Timeline for Is human consciousness encoded in DNA in an infinitely regressive way?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
24 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 12, 2014 at 13:43 | comment | added | Mozibur Ullah | I suppose, one could add, that perhaps there was no evolutionary pressure to keep dna-code small; but I think that the comparison with computer-code can be taken to far. | |
| Dec 12, 2014 at 13:41 | comment | added | Mozibur Ullah | @kingsbery:I've heard of this - the so called 'junk dna'; but it seems hard to believe that so much dna code, codes for nothing; esepecially after several billion years; but on the other hand large software systems have large sections of repeating code - boiler-plate - and so on; this in strong contrast to the early days of software; where code was hand-crafted, and small; perhaps, some to do with different rates of evolution for different expressive regimes | |
| Dec 11, 2014 at 18:59 | answer | added | w128 | timeline score: 2 | |
| Dec 11, 2014 at 18:34 | comment | added | user9166 | @MoziburUllah Re sofware and hardware distinctions being relatively arbitrary: It is not Turing that showed this, but John von Neuman -- he designed self-replicating cellular automata that interchanged program, memory and hardware ad libitum (of course they were wholly theoretical.) Each generation could choose to encode required behavioral features and data either in the construction of the next generation, in memory or as rules of operation. | |
| Dec 11, 2014 at 18:30 | comment | added | James Kingsbery | It's important to note that a lot of human DNA is repeating and so-called "non-coding regions," so the actual information content of DNA is probably less. | |
| Dec 11, 2014 at 18:12 | answer | added | user9166 | timeline score: 0 | |
| Dec 11, 2014 at 15:14 | answer | added | Chris Sunami | timeline score: 2 | |
| Dec 11, 2014 at 1:31 | answer | added | John Grandy | timeline score: 0 | |
| May 30, 2014 at 22:48 | comment | added | obelia | I don't think the amount of DNA information is a determining factor. Consider that a fairly simple program can construct a neural network that's limited only by resources (hardware). And consider that the DNA of some plants have 10 times (or more) the number of base pairs that humans do, and don't have anything that suggests consciousness. It's not the size of the program (DNA) it's the size of the network (brain) specified by the program. DNA encodes behavior (like plants knowing the growth tactics of their species, fish knowing how to swim) but this is orthogonal to consciousness. | |
| May 30, 2014 at 6:10 | answer | added | user813801 | timeline score: 2 | |
| May 27, 2013 at 19:22 | comment | added | Vector | @MoziburUllah - OK, understood. I see you edited the question, to clarify. | |
| May 27, 2013 at 18:41 | history | edited | Mozibur Ullah | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| May 27, 2013 at 18:29 | comment | added | Mozibur Ullah | @deBeaudrap: Sure but at the level of each description there does seem to be a clear demarcation. The Turing machine even when not physically incarnated and remains only at the level of description say in Turings original paper - its clear that the tape is the software and the pen is hardware. The universal turing machine is simply a turing machine simulating another turing machine. There are two levels here. At each level there is a clear understanding of what constitutes hardware and software. | |
| May 27, 2013 at 18:19 | comment | added | Mozibur Ullah | @ReallyRational: I am not certain - thats the intent of the question. | |
| May 26, 2013 at 3:46 | comment | added | Baby Dragon | You do need some sort of hardware. | |
| May 18, 2013 at 15:58 | comment | added | Niel de Beaudrap | Upon reflection, "arbitrary" is a bit strong. But the fact that there exists a Universal Turing Machine certainly implies that the line between data and machine is less than entirely clear; even moreso when you reflect on the fact that originally there were no actual physical implementations of Turing machines, and that any claims made about Turing machines were calculations made on other hardware (e.g. pen and paper, human minds) involving the description of the Turing machine as data. And again one level: our particular thoughts are not the same as our brains... | |
| May 17, 2013 at 1:21 | comment | added | Mozibur Ullah | @deBeaudrap: would you care to provide an example? Its not something that I recognise in Turings work. | |
| May 14, 2013 at 6:44 | comment | added | Niel de Beaudrap | That depends on how you try to divide "data" versus "interpreter" — a division which, in the context of computers, Turing showed to be in principle arbitrary. | |
| May 14, 2013 at 3:59 | comment | added | Mozibur Ullah | True enough - but the interpreting means is nothing without data to interpret. | |
| May 14, 2013 at 3:43 | answer | added | Hal | timeline score: 2 | |
| May 13, 2013 at 22:08 | answer | added | mami | timeline score: 2 | |
| May 13, 2013 at 18:21 | comment | added | Niel de Beaudrap | What amount of data seems adequate to model a physical process? Does "fire" seem simple enough that being able to "store" that on a USB stick seems plausible? It's a moot point, anyway — the data is only as meaningful as the means by which it is interpreted, which includes more information than just the DNA anyway. | |
| May 13, 2013 at 15:51 | history | edited | Mozibur Ullah | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| May 13, 2013 at 15:40 | history | asked | Mozibur Ullah | CC BY-SA 3.0 |