Dear FISers,
I was recently asked some short views summarizing the field of biological
computation. After several weeks delay, I finally penned a few lines. Maybe
someone in the list can find some interest in the very rough reflections below.
-----------------------
In my view, there is some trouble in biological computation or
bioinformation or whatever name one chooses for the field. One of the main
inputs has traditionally come from theoretical biology, even in the 60's
(e.g., Waddington, Dancoff & Quastler, von Bertalanffy), but mostly in late
80's and early 90's, with leading figures such as Michael Conrad and Robert
Rosen. They both were very critical on any easy-going marriage between
computers and biology. Michael produced a very fine contraposition of
computational differences, between living cells and classical computers,
from the point of view of adaptability. On the other side, the influences
from computer fields did crystallize into Artificial Intelligence, and more
recently into Artificial Life (Holland, Brooks, Langton, etc.) and perhaps
complexity theorists (Kauffman); notwithstanding important differences
among these fields , as a whole they never saw any terrible difficulty in
the cross-fertilization, or better hybridization, between computers and
biology.
In actuality I think that around "biological computing" there is a very
tough problem --that means I am unable to produce any really convincing
argument! But the whole point may be that biological microscopic functional
elements (say the enzyme, or the nucleic acid stretch) are not amenable to
"sufficient" logical description in similar terms to functional components
of computers. Structure, functionality, estrategy, etc. are in every
respect (and every "level") non-comparable, and in general non-compatible.
The basic functionalist point of separability between hard and software
DOES NOT RULE biologically. Of course, in science one can always drop
embarrassing elements of distinction... by "disciplinary" fiat. And then
produce flamboyant names "artif. intel.", "artif. life",
"biocomputing", etc.
In the fis discussion list I produced several further arguments
( http://fis.icts.sbg.ac.at/mailings/ ), in the 2005 discussion on
molecular bionetworks.
Anyhow, thanks for the stimulus to pen these late reflections.
Pedro
--------------------------------------------
PS. Jumping from biological complexity to "social complexity", as we will
start discussing in a few weeks (hopefully!), one would expect a serious
scientific-foundational problem too. It is the fate of those informational
entities, so poorly amenable to formal treatments.
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Received on Fri Nov 17 11:14:43 2006
