Bioelectric code gains new recognition as body organizer and form of intelligence

_{Denyse O'Leary

March 17, 2023

Embryology, Intelligent Design}

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Here’s a new book on the topic (Hachette 2023):

I’ve written about the “electric cell” here and here, describing how electric currents in cell membranes transmit information through an “electric code.” I’ve also written about “water wires” and cable bacteria. Biologists have long known about the membrane potential of an individual cell, which measures about -70 millivolts, due to ionic separations. They have known that neurons transmit ionic voltages down their membranes. Now, recent discoveries are showing that we must expand our exploration of bioelectricity to the whole body. – David Coppedge (March 15, 2023)

Bioelectricity vs DNA – what they do:

“We would call this intelligence.”

Also:

Collective Intelligence in Unconventional Spaces with Michael Levin:

Comments

Levin highlights the complete failure of the 'bottom-up' approaches of Darwinian materialism to provide any coherent explanation for how the morphology, and/or body plan, of an organism is generated, i.e. He states, "A complementary top- down understanding of the information-processing and computation carried out by cells during development and regeneration is largely missing.,,," and "Tools for bridging the gap between molecular detail and large-scale outcomes, targeting the algorithms and information content that could enable efficient control of anatomy, have not been built.,,," and "Top-down approaches have not been attempted to date,," and "The morphogenetic code (Fig. 2) is a large problem; it requires new technical capabilities and new conceptual insights, not simply more molecular “omics” data.",,,
Reading and Writing the Morphogenetic Code - Levin Foundational White Paper,,, Excerpts: Abstract Our ultimate goal is the top-down control of complex biological shape. The first four years of our Center’s primary work will focus on exploiting developmental bioelectricity to understand how cell networks perform the computations that enable them to coordinate their activity toward robust anatomical target states. Transformative advances in birth defects, regenerative medicine, cancer, and synthetic bioengineering require mastery of these mechanisms and computational algorithms. Learning the rules of large-scale pattern regulation will enable the ability to specify biological pattern and control its remodeling. Current technology and conceptual schemes target the level of the biological "machine code" – they are all about proteins, genes, and cells. The observables and operational parameters at this level do not refer to large-scale shape and do not facilitate its manipulation. Thus, the field faces complexity barriers with respect to rational control of morphology (“what genes must be regulated, in what ways, to change the shape of the hand, or create a new eye?”). While systems biology seeks to understand emergence of complex form from molecular mechanisms, there is a major disconnect between the plethora of high- resolution data and the ability to control patterning outcomes. A complementary top- down understanding of the information-processing and computation carried out by cells during development and regeneration is largely missing.,,, Evolutionary theory, cancer biology, and many other areas are now facing the gulf between a wealth of molecular detail and having in hand the key control parameters of a complex biological system. Synthetic and systems biology seek to address this largely via bottom-up approaches to programming metabolism and signaling among single cells in culture, but the control of shape remains largely an unsolved problem. The molecular and computational tools developed in the last decades have been ideally suited for learning about the materials of biology. This facilitates accumulating data on molecular interaction, at ever higher resolution, but eschews key issues of the information content and its encoding for optimal control. Tools for bridging the gap between molecular detail and large-scale outcomes, targeting the algorithms and information content that could enable efficient control of anatomy, have not been built.,,, Bioelectricity: an inroad to new biology Top-down approaches have not been attempted to date (despite classical theoretical discussions [42-45]) because current paradigms of molecular biology do not readily reveal how cells can implement information-processing functionality that makes decisions about large-scale properties and acts with respect to encoded goal states.,,, Overall Approach The morphogenetic code (Fig. 2) is a large problem; it requires new technical capabilities and new conceptual insights, not simply more molecular “omics” data. Our plan for the first four years of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts is a focused attack on this next-generation problem. The overarching approach is to develop tools and models that facilitate the control of large-scale pattern in vivo (re-writing pattern), and gain a mechanistic understanding of patterning systems at a computational level - the missing flip side of molecular reduction strategies. https://allencenter.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/Whitepaper.pdf
Although Levin hopes to someday elucidate how 'bottom-up' Darwinian evolution can possibly achieve top-down control of an organism's morphology, and/or body plan, there are two major problems for anyone who hopes to explain how top-down control is achieved via 'bottom-up' Darwinian evolution. Number 1, we already know, via computers, that only immaterial minds have the capacity, via the infusion of immaterial information into computers, to achieve top-down control of a computer system.
