DNA Is Not Like a Computer Program

[Lloyd]

This is from Rupert Sheldrake, colleague of Thornhill, Talbott et al
See especially the second post, which elaborates on Rupert's ideas.

News Release from Rupert Sheldrake
July 10, 2009
From Rupert Sheldrake

Professor Lewis Wolpert and I have set up a wager on the predictive value of the genome. The wager will be decided on May 1, 2029, and if the outcome is not obvious, the Royal Society will be asked to adjudicate. The winner will receive a case of fine port, Quinta do Vesuvio, 2005, which should have reached perfect maturity by 2029 and is being stored in the cellars of The Wine Society. This wager arose from our debate on the nature of life at the 2009 Cambridge University Science Festival which you can listen to here. http://www.sheldrake.org/B&R/audiostream/index.html

Wolpert bets that the following will happen. I bet it will not:
By May 1, 2029, given the genome of a fertilized egg of an animal or plant, we will be able to predict in at least one case all the details of the organism that develops from it, including any abnormalities.

We have both written short essays setting out why we think we'll win in the July 11 issue of New Scientist, and they are now online here. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... ?full=true

I will soon be leaving for Canada. My wife Jill Purce and I will jointly be presenting an evening on Resonance on July 17 in Vancouver, in which I will be talking about morphic resonance and she will be leading us in direct experiences of resonance through the voice. Details here. http://resonance.mutualadmirationplanet.com/ We will then be going to Cortes Island, BC, where we usually spend our summers. I will be giving a workshop on "The Power of Plants" at Hollyhock, on Cortes Island, from August 19-23. This workshop is the first I have given specifically on plants, although I spent more than half my scientific career working with them. The programme will include discussions of plant forms, habits, growth and evolution, and we will also be exploring our personal relationships with plants. My older son Merlin, who is studying plant sciences at Cambridge, will give a brief overview of some recent discoveries. One of the field trips will be to a forest where I am carrying out a long-term experiment on the adaptation of trees to climate change, and on the final evening, Dr Andrew Weil and I are holding a dialogue on what we can learn from plants. Details here http://www.hollyhock.ca/cms/index.cfm?G ... 7&month=08

At the beginning of September, Jill and I will be going to California before returning home, and over Labor Day weekend, from September 3-5, I will be giving a workshop at the Esalen Institute on the Big Sur coast with Don Hoffman on "Mind, Emotion and Connection". Don is Professor of Cognitive Science at the University of California, Irvine, author of "Visual Intelligence", and an expert on illusions. Part of this workshop will take the form of dialogues between Don and me, in which I hope we will go where we have never gone before in exploring the nature of the mind. Then Jill and I will go home to London, God willing. While I'm away I will be in infrequent email contact.

Rupert

[Lloyd]

Here's Sheldrake's explanation for his prediction.
LEWIS WOLPERT's faith in the predictive power of the genome is misplaced. Genes enable organisms to make proteins, but do not contain programs or blueprints, or explain the development of embryos.

The problems begin with proteins. Genes code for the linear sequences of amino acids in proteins, which then fold up into complex three-dimensional forms. Wolpert's wager presupposes that the folding of proteins can be computed from first principles, given the sequence of amino acids specified by the genes. So far, this has proved impossible. As in all bottom-up calculations, there is a combinatorial explosion. For example, by random folding, the amino-acid chain of the enzyme ribonuclease, a small protein, could adopt more than 10^40 different shapes, which would take billions of years to explore. In fact, it folds into its habitual form in 2 minutes.

Even if we could solve protein-folding, the next stage would be to predict the structure of cells on the basis of the interactions of millions of proteins and other molecules. This would unleash a far worse combinatorial explosion, with more possible arrangements than all the atoms in the universe.

Random molecular permutations simply cannot explain how organisms work. Instead, cells, tissues and organs develop in a modular manner, shaped by morphogenetic fields, first recognised by developmental biologists in the 1920s. Wolpert himself acknowledges the importance of such fields. Among biologists, he is best known for "positional information", by which cells "know" where they are within the field of a developing organ, such as a limb. But he believes morphogenetic fields can be reduced to standard chemistry and physics. I disagree. I believe these fields have organising abilities, or systems properties, that involve new scientific principles.

The Human Genome Project has itself set back the hopes it engendered. First, our genome contains only between 20,000 and 25,000 genes, far fewer than the 100,000 expected. In contrast, sea urchins have about 26,000, and rice plants 38,000. Moreover, our genome differs very little from the chimpanzee's genome, the sequencing of which was completed in 2005. As Svante Pääbo, director of the Chimpanzee Genome Project, commented: "We cannot see in this why we are so different from chimpanzees."
We cannot see in the chimpanzee genome why we are so different from chimps

Second, in practice, the predictive value of human genomes turns out to be low. Everyone knows tall parents tend to have tall children, and recent studies on the genomes of 30,000 people identified about 50 genes associated with being tall or short. Yet together these genes accounted for only about 5 per cent of the inheritance of height. This is not the only example of "missing heritability". Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College London says that "hubris has been replaced with concern", and he suggests the present approach is "throwing good money after bad".

Wolpert is not alone in believing in the predictive value of the genome. Governments, venture capitalists and medical charities have bet and are still betting billions of dollars on it. More than a case of fine port is at stake.

[junglelord]

Folding is a fundamental development of the neutron according to APM!
That would make folding an implicit order from the first foundation.
Protein folding is based on Aether Geometry....plain and simple...now where is my case of wine?

