answer and will start with your last question on how conventional physics and chemistry may explain “teleological potential”. The core idea is explained in my paper Microbial Lipids in the Context of Pre-Biological and Biological Evolution (Leonid Andreev, In: Problems of Evolution of Bacteria. Center for Biological Research, Pushchino. 1984. In Russian).
It is known that lipids are very likely to have been a component of the prebiotic broth. It is also known that in a solution, ester carbonyl is very unlikely to be able to transform into a tautomeric form - enol ( - CH2 – CO – O → - CH = CH(OH) – O – ). However, it would not be the new chemistry or new physics to assume that in certain rare spatial situations the hydrogen atoms of two enolized carbonyls of two lipid molecules in micromicellae could be substituted by a bivalent cation. To make further explanation brief, I offer my scenario: that bivalent cation most likely was magnesium, a widely distributed element on Earth (Mg average Clarke is 1.87%). The complex of magnesium and lipid ligands, upon spontaneous configuration changes, might cause a split-off of MgO (which would be rare case chemistry and physics but not the new ones). MgO is a macroergic component that upon reaction with water yields 12 kcal/mol (about the same as in ATP hydrolysis). And it must have been magnesium oxide that was the accumulator of energy from noise and carried the teleological potential of which I wrote in my previous posting. Evolution proceeded along the line of improving the mechanism of energy accumulation, which gave an advantage to micromicellae in maintaining their status quo, in development and, probably, primitive reproduction.
To further wrap it up:
Magnesium oxide provided for production of pyrophosphate internal salt, and, further, of ATD-ATP, being “amenable” MgO successors (up till now, Mg remains unexplainably important in enzymatic synthesis and decomposition of adenosine phosphates (ATPase), as well as in at least three hundred other enzymatic reactions of crucial importance occurring in cells. The role of magnesium is extraordinarily important: it is present in cell and nuclear membrane-associated proteins; it is associated with proteins, DNA, RNA, and enzymes; it is sequestered within subcellular otganelles (mitochondria, endoplasmatic reticulum), etc. Calcium, an antagonist of magnesium, was mostly involved as a construction factor (starting with diatoms shells and up to skeletal formation in animals). In the context of this forum, however, we probably do not need to go on with tracing how the evolution process was further purposively unfolding. I will just point to selective synthesis of polysaccharides that led to increase of micromicella rigidity, production of proteins-enzymes that participated constructively and functionally in the increase of the efficiency of energy accumulation from heat and sound noise into MgO and further – with the beginning of autonomous metabolism – as a method for creation of an autonomous system of synthesis of macroergic bonds (a proto-analogue of ATP-synthase). And, finally, origination of chlorophyll for accumulation of the energy of light (there is about 100 billion tons of Mg contained in the total amount of chlorophyll present on Earth), DNA and lots of other stuff known to biology. Magnesium performs in chlorophyll just as its historical predecessor – a complex of Mg with enol hydroxyls of lipids – did. In fact, magnesium oxide as a predecessor and “creator” of all the living organisms can be spotted everywhere – in mitochondria, plasmids, ribosomes, in biosynthesis of proteins and nucleic acids. Even hemoglobin has been “primed” for providing the oxygen exchange through iron.
Not to divert to a lecture on the origin of life on Earth, I will have to stop at this point. Should you feel, however, that my point on the “teleological potential” of MgO as a “creator” of the living needs further clarification, I will be willing to explain it in more detail.
I’d like to briefly touch upon the “minimum frustration principle” mentioned by you. If an automobile could think, it would find it strange that instead of driving full speed ahead, the driver makes turns or takes detours. The automobile simply does not know about the purpose of the trip, the traffic rules, the city’s road infrastructure, about driver’s problems, and many other things. I, for one, have a lot of confidence in my idea that the ability of Mg to accumulate energy in the form of oxide gave impetus to the purposive development of the Living. I definitely would not want to deliberate on how the Creator could possibly be through with His experiment within one week. Whoever claims, as I do, to have an idea on what has given a purposive impetus to origination of life, can always verify his hypothesis by closely examining those fragments of biochemical and biophysical history that underlie the “minimum frustration” points. This is the contribution into entropy that the Living has to pay in exchange for the conservative and successive historicity of its development. When we ponder over a question of why protein acquired a configuration that is less advantageous than another one that would have served better in a given reaction, we resemble the thinking automobile whose logic is different than the logic of the driver (Nature).
