On 12 Apr 2005, Nick Arnett wrote
As a metaphor, consider genetic material as a communications
network that contains a great deal of information, not just about
how to compete, but how to adapt to a changing environment.
Why consider it a metaphor?
Suppose we had a world of self-replicating robots, as in Hogan's 1983
novel, `Code of the Lifemaker'. Presume they transmitted blue-prints
to each other via radio rather than through physical `bodily fluids',
as humans do.
In such a world, we would definitely say that the transfer and mixing
of blue-prints was through a communications network. Why should we
think the communications network is a metaphor because the medium of
exchange uses physical entities rather than radio entities?
(By the way, I have heard that in earthly biological entities, the
error rate for reduplication of blue-print material is something like
one base-four error per ten million copies. This is for mutations,
not sex-induced variation. The number, rather vaguely, applies to all
kinds of biological life, including bacteria. Does any one know
better?)
--
Robert J. Chassell
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