Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?
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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?
#2My favorite thing about mtDNA is that two separate genes overlap using separate reading frames. The end of one gene is the same as the start of another, and they are laid out in the circular mitochondrial genome to take advantage of this fact.
I've also read that DNA chromosomes can under go conformal changes in response to the environment it's in, making certain reading frames more or less likely to be transcribed, which makes DNA something like an environmentally sensitive memory subsystem for RNA.
Which I've always wondered if this mechanism is involved in how the homeobox genes work to alter genetic express across the "floor plan" of the body.
Anyways, I guess all this means, to whatever extent you might be able to identify programming "constructs" within the system, the overall effects are going to be dominated by noise and emergent behaviors, and the overall mode of the system is one of "feedback control loops."
Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?
#3An interesting question because all of this genetic encoding and expression is probabilistic at its very core (it has to be, otherwise there wouldn't be evolution), whereas it would be very bad if basic operations in a CPU had similar level of error rates.
Interesting to me how the top comment has talked about constructing logic gates out of biological circuits. I wonder if anyone has done the opposite, i.e., write a probabilistic programming language whose operations are under the same amount of noise as a cell?
Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?
#4I 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 the result to be fundamental: changing the very nature of how computing is conceived of.
Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?
#5An interesting question because all of this genetic encoding and expression is probabilistic at its very core (it has to be, otherwise there wouldn't be evolution), whereas it would be very bad if basic operations in a CPU had similar level of error rates. Interesting to me how the top comment has talked about constructing logic gates out of biological circuits. I wonder if anyone has done the opposite, i.e., write a…
> under the same amount of noise as a cell?
Can you share what you mean by this?
Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?
#6My favorite thing about mtDNA is that two separate genes overlap using separate reading frames. The end of one gene is the same as the start of another, and they are laid out in the circular mitochondrial genome to take advantage of this fact. I've also read that DNA chromosomes can under go conformal changes in response to the environment it's in, making certain reading frames more or less likely to be transcribed,…
You might find the coding for selenocysteine interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SECIS_element
tl;dr: selenocysteine doesn't have a normal coding as a base triple, but as re-interpretation of a stop codon due to the information stored _after_ that stop codon that makes an RNA stick to itself during translation.
Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?
#7It's curious how DNA and enzymes are quite literally like a Turing machine tape and head.
Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?
#8Ghidra plugin for DNA blobs, anyone?
Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?
#9> There are no equivalents of function calls. All events happen is the same space and there is always a likelihood of interference.
Proof that code with all functions inlined, with only global variables, with bugs and happy accidents all over the place, eventually gains sentience and becomes self aware.
Re: Does DNA have the equivalent of IF-statements, WHILE loops, or function calls?
#10Related to the first answer: Tim Blais on youtube has made a catchy "edutainment" song [1] on molecular machines based on A. Leigh's research (eg [2]) with some cool animations that show how electrochemical "switches" can encode a binary state, which one could (in principle) use to build logic gates.