I wish I had more time tonight to address your other question. It has much to do with the fact that here on Earth there two forms of life that co-exist and successfully develop: prokaryotes and eukaryotes. I will get back to it next time.
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warren_bergerson
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posted 31. May 2002 09:23
James,
It is useful to note that 1)the existence today of teleological/biological systems fitting the model I defined and 2)the development of such a biological system from an inorganic or non-living system are two separate issues. I can demonstrate that teleological/biological systems existing today can be modeled and simulated using PCR’s. Such models define teleological causation as it occurs, but also how it is created and modified. But your question relates to the origin of biological life so I’ll attempt to address that issue.
To some extent, the beginning of biological life will always be an ‘unexplained discontinuity’ just as the creation of gravity at the beginning of time had to be an unexplained discontinuity. Without having actually studied it, I assume that Dembski’s demonstration is based on showing that even the most elementary mutate-select DNA based system could not have arisen by chance. I would completely agree that raw chemicals to DNA life forms is a statistical impossibility. I would go one step further. Statistical improbabilities or miracles of chance are not scientific explanations. If there is a scientific explanation of the origin of life, then it must involve some process or set of processes that can be reproduced in the lab. Life could have arisen from a statistical miracle or by the action of some unknown hand, but neither explanation, IMO, constitutes a ‘scientific’ explanation of the origin of life.
The question you are asking, "Does the ‘fourth’ or adaptive approach to teleological causation, provide a scientific explanation for the origin of biological life?" First, this is, IMO, a perfectly legitimate question and a perfectly valid test of the approach or theory I am proposing. Second, while I believe the adaptive approach can address, and possibly answer this question (the possibility always exists that life is the result of some sort of miracle), I don’t have a complete answer at the moment. The following is speculation on how life might have arisen based on the adaptive approach (I apologize for all the preliminary qualifications).
I didn’t get this far yesterday, but the adaptive approach suggests that what makes biological life distinct from non-life is not teleological causation, but the unique ‘biological life’ technique for creating and modifying teleological causation. There are a number of different types or classes of teleological causation associated with life forms, but there is only a single ‘logical paradigm or set of processes responsible for creating and modifying teleological causation in life forms’. This single paradigm is called the adaptive paradigm. The adaptive paradigm can 1)modify existing PCR’s so they remain teleological, 2)create new PCR’s and 3)create new processes for creating and modifying PCR’s. Given these characteristics, it follows that an elementary system using the adaptive paradigm could eventually evolve into the life forms observed on earth today. The origin of life issue thus becomes- is there or was there a simple, naturally occurring non-living phenomena which ‘creates and modifies PCR’s or teleological causation using the adaptive paradigm".
Expressed in another form, what is the simplest type of system containing PCR’s which would perform the functions or functionality of the adaptive paradigm. Based on my preliminary analysis, I would suggest that the non-living to living transitional system would need to have the following four general characteristics:
1. IDENTITY- Life requires the physical temporal identity of individuals. This would involve some type of physical boundary which eventually became the cell wall. There are, I assume, naturally occurring ‘bubbles’ which could have provided the required identity for the earliest life forms.
2. GOALS- Since the ‘goal’ of existing life forms is, or can be interpreted as, survival or continued existence, it is reasonable to conclude that is was the goal of the pre-life forms. In order to survive, some bubbles would have had to grow and divide to compensate for those destroyed.
