Re: From DNA to Survivability

Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 23 Jan, 22:28, nos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (J. J. Lodder) wrote:
Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 20 Jan, 10:59, Vend <ven...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jan 18, 6:14 pm, Michael Altarriba <mike...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I've been having this discussion with someone online, and I'd like
your take on this: this person believes that, eventually, we'll be
able to take the DNA of an organism, and, based on that, calculate the
probability of survival for that organism in a given environment.

I think this person has an incredibly naive and simplistic
understanding of what morphogenesis involves, and on the relationship
between morphology and survivability, but I'm no evolutionary
developmental biologist.

So, can someone more knowledgeable than I explain what's wrong with
their idea?

Creating computer simulations that produce correct results is
difficult, even when simulating simple mechanical systems.
The task you describe would probably involve a full simulation of an
organism and its environment down to the molecular level. This is
practically impossible with current computer technology:
The simulated system would have an enormous number of degrees of
freedom, moreover quantum phenomena appear at the molecular level
(simulation of quantum mechanical systems requires an amount of
computational resources exponential in the number of degrees of
freedom of the simulated system, unless you use a quantum computer).

I can't rule out that these computations will be possible in 100 or
200 years, but surely not in the forseable future.

Maybe differential survival models will be possible with current
technology, that is, you specify a genome of an existing organism in
an existing environment and estimate how fitness changes if you change
a few genes.

I would have agreed: a computer can't exactly represent an environment
unless it has at least as many atoms and time as the environment
you're trying to simulate.

Complete nonsense: equations don't contain atoms.

The computers I know, including the fictional ones in _Accelerando_,
are built of atoms.

Yes, and so what?

The data are stored in atoms, sometimes as
electrons, but marshalled by atoms.

Yes, and so what?

And it's liable to take a large number of real atoms
to compute the theoretical behaviour of one virtual atom.

How many atoms to the Schroedinger equation?
And how many data are stored in it?

Jan

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: From DNA to Survivability
    ... probability of survival for that organism in a given environment. ... The task you describe would probably involve a full simulation of an ... moreover quantum phenomena appear at the molecular level ... Complete nonsense: equations don't contain atoms. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: From DNA to Survivability
    ... probability of survival for that organism in a given environment. ... even when simulating simple mechanical systems. ... The task you describe would probably involve a full simulation of an ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: From DNA to Survivability
    ... probability of survival for that organism in a given environment. ... even when simulating simple mechanical systems. ... The task you describe would probably involve a full simulation of an ... moreover quantum phenomena appear at the molecular level ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: From DNA to Survivability
    ... probability of survival for that organism in a given environment. ... even when simulating simple mechanical systems. ... The task you describe would probably involve a full simulation of an ... Complete nonsense: equations don't contain atoms. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Evolutionary question concerning God.
    ... organism if you had, provided the organism followed the laws of ... the laws of physics, and therefore so does the organism. ... Looking at the science of physics in the realm of the behavior of atoms ... At the atomic level, or at the level of chemistry, ...
    (talk.origins)
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