[Orlando]

Some Simple Mental Math:

When 1 becomes 2:
1+1=2
1+2=3
1+3=4
1+4=5
etc...
1= All
1 is the constant
1=Energy
Energy is an Electrical-Magnetic Plasma Discharge Phenomenon in that it is a constant, an Equi-potential,

What is not being considered is that like gravity, Zero is a non existent Variable.
Except in the mind's of the mis-perception-ally adhering handicapped.

This Energy is the constant variable expressed as 1 and has a symbol equivalent in the Oroborus.
A circle is a line that meets itself symbolizing the motion of cycles.
A circle or Zero is a non variable, it is the variable 1 expressed as a system a whole.

What came first, the Egg?The Chicken?

None, they both cointain the constant, to which morph into forms directly proportional to it's immediate Environment.

A cell, into more cells contained by cells and when we are Plasma we start growing the "Tail" that feeds the "Head"

This is represented as the variable 3, which = life-Death-Life... To which can neither start nor end, it is 1

Using this process it is clear that death is the Mouth of the head Chewing the tail, the Acids producing electrons that are not bound by any nucleus, to which arrange themselves according to the Surface are Charge densities and wait untill we are Z-pinched into this experience we call Matter.

As I stated in another post,

Electricity is the Metronome Nature dances to.

Peace
Or

[junglelord]

Actually the egg did come first, as it does morph into any form, a chicken is the final product of an egg, like everything else, so the egg did come first. The geometry of the egg is a sacred geometry basis of PHI, Pi, e. Nature is conservative.
Eggs make everything....chickens only make eggs.

[Orlando]

Out of consideration of Lloyds amazing info, I must refrain from
this very tempting challenge of analogy chess, but this is not the End JL
this is just the beginning

The Visual Intel bit is very interesting.

Thanks
Peace
Or

[Lloyd]

* I don't know what neutron-folding means exactly, but I don't think it relates to protein-folding, unless, if neutron-folding is real, it may be caused by morphogenic fields, like the cause of protein-folding. Protein-folding refers to the way each amino acid folds onto the next one or two amino acids. Instead of being straight chains, amino acids chains fold up in complicated ways to form a particular shape. It's like having a string of beads that, no matter how many times you let them down into a pile, the pile forms the exact same shape each time and does so quickly, without plodding.

[junglelord]

Proteins do more then fold, then bend back and forth between two folds, a jitterbug.

[popster1]

From Lloyd's post:

We cannot see in the chimpanzee genome why we are so different from chimps

And yet we are to believe that DNA evidence in a court of law can identify a specific individual beyond a reasonable doubt.

[junglelord]

Research by a group of Montreal scientists calls into question one of the most basic assumptions of human genetics: that when it comes to DNA, every cell in the body is essentially identical to every other cell. Their results appear in the July issue of the journal Human Mutation.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 131449.htm

[Grey Cloud]

Hi JL,
Nice find, I collect these things. I better get a move on, these scientists are only about 20 years behind me.

And 'The Journal of Human Mutation' - the mind boggles.

[Lloyd]

these scientists are only about 20 years behind me - GC

* Me too. I first read about jumping genes in about 1973 in Science Digest, I think. Some woman scientist found then that, when a corn plant gets stressed, such as by drought, some of the genes can move from one chromosome to another.
* I read Sheldrake's book, A New Science of Life, in the late 70s and he explained there the evidence that DNA is not the cause of form, but something invisible, like a field, what he called a morphogenic field, seems to be the cause, similar to the electric and magnetic fields. In 1989 I met a biologist in Tallahassee and I told him I thought DNA merely makes proteins and doesn't do much else and he agreed. In the mid90s I bought Wal Thornhill's CD, called Electric Universe, and on it he said he thought Sheldrake's ideas make sense and that resonance might cause matter in one place to influence all matter in the universe. Talbott has shared ideas with Sheldrake, but Sheldrake doesn't seem to have been persuaded as yet of E.U. theory.
* I don't think this information undermines the ability to determine if someone is your parent, child, or the like. DNA is like a fingerprint or footprint etc. We might all have basically the same genes, but they're arranged in different ways and some are turned on and some off. The patterns are inherited, I believe.

[junglelord]

DNA are the Gonads of a Cell. The Cell Membrane is the real Brain of the Cell, and genes do mutate in an instant, generations are NOT needed...


DNA is controlled by the cellular scaffolding as well as the Cell Membrane...Tensegrity Jitterbugs cause instant Gene Mutation....

I said it first!

[Grey Cloud]

Hi JL,
My route was simpler: I merely invoked Grey Cloud's Iron Law: Anything an expert says, immediately assume the opposite. So whenever it was they started with is DNA twaddle, and the cure for diabetes et al was just around the corner etc etc - I just thought 'oh no it isn't'. Twenty or thirty years on and it's still just round the corner.
GC's Iron Law never fails. Worked for AIDS, herpes, SARS, etc. Worked for every 'improvement' to the education system, the health system, the traffic system, the rail network, etc, etc.
Every egg a bird! Try it yourself, works in any country.

[Lloyd]

DNA is controlled by the cellular scaffolding as well as the Cell Membrane...Tensegrity Jitterbugs cause instant Gene Mutation.... - JL

* Why not elaborate on gene mutation and provide references or evidence?

GC's Iron Law never fails. Worked for AIDS, herpes, SARS, etc. Worked for every 'improvement' to the education system, the health system, the traffic system, the rail network, etc, etc.

* I think your law only applies to societies infected with a pathogen such as modern corruption. The U.S. was initially only very mildly infected, but the disease is now becoming life-threatening.