3. ADAPTIVE OR TELEOLOGICAL REACTIONS- There must exist and/or occur ‘causal relationships’ which increase the likelihood of survival. Here we can use the Darwinian concept. Bubbles containing causal relationships (reactions to environmental conditions) which increase the likelihood of survival will leave this trait in their ‘descendants’.
4. MULTIPLE ADAPTIVE REACTIONS- The early bubbles must have contained multiple adaptive reactions. This would include different reactions to different environmental conditions. I would assume that ‘different adaptive reactions’ refers to different ‘chemical/physical reactions’ such as ‘heat causes the bubbles wall to expand’, ‘light causes chemical reaction X’. It is useful at this elementary stage of the analysis to identify three key departures from the Darwinian approach. First, the basic unit of change is the ‘adaptive reaction’ or ‘causal relationship’, not the static trait or property. Second, the focus here is on ‘adaptation or adaptive reactions to multiple conditions’ not on adaptation to a single set of conditions. Third, the analysis is not dependent on a particular complex chemical DNA. The third difference is somewhat trivial. It may or may not be intuitively obvious, but the first two differences are significant.
Two comments on the criteria listed above. First, I assume, the probability must be very high that ‘bubble’ systems exist which meet the general requirements defined above. Such systems, would not by themselves automatically evolve into life forms. Second, since there appears to be only one type of life on earth, while bubble systems meeting the criteria listed above must be fairly common, bubble systems which can result in life must either be rare and/or existing life forms actively destroy such primitive systems when they occur. [It may also be useful to note that ‘rarity’ is not necessarily the same as a miracle of chance.]
If for the sake of discussion, we assume that primitive bubble systems can exist, then we ask the question "Could such a system meet all the requirements, or perform all the functionality associated with the adaptive paradigm?" This involves satisfying the following five conditions:
[ James: This response is getting rather long so I will split it in two. I hope to have the second half this afternoon. In looking over the material so far, I would note that the ‘naturalistic origin of life’ is at least three types of questions- 1)How ‘could’ it have happened?, 2)Did it happen as suggested? And 3)Exactly how did that piece of it happen? I, obviously, am only addressing the ‘how could it have happened question. ]
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warren_bergerson
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posted 31. May 2002 13:20
James,
The following is the continuation of the comments posted this morning.
If for the sake of discussion, we assume that primitive bubble systems can exist, then we ask the question "Could such a system meet all the requirements, or perform all the functionality associated with the adaptive paradigm?" This involves satisfying the following six conditions:
1. EXISTENCE OF PCR’s- A PCR or programmable causal relationship is simply a causal relationship that can change or be changed. Such a relationship exists if input or environmental stimulus s1 can sometimes produce reaction r1 and sometimes reaction r2. Also, the input or environmental stimuli which causes r1 can change from s1 to s2. The terminology used may be new, but the PCR’s are a very common real world phenomena.
2. PCR’S WITH DIFFERENTIAL SURVIVAL VALUE- The different forms of a PCR in the primitive system(the different f’s belonging to F in the terminology defined yesterday) must have different survival values. At a point in time, a form fx of a PCR must have a greater survival value than some other fy a form of the PCR. In order to have a form of a PCR which is teleological or which achieves a purpose, the different possible forms of a PCR must be associated with different probabilities that a particular goal or purpose will be achieved. As should be fairly obvious, there are lots of PCR’s which will have differential survival values.
3. PRESERVATION - To be of value, the beneficial or teleological form of a PCP must be preserved over time. A reaction which is beneficial at one point in time, but is not repeatable is obviously not teleological. Preserving a causal relationship or preserving the form of a PCP over time is a common phenomena. There is one critical preservation criteria to be considered in a bubble system. If a bubble divides into two bubbles, a process which would appear to be essential for survival, then the PCP would have to present or preserved in both halves. A pre-life system would thus require either self reproducing chemicals and/or the ability to import appropriate copies of the physical objects responsible for storing a PCR. Again both such mechanisms(import and self reproducing chemicals) are known to exist in non-living forms. It will be noted that a simple bubble system could involve relatively simple storage mechanisms. When you get into more complex organisms undergoing complex transformations, the storage processes required will have to be far more complex.
