Scott Mayers wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2019 11:43 am
Hrvoje wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2019 10:54 am
-1- wrote: ↑Sat Jun 22, 2019 11:45 pm
Please read more carefully.
Mutation does not occur after DNA is set. I am not a biochemist; but I know that if a mutation occurs then special cells or proteins hunt that mutation down and kill it. People or animals or plants don't change their DNA after it's set. Whatever the proper expression is for "set"-ting. If it changed after a certain point in the individual's development, and kept changing 'till death, then DNA identification would be impossible. But it is not impossible. So DNA does not change after a certain age has been reached by the embrio or by the individual.
It is a semantic point. "Information" is not "information". It seems I am unable to describe for you the difference. For you if one thing is called information, then it's the same value with the same attributes as the other thing that is called information. That is a bit simplistic, but each to their own. For you, information is passed down; so biological work is societal work. I don't subscribe to that, in fact, I deny that, but you stop there and seem unable to differentiate between subtle meanings further, therefore so be it.
I won't argue against your viewpoint. Not because I agree with you, but because there is no way I can get through.
I don't think that the problem here is that I am unable to grasp your subtleties, but some things that you say are not logical, and you are not sufficiently informed. If mutation does not occur, why would it need to be hunted down and killed? There are processes by which a cell identifies and corrects damage inflicted on its DNA, and if it is beyond repair, it can undergo apoptosis, that is a programmed cell death, and if that doesn't happen, it can enter an irreversible state of dormancy, known as senescence, or a state of unregulated cell division, and then it becomes a subject to hunting down and killing.
But the big question is posed by, among others, James A.Shapiro, and that is, is DNA a ROM of the cell, subject only to accidental changes, or its RW memory, that would contradict the central dogma of molecular biology?
You appear to be questioning whether DNA as data cannot itself be alterable without mutation. While this CAN occur, DNA acts like a country's constitution. It requires being less able to be easily changed or the mechanisms of which it could be flexible to adapt to be altered with ease in an environment would make it be able to be exploited by competing lifeforms, assuring it would have a less likelihood of survival. So mutation, while not always essential for altering DNA, would be more favorable for evolution to occur where there is no predetermining controller (like a 'god' by most thinkers) to manage with care and precision not to allow changes of DNA to occur recklessly.
For '-1-', with respect to your response, mutations necessarily affect DNA normally. It is whether the DNA that gets altered is what gets into the sperm or eggs that allow for adaptive changes. But it may be possible to alter it in restricted senses by the environment. There may be a real means for DNA to also be alterable within our biology but that it is evolutionarily less probable for such mechanisms to survive a 'normal' potential.
Hrvoje and Scott Mayers, I may have erred in describing the behaviour of DNA in the body. I don't think I did, but then again, I have only a layman's understanding of DNA behaviour.
However, it does not take away from the fact that there is an equivocation fallacy committed by you, Hrvoje and Scott Mayers, when you declare that information is passed down in the DNA. Instructions, yes. Instruction sets, yes. Even changing instruction sets. But never information in the sense we use "information" in the social sense.
The reason DNA was brought up is that Hrvoje insisted that information is passed by DNA. I denied this, still deny it. In the social sense, information is passed over between individuals, where there is intent of the originator to pass it down. DNA is not intentional. You can't alter your own DNA by intent (until very recent times).
The question came up because Hrvoje asked what the difference was between work in physics and work in society. I explained the difference. Hrvoje came up with the objection that DNA does societal-type work, because it passes information. That's where I pointed out that it's not information in the same sense as societal information.
Then the topic got onto a tangent, and the original topic was totally buried. That being, what separates physical work from societal work. That question has been answered, and the discussion since is not meaningful to the actual topic.
I wash my hands, I think the topic was properly handled, and then it got side-tracked and now it's about DNA. A lot of misleading misinformation gets exchanged, with a lot of provocative speculation in lieu of basing the claims on solid research.