Avatar wrote:Interesting topic ineed Fist. I think I'll have a stab at it, without, of course, any more qualification than you have in the topic, and with an idea as clear as yours as to where this is going.
If I can quickly break down your basic premise here, (the one you're operating from for the purpose of this discussion), you're saying that this information system is so complex and wide-ranging, contains, in essence, so much information, that you can't see how it could be random. Right?
So let's look at the nature of an information system...what does it do? It stores information, right? Let's not worry about what type of information at this stage. It also allows that information to be retrieved and used, right?
Now, let's forget that proto-ancestor, and look even further back, and more broadly...anything that reproduces must contain information that would allow it to be replicated, right? Rocks don't need that information, (except that they do contain it in a holographic, and entirely unrelated to this thread, sense
), but tree's do, and that information is stored in the seeds, right?
Now if we go back toward that first bunch or signle-celled life, there's going to be a whole lot less information. Just enough to produce another single cell, and the DNA of that cell is going to be fairly limited, simple, and uncomplicated, wouldn't you say? That's the cell's "seed."
As life evolved, it became more and more neccessary to include even more complex information, which was added, bit by bit, to the "seed."
See where I'm going with this? To say, "look how complicated and intricate this information system is" may be to miss the possibility that the complexity itself evolved naturally, as the evolution changed the information and added to it.
It didn't
have to start out so complicated. It may even have started as that "holographic" information system that the rock contains...every part is the same as the whole. Look at starfish: Cut one in half, and you get two starfish.
The requirement for more storage, as life became more complicated, may simply have caused life to keep adding information, "building" itself a better system.
What do you think?
Just speculating here, no idea of the accuracy and validity of any of these thoughts.
PREBE!!!
--Avatar
Let's talk
Allright, first of all let me add one more fact to the idea of DNA as an information system that has been floating through this topic. Until a few years ago, it was believed that all of our DNA would codify for proteins - then, it was discovered that actually the greatest part by far of our DNA is silent - it is not translated into proteins, and seemed to have no particular function except sitting there and taking space in the nucleus. Still, well, you have some codifying DNA, so at least the one gene - one protein axiom works, right?
Well... no. It was later discovered that most genes have the capacity to produce more than one protein, by "splicing" the RNA transcripts they produce. So, if you have a gene which codifies for the protein ABCD, chances are that it could also codify for ACD, ABC, BCD, or even just C. A complex - extremely complex series of mechanisms regulates which proteins are produced in any given moment, and in which quantity.
Then it was discovered something even stranger: in some cases, there are genes that can produce more than one protein, and to produce some of these proteins they skip the "STOP" signal and utilize some of the supposedly unused DNA!
And then another discovery - there are pieces of supposedly unused DNA which can "jump" from gene to gene, or even from chromosome to chromosome, detaching from a DNA strand and attaching themselves to another, often causing mutations!
And this only scratches the surface of what is actually going on inside us... So, as you can see, the picture is much more complex than first thought.
Now on to Avatar's post. It is undoubtly true that the first lifeforms were nowhere near as complex as we are. But there are now serious doubts that life began with proteins in the first place. It was discovered several years ago that RNA has the capability to catalyze some reactions by itself - there is no need for enzymes (which are usually proteins) in such cases. And this mechanism seems to be more ancient than the now common enzymatic catalysis mechanism. Indeed, it is believed that the first life forms were RNA-only: at first, it was just as a template for replication, but then slowly this template evolved and became capable of catalyzing other reactions, so it began to protect itself with a primitive membrane (maybe even just a simple bubble of lipids). And then it began producing more of itself, folding in new ways and catalyzing even more reactions, until at some time it became capable of catalyzing a bond between amino acids - thereby producing proteins. At the same time, RNA is more unstable than DNA, so it was not only more at risk of mutations, it was also more at risk of damage - so it converted to DNA, very probably exploiting some of the first primitive proteins as well. And from there, well, there we began to see an explosion of complexity. DNA was more stable, so it could allow itself to be bigger; it could also produce RNA, which would catalyze more primitive proteins; and some of these could help the DNA replicate itself, or even produce more proteins!
And what about energy? Well, it is very likely that the first life forms exploited either of two biological processes that still exist now: a primitive form of photosynthesis, or more likely, anaerobe respiration. Either of them is still a complex mechanism, that relies on specific molecules to split and sequentially change other molecules in order to produce energy in the form of ATP.
So after a while our primitive life forms were floating somewhere, little more than a lipid membrane full of water, amino acids, proteins, ions, and long strands of DNA and RNA. Mutation is still a factor - there aren't likely any means of protecting DNA safely - so the life forms diversify. And sometime later, one of these life forms developed a better way to produce energy. And another, passing by, ate the first one - but didn't digest it, it simply held it within, drawing on the energy it would produce. In time, the first life form would become the progenitor of mitochondria - and this is a process that japanese scientists have reported to be happening now in another micro-organism in Japan!
Keep in mind that all of what I said is a simplification of the processes that it is believed happened back then - but it should still give an idea about how complex was life even back then. And, by the way, the power to produce copies of yourself is not necessarily the only trait that distinguishes life - the ability to evolve is also one.
Also, the genetic code of which Fist spoke arose very early - indeed, if you compare the genetic codes of eukaryotes and prokaryotes (humans and bacteria, for example) you will see that there are just a few differences, but the basics are exactly the same, so even if the amount of information present in the first life forms was not as big as what we carry in our cells, the information system - the "infrastructure", so to speak - came into being very early, and only changed little from its beginnings.
, I'm going to skip the rest of your post. At least for now. I don't have any difficulty seeing how this information system could have become more powerful/complicated/efficient as time went by.