4. EXECUTION- The bubble system must have the capacity to execute the stored adaptive or teleological form of the PCR(the adaptive form of a PCR is called an adaptive reaction or adaptive solution). Again this is a common real world characteristic. Note that execution is about generating reactions when appropriate environmental stimuli are present and not generating reactions when such stimuli are not present. In a simple environment this is a simple process. As the number and complexity of PCR’s increase, the complexity of execution increases. [It will also be noted, that by combining the execution of simple adaptive reactions it is possible to create complex adaptive reactions. Constructing an amino acid, for example, is assumed to involve a series adaptive reactions. ]
5. MODIFICATION TO INCREASE ADAPTABILITY- In order to make a PCR teleological or adaptive, you need a process which can change the PCR from forms that are less adaptive or have a lower to adaptive value to forms that have a higher adaptive value. We can thank Darwin for having identified one such process or mechanism called Natural Selection or ‘survival of the fitter form’. It seems likely that this simple ‘survive/ die’ mechanism plays a significant role in simple bubble systems. The ‘problem’ with Natural Selection is that it is too weak a process to explain all the modification needed to explain involved with even relatively simple systems. The answer appears to be that processes develop or evolve which perform a portion of this adaptive selection "within lifetime". Discussion of within lifetime selection processes should probably be left for later. [One other feature is important to note. Adaptive reactions are assumed here to be temporary. A form of a PCR that is adaptive at this moment, may not, and likely will not, be adaptive in the future. In real world systems, adaptive values are assumed to change frequently. Modification is therefore an ongoing, not a one time process.]
6. CREATION OF NEW PCR’S- The processes and mechanisms discussed so far involve a system adapting and surviving with a fixed set of options. In order to ‘evolve’ the system must have the capacity to create new, ‘innovative’ solutions to problems. More specifically, a system must have the ability to a)create new PCR’s, b)to add to the set of stimuli which can activate a PCR and c)add to the set of responses or reactions generated by a PCR. Naturally occurring forms of all three types of processes are known. A new PCR, can be formed by making two copies of an existing PCR. Modifications to the sets S and R defining a PCR involve ‘making the process more complex’.
It appears, that all the criteria needed to satisfy the adaptive paradigm could, in theory, exist in a ‘simple’ bubble systems. In other words, it appears that the conditions the adaptive theory asserts need to exist to create life from non-life could exist in a simple bubble system. A very long ways from explaining the origins of life, but at least a starting point. This starting point suggests, I believe, a clear path for future testing and analysis.
The next step is to determine if known features of living systems could have developed or evolved from such a simple bubble system. The starting point for such analysis would be to identify primitive features of life forms, features that must have evolved very early in the development of life forms. Cell walls, simple reproducing chemicals, energy transformation sources, cell-import mechanisms, and simple organic chemicals would all seem like possible primitive features of life. Once such a feature was identified, the question is, "Is there an identifiable, reproducible, testable set of processes or trails from a simple bubble system to the known primitive feature?" It will be noted, that if can identify the process by which the primitive feature is generated today, then we may know what steps had to evolve in order for the feature to evolve.
Will the processes and concepts outlined above lead to the discovery of the origins of life? Although I believe it is at least possible, I obviously don’t know.
I think I have provided at least an outline or overview of a process that could have produced life, and an outline of a process that could be used to determine if the proposed possibility did or did not occur. Any questions or comments?
PS- Your question on how the adaptive approach addresses the creation of life was a good one. The above is a ‘first attempt’ at addressing the issue, so it may need some additional work. Thanks for raising the issue.
Warren
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James A. Barham
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posted 31. May 2002 16:50
Wow---Warren and Leonid: Both of your replies are mind-boggling, though in very different ways. I am not sure what to say.
