Dear colleagues,
some other tidbits:
When Stan mentions the absence of the time-bounded aspect (in my paragraph
on the molecular embodiment ---not Ted's)...
> >and 'how long'.
> SS: Interestingly, this is not covered in the Aristotelian causal
> system.
what that means in other words is that we have been living, theoretically
speaking, in utter disregard of the pervasive "creative destruction"
inherent in proteinaceous elements conspicuously. Today I have found in a
book of D. Goodsell on nanobiotechnology (2004) a very similar statement on
the centrality of "planned obsolescence" of enzymes and proteins as a model
and inspiration for future molecular actuators --ecofriendly ones...
Besides, some other aspects of the wet stuff of life would also go beyond
usual logics, or computability for that matter: non-holonomic constraints,
stochasticity, variability, heterogeneous multi-performance, "floatable"
connections... (let me leave unexplained the detail of what I mean, not
elaborated yet ).
Then, there are the proper logics & computation arguments by Kevin and
Gordana. In spite of my general agreement (& with Ted's) I have the feeling
that in computer sciences we are having a repetition of the type of
intra-paradigm debate that occurred in the early times of artificial life,
when they set their new camp regarding the rigidities of artif.
intelligence. Let me claim that, in retrospect, rather tan revolutionary it
appears as a mere extension and conceptual renovation (re-articulation)
towards a better use of the emerging capabilities in computer technology.
It may happen again in "natural" excursions if the very fundamentals are
not addressed -- I really endorse Kevin's concluding sentence "if only we
had a theory..."
I am not materialistic, but it may be a good point of departure to list
what type of (solid state) matter we have on the one side, and what type of
governor dynamics (say, electric potentials), and what architecture of
component and modular integration (eg, LSI--von Neumann), versus the
(watery) matter on the other side, and the involved dynamics (molecular
recognition, multiple types of organic chemicals and bonds), and the
massive and highly peculiar modules of bionetworks. Once we have put
together a big list of generic entries at both sides, let us talk again
--many, many times-- on function, on logics, on computation, on
architectures, on moldules... and perhaps adding Jerry's views on the very
different logics inherent in the chemical existentialities of the "sublunar
sphere", shining in the chemo-molecular processes of life versus the
metallic-bond cloak that obliterates atomic personalities of conductors and
semiconductors, which are very good then to build Boolean "celestial"
constructs of our logic systems (reataking Kevin's elegant use of my poor
paragraph years ago).
Am affraid the discussion is not a very easy one to advance.
best
Pedro
PS. as a marginal note, in Jerry's mention of "nomics", the suffix nowadays
used in the "omic" fields seems to be derived from the anglosaxon "some",
eg, ribosome, proteasome, transducisome, and thereafter only the "ome":
genome/omics, proteome/omics, metabolon/omics, transductome/omics,
signalome/omics, degradome/omics...
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Received on Thu Nov 17 17:47:46 2005
