Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA22380 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 31 Jul 2001 22:23:12 +0100 Message-ID: <003601c11a06$bafaa940$5ed8b3d1@teddace> From: "Dace" <edace@earthlink.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745FD2@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Subject: Macguffin Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 14:21:06 -0700 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> >>All you need is a process
> where there
> >>is replication, variation and selection.
>
> <In other words, a macguffin?>
>
> A macguffin is a a piece of artifice needed to make something work.
> There's nothing like that about the processes of replication, variation or
> selection.
Yes, but replication, variation, and selection of *what*? The organism
itself, or a chain of macromolecules buried in the depths of our cells?
Neo-Darwinism reduces evolution to the replication, variation, and selection
of *genes*. These genes constitute a design. A design is a sophisticated
form of homunculus. The homunculus is a macguffin, in fact, the original
macguffin. DNA is supposed to get us around the macguffin, but actually
it's just a sublimated macguffin. There's no design down there. There's no
blueprint of the body which is in some way separate from the body as a
whole. There's no information stored within the body from which its
construction proceeds in a mechanistic manner.
As long as we insist on a "design" by which the body is produced, then we're
faced with a choice between Darwinian "stupid design" and theological
"intelligent design." Did the design come about through blind chemical
processes in conjunction with environmental pressures, or did it come about
through the intelligent planning of a creative being?
To recognize the factuality of evolution is to forsake the notion of a
design which is somehow other than than the thing designed. "Blueprint" or
"program" is anthropomorphic projection. We're superimposing human
techno-methodology onto the workings of the organic world. God itself is a
projection of human qualities onto nature. In other words, we're still
haunted. The deity still lurks in the guts of our theory. Darwin is
God-as-Oedipus. If I blind myself, cut the soul out of myself, then I have
no more sin. That's basically the psychodynamics we're dealing with. (Or
psychobabble, take your pick.)
> <You can't trust a theory that invokes the name of someone who
> explicitly
> > rejected its central tenet. >
> >
> Yes, you can. Einstein's theories predicted black holes, but he
> explicitly rejected them as impossible.
Black holes are not essential to Einstein's outlook. The equivalent of a
germ-plasm theory known as "neo-Darwinian" would be a theory positing
absolute space and time that called itself "neo-Einsteinian."
> <Darwin was certainly aware of the "germ-plasm"theory.
> > He dismissed it on the basis of the absence of monsters in nature.
> > If phenotypic characteristics could be individually molded on the basis
of
> > units of germ-plasm, then alterations in these units should produce
> > grotesque changes in outer form. If the "germ" for ears mutated in such
a
> > way as to increase their size by three-fold, the world might soon
witness
> > the onset of a race of Mickey Mouses. Yet this doesn't happen.
Clearly,
> > it's because the body's form is governed holistically. This is why
> > evolution is driven according to the sensible behavior of the organism
> > rather than the blind workings of its macromolecules. The atomistic
model
> > of inheritance is unsuitable for evolution. Aristotle, Goethe,
Whitehead,
> > and yes, even Bergson (despite his vitalism), tell us far more about
life
> > than Crick and Watson ever could.>
> >
> Just visit rotten.com, if it's still there, for some of the
> remarkable quirks of nature that are born into this world, but usually do
> not survive very long before dying. This simply isn't true, major
mutations
> do occur in individuals of all species, but rarely survive to breed,
unless
> that mutation confers some survival advantage. There are numerous species
> with, to human eyes, highly exaggerated physical characteristics, which
> persist because they are adaptive within that organisms environmental
nice.
If evolution works blindly at the molecular level, then bizarre mutations
would be commonplace. We would see them all around us. It's because form
is holistically regulated that harmony is the rule and monstrosity the
exception. Give Darwin some credit. He understood life in a way that's
eluded his successors.
> That recent assertion that the number of active genes is far
> smaller, that got lots of publicity, has subsequently been widely
challenged
> as a very bottom end guesstimate based on the skeletal results rather
> prematurely announced by the two bodies competing to complete the sequence
> first. As has been discussed on the list, it's the complexity of
> interactions that is important not the basic number anyway.
Complexity of genetic interactions works against mechanistic biology. Where
is the inherited information according to which this interaction is
governed? As Harry Rubin of UC Berkeley points out, there are 1000 genes
influencing the production of penicillin in the mold, Aspergillus. Assuming
there are two types of each gene, a wild type and a mutated type, then the
number of possible gene interactions involved in this process is 2 to the
1000th power. This can also be expressed as 10 to the 300th power. By
contrast, the total number of particles in the universe is only 10 to the
80th power. At least the world's most powerful supercomputers would require
only 100 years to perform a complete protein-folding computation. By
contrast, calculating the interactions of genes in the production of
penicillin is "transcomputational," meaning that it cannot be calculated in
an infinite amount of time. Yet this is a simple, haploid organism. In
drosophila, there are 10,000 genes involved in the production of an eye.
There's no possibility that a mechanical system, natural or technological,
could control this process. There's no possibility that the information
encoding the steps of this process could somehow fit into our genes. If the
genome were large enough to contain all this information, its own
interactions would be so complex that the information stored in it couldn't
possibly account for its functions. The problem is that the hypothetical
function of genes-- storage of design information-- is incompatible with
their actual function, the complex interactions with proteins and with each
other that provide the ground floor of cellulary acitivity.
The key to a genuine biology is the concept of "self." All organic
processes are self-controlled. There's no division between program and
execution of program. Life is self-creative and self-regulating. This is
the basis of our intuition of selfhood. Mechanistic biology substitutes the
human being with Homo macguffin.
Ted Dace
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