First, Leonid: It sounds to me like you ARE doing new physics! But I guess that depends on what I mean by "new." I have been under the impression that it would be impossible to get global coherence of the cell's functional action except through some sort of quantum field phenonema (collective modes, quasiparticles, or something of that nature). The chemistry you are discussing is over my head, I am afraid, and I cannot follow it in detail, although I promise you that I will investigate your web site and read whatever you have written and try to understand it as best I can. But could I just ask you this question? Does your mechanism provide a plausible explanation for the collective action of the cell? If so, then that is great. I congratulate you on a breakthrough of the first magnitude!
Warren: It is not just a problem of the origin of life (although that is where the problem is starkest). It is a problem of understanding what makes the cell operate according to the principles you eloquently enunciate. In your computer, it is you who program it. What is causing the cell to operate according to your model? The mainstream biology community says "natural selection," but you seem to be rejecting that as an adequate explanation.
Could I ask Leonid and Warren to comment on each other's work, since they are sort of at diametrical poles? Leonid, will your chemical systems be capable of acting according to Warren's algorithms? Warren, don't you see the necessity of adding a layer of explanation at the physical/chemical level, below the level of abstraction you are working at?
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warren_bergerson
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posted 01. June 2002 11:00
James,
JB: It is not just a problem of the origin of life (although that is where the problem is starkest). It is a problem of understanding what makes the cell operate according to the principles you eloquently enunciate. In your computer, it is you who program it. What is causing the cell to operate according to your model?
If I understand you, you are asking two very good questions- !)how does the mathematical model or program translate into actual physical processes like the operation of the cell, and 2) how is/was the program (the LFS) created? To answer these questions, it is useful to start with some definitions.
THE ADAPTIVE DEFINITION OF BIOLOGICAL LIFE FORM AT A POINT IN TIME: Any biological life form at any point in time is or can be modeled and precisely defined as 1)an identifiable physical unit which 2)contains identifiable sets of physical properties defining individually identifiable PCR’s, which 3)have an adaptive or teleological form.
CHANGES IN BIOLOGICAL LIFE FORMS: Using the adaptive definition, all changes in life forms can be modeled and simulated as the interaction of 1)an LFS and 2)devolution.
If you accept the adaptive definition of a life form, then the statement about change is a mathematical definition. Any model of a biological life form at any point in time, based on the above definition, can be ‘mathematically transformed using devolution and an LFS’ into any other model of a biological life form at any point in time. The mathematics involved in demonstrating this concept is not simple, but not terribly complex. Note the important distinction between ‘could be mathematically transformed’ and ‘was actually transformed’.
The demonstration yesterday, showed that it is very likely that there are or were naturally occurring non-living systems that can be modeled by sets of PCR’s in adaptive or teleological states, where these systems are subject to change via an LFS and devolution. It is therefore theoretically possible for life to have developed or evolved from non-living systems. As noted yesterday, it is possible, even practical to demonstrate that life did (or did not) evolve in this manner, but such a demonstration is far more complex than showing that it could evolve in such a manner.
I can now answer your question about the creation of the LFS program. The LFS is viewed as a model of a causal relationship or ‘Law of Nature’ in exactly the same way that F=MA is a mathematical logical model of Law of Nature. F=MA is said to model a ‘simple’ permanent and universal causal relationship or law of nature. The LFS, by contrast, represents or models a causal relationship defined by a paradigm. The paradigm differs from the simple permanent and universal causal relationship in a number of key respects. First, the paradigm involves sets of causal relationships rather than just one. Second, the paradigm involves causal relationships in a number of different forms. Finally, the paradigm involves your multiple realizability. Individual components of the paradigm can be manifest in many very different physical forms. I have ‘discovered’ a way of expressing the LFS as a logic machine or computer program just as the F=MA algorithm was discovered or developed.
