Glen,
Yes. And that is why reverse transcription was such a big deal -- Because it violates Weismann's Doctrine. I think most contemporary biologists still think that those violations are the province of the very small, but with all we know about epigenetics these days, the whole argument is starting to feel cranky and old-fashioned.
When I try to think about “downward-causation” my imagination always fails. Think of four sticks, arranged in a square. They are very flimsy. Now add a fifth stick, a diagonal. The whole becomes much more sturdy, right Now, this is a clear instance of an emergent property, no? And the freedom of motion of the other four sticks has been constrained by the configuration of the whole, right? But where is “downward-causation”, here? Or choose your own example. How exactly does “downward causation” work? It puts my mental knickers in a twist.
Nick.
Nicholas Thompson.
Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
Clark University
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam <[hidden email]> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2020 9:32 AM
To: FriAM <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] better simulating actual FriAM
I don't know quite how to parse this. By "original gen-phen distinction", do you simply mean DNA->RNA? What do you mean by "original"? And would reverse transcription imply information flow from phen to gen?
FWIW, when I talk about downward causation, I'm not assuming irreducible phenomena (strong emergentism). Mostly, I think of landscape change. Just to prove I am reading it [⍢], I'll cite EricS' (and Morowitz') hierarchy of matter phases, wherein as the temperature goes down, prior freezes set the context for what *could* be the case for future freezes. That's a macro thing constraining the micro thing. It doesn't seem so much to me like "information traveling" as limited freedom ... a weak kind of forcing structure. But if we talk in terms of variability/uncertainty/wiggle, then it sounds a bit like a *loss* of information. Downward causation from macro to micro might map well to a reduction in the information content of the micro. There would have to be some transient, though. Before the macro constraints were strong enough, the information content was high. After they are strong enough, the micro content is lower. Is a reduction in information, itself, information? 2nd order information?
[⍢] [In]Comprehension notwithstanding.
On 7/17/20 5:35 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
> Notice, FWIW, that the original gen-phen distinction was understood to forbid any information traveling from phen to gen.
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