Recognising Top-Down Causation - George Ellis Excerpt: Causation: The nature of causation is highly contested territory, and I will take a pragmatic view: Definition 1: Causal Effect If making a change in a quantity X results in a reliable demonstrable change in a quantity Y in a given context, then X has a causal effect on Y. Example: I press the key labelled “A” on my computer keyboard; the letter “A” appears on my computer screen.,,, Definition 2: Existence If Y is a physical entity made up of ordinary matter, and X is some kind of entity that has a demonstrable causal effect on Y as per Definition 1, then we must acknowledge that X also exists (even if it is not made up of such matter). This is clearly a sensible and testable criterion; in the example above, it leads to the conclusion that both the data and the relevant software exist. If we do not adopt this definition, we will have instances of uncaused changes in the world; I presume we wish to avoid that situation.,,, ,,,However there are many topics that one cannot understand by assuming this one-way flow of causation.,,, Excerpt: page 5: A: Both the program and the data are non-physical entities, indeed so is all software. A program is not a physical thing you can point to, but by Definition 2 it certainly exists. You can point to a CD or flashdrive where it is stored, but that is not the thing in itself: it is a medium in which it is stored. The program itself is an abstract entity, shaped by abstract logic. Is the software “nothing but” its realisation through a specific set of stored electronic states in the computer memory banks? No it is not because it is the precise pattern in those states that matters: a higher level relation that is not apparent at the scale of the electrons themselves. It’s a relational thing (and if you get the relations between the symbols wrong, so you have a syntax error, it will all come to a grinding halt). This abstract nature of software is realised in the concept of virtual machines, which occur at every level in the computer hierarchy except the bottom one [17]. But this tower of virtual machines causes physical effects in the real world, for example when a computer controls a robot in an assembly line to create physical artefacts. Excerpt page 7: The assumption that causation is bottom up only is wrong in biology, in computers, and even in many cases in physics,, The mind is not a physical entity, but it certainly is causally effective: proof is the existence of the computer on which you are reading this text. It could not exist if it had not been designed and manufactured according to someone’s plans, thereby proving the causal efficacy of thoughts, which like computer programs and data are not physical entities. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1212.2275.pdf
Number 2, Darwinists hold that an organism's morphology, and/or body plan, is reducible to DNA, (and/or to some other material particulars). Yet, the failure of the reductive materialism of Darwinian evolution to be able to explain an organism's 'top-down' morphology, and/or body plan is achieved, via 'bottom-up' materialistic explanations, occurs at a very low level. Much lower than DNA itself. The following article entitled 'Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics', which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remark that “even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour”,,, The researchers further commented that their findings “challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description."
Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics - December 9, 2015 Excerpt: A mathematical problem underlying fundamental questions in particle and quantum physics is provably unsolvable,,, It is the first major problem in physics for which such a fundamental limitation could be proven. The findings are important because they show that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, "We knew about the possibility of problems that are undecidable in principle since the works of Turing and Gödel in the 1930s," added Co-author Professor Michael Wolf from Technical University of Munich. "So far, however, this only concerned the very abstract corners of theoretical computer science and mathematical logic. No one had seriously contemplated this as a possibility right in the heart of theoretical physics before. But our results change this picture. From a more philosophical perspective, they also challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description." http://phys.org/news/2015-12-quantum-physics-problem-unsolvable-godel.html
In short, although Levin and others hope that a bottom-up materialistic explanation for how an organism achieves its 'top-down' morphology, will someday be forthcoming, their hope is forlorn. It is now proven, via Godel's incompleteness, that there NEVER will be a 'complete' bottom-up materialistic explanation for how any organism's particular morphology in achieved. Only 'top-down' intelligent design remains viable as to explaining how any organism might achieve its particular morphology, and/or body plan.bornagain77_{March 21, 2023
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I should have twigged this has been discussed at The Skeptical Zone. http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/bioelectrics/Alan Fox_{March 20, 2023
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Review paper on bioelectricity (1st of 3 parts) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079610722001304 Introduction from Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioelectricityAlan Fox_{March 19, 2023
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Hmm! I suggest folks take a look at the primary literature.Alan Fox_{March 19, 2023
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When Levin disturbs the head-tail electrical gradient of worms, a two-headed worm results. But what is it that molds a two-headed worm into a coherent organism? Something is doing its utmost to make the sheer impossible work. As always in life, we see a mysterious principle at work that strives for and establishes mind-boggling coherence. Something makes a novel(!) coherent thing from two incoherent sets of anatomical information. Amazing. - - -- This is a good read: https://evolutionnews.org/2020/10/morphogenesis-coding-for-shape/Origenes_{March 19, 2023
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Revolutionary!Origenes_{March 18, 2023
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As fascinating as it is, this series of discoveries of some of the electric field-related organizing machinery of fetal development doesn't really come anywhere near answering the most glaringly obvious question: how and where is this electronic mechanism and its imprinted structural patterns encoded in the sperm and egg so as to go on generation after generation with modification. Logic would say it must be in the nucleus, in the genome in the form of DNA. But it doesn't look like the total information storage capacity of the genome is sufficient for this staggering amount of data. I think this is an important discovery, but it isn't as fundamental as its proponents would claim, since it still doesn't answer the mystery of embryonic development, of where the structural information is stored and retrieved and decoded. This work has certainly revealed some of the mechanisms underlying many of the later stages of embryonic development, but not the core of the story.doubter_{March 18, 2023
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