Two features of the LFS as a model of a law of nature are worth noting. First, and probably most important, despite the obvious and apparent differences from the models developed in physics, the LFS fits the ‘scientific process or paradigm’ very well. One of the serious complaints against all of the existing life sciences, is that while it has been possible to formulate theories that fit the hard science format, it has not been possible to get these theories or models to fit rigorous hard science standards. Surprisingly, but, I believe, demonstrably, the LFS provides the basis for rigorous hard science theories in the life sciences.
Second, and more obviously, multiple realizability makes traditional reductionism unworkable. If you separate the LFS into simpler components, you don’t find one simple causal relationship for each component but a whole range of different causal relationships or manifestations for each component. It seems that in the life sciences, contrary to what has been found in the physical sciences, it is easier and more productive to start with the high level ‘general theory of life’, and work down to the details.
Your second question was ‘how do PCR’s and the LFS translate into what actually makes a cell operate?’ PCR’s or the adaptive or teleological forms of PCR’s(adaptive reactions) define how a life form operates or ‘reacts to environmental stimuli’ at a point in time. The LFS, combined with devolution, defines how these adaptive reactions change over time.
The terms PCR and adaptive reaction refer not to general concepts, but to specific identifiable physical/chemical processes. It is assumed to be possible to develop a systematic method of identifying and enumerating or counting the PCR’s/adaptive reactions present in a cell at a point in time. I have techniques for enumerating and modeling the PCR’s associated with ‘information processing in nervous systems’ and ‘human like behavior’. I don’t yet have a technique for systematically enumerating the PCR’s that define the operations of a cell, but I am confident such techniques can be developed. The point I want to make is that PCR or adaptive reaction are concepts referring to or modeling specific identifiable sets of physical/chemical reactions or processes.
Recognizing that an adaptive reaction is a ‘real’ phenomena, it will be recognized that the operation of a cell involves sets of adaptive reactions. It will be noted that a cell interacting with the environment involves, or can be described as involving an infinite collection of causal relationships. The adaptive approach suggests that in order to define, model and/or understand the operation of a living cell, you only need to define, model and/or understand the operation of the teleological or adaptive causal relationships. The adaptive approach further asserts that it is possible to model a life form with a finite (although very large) number of these PCR’s or adaptive reactions.
Understanding how PCR’s change over time is very similar to understanding how a cell operates at a point in time. An LFS is essentially a set of PCR’s or adaptive reactions. In effect sets of PCR’s operate to modify and create other PCR’s. A somewhat confusing concept intuitively, but easily defined mathematically. It is also relatively easy to demonstrate how this operates in practice.
The above is the long abstract answer to ‘how the cell operates’. The short abstract answer is that cells ‘operate’ via causal relationships. The adaptive approach is 1)the claim that the ‘essential operation of a cell’ can be modeled by modeling the teleological causal relationships, and 2)providing techniques for modeling these teleological causal relationships.
In order to obtain an intuitive feel for how these abstract answers work in practice, you probably need to work through ‘how does this specific operation or function in a cell work?’ In my terminology this is the question-‘How would you model and/or simulate the specific operation or function in the cell?" It might be productive for us to select and work through a specific example.
I have glanced at Leonard’s posts but haven’t had time to look at them in detail. I will take a closer look either later today or tomorrow. As an initial observation, IMO, a better understanding the physical mechanisms associated with biological systems would compliment, not contradict the adaptive approach.
I would like to once again thank you for your kind comments and for providing the types of thoughtful questions that give me the opportunity to express my ideas.
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Leonid Andreev
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posted 01. June 2002 20:24
James,
However pleasing is the remark on my “doing new physics”, I should say that I am doing neither physics, nor new physics. In my opinion, physical science does not know the path from chemical structure to biological function, although pretends to. Physics should stay away from developmental biology. To me, statements of the type, “mental life of each human being is representable as a subsequence of the full sequence of Heisenberg events” (H. Stopp, Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics, Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, p. 201 (1993) have less prognostic value than: “a caterpillar crawls as it pleases”. May I give you an example from my professional area to show that physical science indeed does not know the path from the structure to the biological function?
