[Fis] FIS Vienna 2015 Workshop on the Combinatorics of Genetics

[Karl Javorszky]

Workshop on the Combinatorics of Genetics

within ISIS Summit Vienna 2015



The ISIS Summit is organized by Wolfgang Hofkirchner, to whom I keep being
thankful for publishing in TripleC, in 2004, an article on the logical
relations between temporally longitudinal and transversal readings of
symbols on sets. Since then, our interests have further diverged: while I
have buried myself ever deeper in numbers, Wolfgang has kept observing
Society as an organism. In a superficial way, there might appear a tension
between the two approaches: yet, there are many levels and contents that
connect our methodologies and subjects.

In the introducing statement of ISIS, Wolfgang writes:

“… promise, with the help of technology, *to restore information as a
commons:* generated and utilized by everyone…”. One cannot agree more to
this goal than by showing information to be accessible to all and everyone,
by de-mystifying it, making the concept generally utilizable. Let me draw a
historic parallel: in times previous, it was only the High Priests, then
only the Great Savants, then only specialist academics who were able to
predict the next solar eclipse or to triangulate their position on the
surface of the Earth; today this knowledge is at the fingertips of anyone
with access to Wikipedia resp. a functioning GPS device. The knowledge has
been democraticised and made accessible to the public: this was the goal
Wolfgang has enumerated as the first one in the Call for participation.

Imagine, then, that the incredible complexity – as it appeared to our
forefathers – of the movements of the celestial bodies is equivalent, in
our time, to the incredible complexity of the arrangement of the genetic
markers, and question yourself, how many steps are necessary until we can
predict the eye colour of a baby not yet conceived by extracting one drop
of blood of each of the prospective parents-to-be and smearing it onto a
hand-held device, similar to a GPS device of today.

The intellectual journey begins with formulating the question: “Is there a
rule governing {solar eclipses | eye colour }?” and “Can we understand this
rule?” and “How do we calculate this?”. Once we can calculate the answer to
the question, the subject is in the public domain. No one can monopolise
the natural numbers, neither their usage; if anything at all is accessible
to the general public, then the natural numbers are.

Thus, presenting an innovative way of dealing with natural numbers – and
showing that this technique models the processes Nature uses – follows to
the letter and the spirit the promise of the first paragraph of the Call
for participation issued by Wolfgang. Therefore, I hope that my
gate-crushing on his Conference will be accepted in a graciously
great-hearted fashion, even more so, as I hope that this contribution may,
in fact, blend well into the innovative and fruitful process envisioned by
the organisers.


Karl
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