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Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?

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Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?

#151

Post by bossyTeacher »

__loam wrote: post #143
bossyTeacher wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that it is only messy because we are looking at the wrong level of abstraction with an incorrect computational model. At the end of the day, if it has inputs and produces outputs, it is a computing device (i.e. a computer).

Seems like an overly broad definition. A pizza oven has inputs and outputs but you would probably struggle to find someone willing to call it a computer.

Does it? A button is not equivalent to an input anymore than pulling down a level that initiates a process that culminates in the lighting of a candle.

Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?

#152

Post by pama »

dekhn wrote: post #114
Sparkyte wrote: post #12

That is an interesting thought. I take this with a grain of salt, one gram of DNA is supposedly 455 exabytes of data.

Here, let's do some math. let's treat a base pair as 2 bits of data (4 bases, 2 bits to encode a base). The average molecular weight of a DNA base pair is twice this, approximately 660 daltons (or 660 grams/mole). So a gram of DNA is 1/660 moles, or 6.023 * 10 * 23 / 660, which means a gram of DNA is 9 * 10 * 20 base pairs, making 1.8 * 10 * 21 bits, which is around 900 exabytes which is very close to a factor of two…

Thanks for the neat estimate. It would be hard to dehydrate DNA to a significant degree, so adding some water and counterions would probably reduce your estimate by a bit. (Error correction would also reduce things by a bit.) Overall the estimate of ~500 exabytes per gram seems reasonable to me.

Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?

#153

Post by ilamont »

roughly wrote: post #129

Something to be aware of as a computer person coming into biology: Biology only _looks_ like it has logical constructs, abstraction layers, and general computational frameworks. When you start working with it, you'll find everything is messier than you expected and everything interacts with everything at every level. There are no abstractions, there are no actual boundaries, and your outputs are subject to evolutiona…

The assumption that biological systems can be easily programmed or engineered has led to a lot of wasted Silicon Valley capital, misguided movements like "biohacking" and outright fraud, ranging from bogus supplements to devices promising better physical or mental health (search for "quwave defender" on Amazon or Google for one particularly noxious example).

Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?

#154

Post by bossyTeacher »

sjfjsjdjwvwvc wrote: post #150
bossyTeacher wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Brains that understand the natural world do seem to often be generally more likely to produce offspring I would argue that the evolutionary pressure only applies to a limited level of understanding of the physical world. Think how many kids people like Stephen Hawkings have and how many poorly educated people have.

On the other hand I would argue that evolutionary pressure works differently for modern humans in the 20th century and beyond than it did for the majority of human evolution. Sure uneducated people now often have more kids due to less contraception options/knowledge and as old age insurance. But then again rich people have more kids than middle class because of well more money and everything that comes with it. In an…

> rich people have more kids than middle class

Do they? I am pretty sure that the vast majority of the human population is poor and not just "I can't afford an iPhone poor" but "I have no food on the table" poverty. The rich are but a tiny minority. In terms of reproduction, poor people win easily. Last time I check, rich people are more likely to be highly educated compare to anyone else and education is a predictor of reproduction rate (more education and less reproduction and less education and more reproduction).

Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?

#155

Post by allemagne »

munificent wrote: post #133
roughly wrote: post #129

Something to be aware of as a computer person coming into biology: Biology only _looks_ like it has logical constructs, abstraction layers, and general computational frameworks. When you start working with it, you'll find everything is messier than you expected and everything interacts with everything at every level. There are no abstractions, there are no actual boundaries, and your outputs are subject to evolutiona…

The I think about it is like this: Code is read and maintained by humans, so it is under selection pressure to be comprehensible by human minds. Reality has no such constraint. If the biological processes of some animal lead to inscrutable irreducibly complex "spaghetti code" but the animal is slightly more likely to produce offspring... the complexity wins. The natural world doesn't care whether or not we can unders…

>Code is read and maintained by humans, so it is under selection pressure to be comprehensible by human minds.

I think the opposite is actually true for code that lives in long-running projects that change hands relatively often. It seems like the safest state for code to be in is actually to be incomprehensible, so it's too "scary" for any developer to refactor. All the comprehensible code can meanwhile be safely moved around until it's eventually incomprehensible as well.

Speaking from complete naivete about biology, I wonder if there's a similar game going on with viruses and cell machinery. If the cell's processes are too "legible", then presumably they're easier for a virus to evolve to hijack.

Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?

#156

Post by BenjiWiebe »

bossyTeacher wrote: post #151
__loam wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like an overly broad definition. A pizza oven has inputs and outputs but you would probably struggle to find someone willing to call it a computer.

Does it? A button is not equivalent to an input anymore than pulling down a level that initiates a process that culminates in the lighting of a candle.

You put pizzas in and get pizzas out.

Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?

#158

Post by foobarian »

roughly wrote: post #129

Something to be aware of as a computer person coming into biology: Biology only _looks_ like it has logical constructs, abstraction layers, and general computational frameworks. When you start working with it, you'll find everything is messier than you expected and everything interacts with everything at every level. There are no abstractions, there are no actual boundaries, and your outputs are subject to evolutiona…

So, basically like the legacy code base at any large enterprise :D

Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?

#159

Post by hyperliner »

gumballindie wrote: post #121
CamperBob2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are intelligent. But we could get an equally-intelligent reply out of ChatGPT. Ergo, it's also intelligent.

Yeah no, that's bullshit. It's like saying my laptop emits sound, meaning it can sing.

[dead]

Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?

#160

Post by optimalsolver »

Daub wrote: post #4

I teach a creativity and innovation course at my uni. There are many examples I share with my students of inventions which started life as observations of nature (e.g. Velcro came about from observing how burrs stick to the fur of the inventor's dog). My bones tell me that there are discoveries about computing waiting to be made from observing how things are done in nature, particularly in the human mind. I imagine t…

There's the entire field of nature-inspired optimization:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1307.4186.pdf

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