The structure of lipids as a primary class of substances of biological origin has been known since before other major classes of biological substances were structurally described. It is known that a major part of carbons is contained in lipids in the most reduced form and, therefore, the lipids’ oxidative metabolism produces energy in a relatively higher amount as compared to other substrates, including proteins and carbohydrates, i.e. it provides a fuel supply for cells. It is also known that lipids contain hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts and, therefore, serve as a universal structural basis for biological membranes, etc. Development of physico-chemical methods of analysis, especially a variety of chromatographic methods, enabled scientists to discover remarkable specificities of lipid compositions of animal, plant and microbial cells, particularly in prokaryotic microorganisms where the lipid composition specificities are not only clearly present on a species level, but are also expressed at the organisms’ growth and development stage. During the ‘70s to ‘90s, thousands and thousands of papers were published on the specificities of enzymes responsible for lipid biosynthesis and regulation in vivo and in vitro (including the brain tissues), on the specificities of lipid compositions of various organisms, and on the fine structure of complex neutral and polar lipids.
As lipids, unlike proteins, are unable to display their biological functional role outside of living cells, i.e. outside of the process of cells’ functioning, reconciliation of the enormous amount of information in the field of lipid biochemistry and biophysics accumulated based on a unifying biological idea appeared to be an impossible mission. The situation of the frustrating uselessness (rather irritating for regular researchers) of a surplus of information on lipids of living organisms was finally resolved with help of a simple idea adopted from physics. A flood stream of publications written in the late ‘70ies on the biological role of lipid synthesis in living cells defined that role mainly as regulating the so called “fluidity of biological membranes” and providing for a certain aggregate state of the membrane’s lipid layer most favorable for development of biological processes in a given environment. Researchers’ fixation on this topic, akin to a sudden mass psychosis, can only be explained by their hope that the accumulated information could somehow prompt a meaningful way for the abstraction.
In the end of the 19th century, trying to find out the biological role of lipids, Lois Pasteur set an experiment in which fats with different melting points were fed to dogs. He established that the melting points of the fats used in the dogs’ rations determined the melting points of the dogs’ body fats. In fact, the studies of lipids, resumed many decades later, had the same agenda with the only difference that in Pasteur’s time it was not yet known that some organisms synthesize hundreds (thousands) of different individual molecules of lipids – and not just random combinations of them but highly specialized compositions specific for different species and for different physiological states of organisms. If the establishing of a certain level of membrane fluidity were the primary responsibility of lipid biosynthesis, then none of the known organisms would need more than two or three different lipids, while in reality, as I noted above, the opposite is the case.
Fortunately, the theory of lipids as regulators of membrane fluidity is slowly dying by itself. The biological role of lipids in the life process of living organisms remains as unclear as many years ago, and the necessity of biosynthesis and maintenance of the enormous diversity of molecular types of lipids in individual organisms (or cell populations) cannot be explained within the scope of the general theory. That was to say that applying physics approach to biological phenomena is futile.
Lipid membranes, especially in case of prokaryotes, represent a biopolymer with a remarkable diversity of the fine structure of monomers and with highly labile monomer links connected through various non-principal valence bonds. The “in-house” enzymes within lipid polymers are functioning, at a stereochemical level, under strong regulatory influence of lipid biopolymer. One of the ways of regulation is as follows. Various co-enzymes and co-factors that determine enzymatic processes are also involved in biosynthesis of lipids, particularly, in biosynthesis of their fatty acid radicals occurring in a strictly quasi-equilibrium fashion. For instance, a ratio between reduced and oxidized pyridine nucleotides in a prokaryote cytosol determines the ratio between saturated and unsaturated fatty acid radicals in the membrane lipid biopolymer. Since lipid “monomer” molecules have a faster metabolic turnover than enzymes do, they swiftly transmit the information on cytosol composition by modifying the stereochemical structure of enzymes so as to adjust their activity adequately for a given physiological state of cells. This is a simplified answer to your question on massive coherence and coordination of individual chemical reaction in the cell.
