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by phkahler 3991 days ago
>> This ignores that genetic code is meaningless without the translation machinery

Not really. The translation machinery is also defined in the DNA. Granted, there is a bootstrapping issue. The chimp argument seemed silly to me. Why not just estimate so fraction of the human genome as defining the brain? In that case 3G base pairs is a bit under one gigabyte of information defining an entire human. Still small in comparison to the quantity of synapses.
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JoeAltmaier 3991 days ago
The translation machinery is nowhere represented in the DNA. Its the cell soup, that came from mother and her mother before her, back to the primordial soup. Dna is the paper tape; the egg is the computer (or autofac, or self-replicating machine etc). That paper tape has nowhere the instructions for making the egg; only detail for how it operates.
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phkahler 3990 days ago
>> The translation machinery is nowhere represented in the DNA.

Why yes, yes it is. There are genes that code the proteins that make up the ribosome for example. The ribosomes in turn interpret the DNA string to make proteins. This leads to a bit of a chicken and egg problem which I mentioned as the issue of bootstrapping. But the DNA does code everything in the cell, or at least defines the machinery needed to make everything.

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ridgeguy 3990 days ago
I think the DNA does contain instructions for making the egg.

For example, if executing the DNA instructions produces a human female, she'll be born with a lifetime supply of eggs, the developmental instructions for which were part of her startup DNA. Those instructions were definitely not part of the "cell soup", as is shown by mitochondrial donation assisted reproduction technology (aka 'three-parent babies').

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JoeAltmaier 3990 days ago
The egg made the eggs. The DNA said "make an egg". That's the idea. Like a paper tape that you feed into a factory, with one punch, labeled "Man/Mouse". Punch 'Man' and feed it in, and the factory makes a man. So, a man is encoded in one bit? No.

Cells are factories, incredibly complex ones. DNA is a set of punches in a tape.

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