Anyone who, like a military commander convinced that a success of any operation depends solely on the right disposition of troops, attempts to dissect the phenomenon of life into constituents, components, submotions, is going nowhere for a simple reason: life is functioning by the principles that exclude the possibility of a stochastic description. Teleological potential of the mechanism of energy accumulation from noise cuts its way to the higher levels through the tight security with no alternatives. For instance, both a too rigid and too flexible structure of the Mg-lipid complex would be equally inefficient. The ability to accumulate energy from MgO depends on the peculiarities of the atomic structure of Mg; however, had there not been a way for suppressing the competition of other bivalent cations (by diverting Ca to another type of metabolism!), that process could not have survived in evolution. Thus, from my theory, it follows that the life forms similar to those existing on Earth are impossible on the planets with higher contents of beryllium (in the Earth crust, there is 6∙10-4 % of Be). The chemical structure of beryllium is so that when involved in the molecular complex of MgO production it would irreversibly damage it. That is why the ATPase activity slows down at minute amounts of beryllium.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to explain it all in one forum posting, but the process of MgO production itself is quite complex. It depends, for instance, on the relationship between C1 and C2 metabolism, as well as on many other factors. A reward for each step overcome was the energy that opened and supported new paths for the molecular and, later, biological evolution.
To clear my point that the above applies to evolution not just on the molecular level but to biological evolution in its entirety, I will briefly refer to an example with gram-positive bacteria. Synthesis of energy of MgO and its evolutionary analogues and numerous other membrane processes each require absolutely different “mechanical structures” of membranes. This principle underlies the ecologically adequate divergence of bacteria. On the one side, there are bacteria like plague, cholera, E. coli, etc. with explosive metabolism, utilizing a wide range of growth substrates, and with powerful energy synthesis. On the other side, there are extremely slowly growing oligotrophic bacteria (hyphobacteria, stalk bacteria, budding bacteria, and others) that require only minute concentrations of growth substrates. In the first case, membrane complexes containing a complete set of enzymes that are necessary for the entire biological functioning get evenly distributed over the cytoplasm membrane. In case of oligotrophs, there is differentiation of membrane functions through purposeful allocation of homogenous functions to various parts of membranes. In pantrophic bacteria, population death and lysis occur when the substrate concentration in a growth medium gets below a certain level. Oligotrophic microorganisms come to slowdown, end of growth and lysis even at a slight increase of the concentration of organic substrate. Thus, rapidly growing pantrophic bacteria have powerful biosynthesis of energy and low efficiency of its utilization in terms of substrate units. Oligotrophic bacteria are highly efficient in transformation of substrates into energy, but are extremely poor in energy production. In one case, there is an excellent coordination between membrane functions; in the other, coordination of territorially divided functions is a problem. In one case, we are speaking of completely dedifferentiated cells; in the other, of the early stages of differentiation. This allows us to appreciate the advantage that had been provided to the cells that gave rise to endoplasmic reticulum, i.e. eukaryotes represented here by the undersigned and those who may be reading this post.
To sum up, let me reiterate that the chemical, biochemical, cellular and organism levels of life breaking through each new step by locating the only possible narrow path allowed by homeostasis, which in its turn is strictly regulated by environmental factors, were paid in cold hard cash in the form of energy supply and the right to continue evolving.
The above two paragraphs may only serve as an introduction to the answer to your question, “does your mechanism provide a plausible explanation for the collective action of the cell?” To provide a solid, yet not all-inclusive, answer, I would need to write a whole book. I hope that this reading gave you the feeling that your question has been answered. An interesting thing is that the approach I am talking about can proffer an explanation for such a highly specific biological phenomenon as, for example, the fact that there is little difference between the human and chimpanzee genomes (as posted by Zia H. Shah in “From Chimpanzee genome to human genome”).
[ 02 June 2002, 01:17: Message edited by: Leonid Andreev ]
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