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<p>Dear FISers,</p>
<p>[NOTE: I have just seen the new post from Marcus right now: I
should modify parts of the discussion below, but it is too much
work! Better left for a future exchange...]<br>
</p>
<p>About the a priori modeling of information --and meaning-- which
was the focus of Marcus' presentation, putting together Shannon,
Bateson, and Darwin, I am not sure how that scheme would translate
into the "real" living stuff. Mostly thinking on the work my team
has done on bacterial communication for years, I mentioned days
ago three basic points about that: universals, species-specificity,
and essential cores. <br>
</p>
<p>How a plurality of those information universals could be wrapped
or articulated around an essential core? That's the toughest point
in my opinion. It becomes a matter for freewheeling speculation,
badly needed of Schrodinger's disclaimer. Well, let us consider
that communication and self-production are but the two inseparable
sides of the bio "coin" --in order to self-produce the living has
to communicate with the environment, and in order to communicate
the living needs its flexible self-production processes... (just
to fabricate the meaning!)<br>
</p>
<p>In bacteria, the side of communication might be seen as implying:</p>
<p>--<b>Communication for self-production</b>: detection and
introjection/ejection of environmental substances (water, anions,
cations, minerals, nutrients, metabolites, waste, and toxics). In
bacteria this is crucial. Most of it, apart from the spontaneous
membrane permeability, is done by around one hundred different
ONE-COMPONENT SYSTEMS (1CS) and a variety of channels and transporters.
<br>
</p>
<p>--<b>Communication </b><b>with</b><b> </b><b>con-specifics</b>:
in reproduction (sex exchanges, plasmid exchanges); in social
structures (colonies and biofilms); in "differentiation"
(sporulation, occasional differentiated types). Around 10-20
TWO-COMPONENT SYSTEMS (2CS) may be in charge, although amply
swapping their functions with the previous 1CSs.<br>
</p>
<p>--<b>Ecosystem communication</b>: cooperation and competition
with other species in ecosystems; chemical arm races with fungi,
viruses, other bacteria, protists, etc.; symbiosis, cooperation
and parasitism with multicellular hosts; pathogenic switching...
We may find tools such as 1CS, 2CS, 3CS, special protein kinases,
and very complex apparatuses for pathogenesis, predation, and
chemical arm races.</p>
<p>Not much emphasis needed in that those three items are
universals, species specific, and more or less
differentiated/entangled within the mentioned communication side
of the bio core. <br>
</p>
<p>Thereafter, thinking about the universals side of
self-production, could we terribly simplify our informational view
of self-production, as Francis Crick's mandated with h<span
class="st">is Central Dogma of molecular biology? Nonetheless it
was the first cogent explanation of the flow of genetic
information within a biological system. In any case, what we
find is different informational architectures --membranes and
cytoskeleton rudiments, nucleic acids, processing enzymes--
which are respectively based on identity, complementarity, and
supplementarity principles (Shu-Kun Lin). They are playing
together the <b>replication, </b><b>transcription,</b> <b>translation,
</b><b>house-keeping</b>, and <b>degradation</b> functions that
apparently integrate the bulk of self-production... <br>
</span></p>
<p><span class="st">Summing up the obtained items, and just to </span><span
class="st">close the present speculation, </span><span
class="st">we might have found three universals of communication
and another five of self-production. Indeed they look very
densely entangled within an essential core. </span><span
class="st">At stake is whether they are sufficiently congruent
and ontologically robust. </span><span class="st">Perhaps the
most interesting aspect is that herein it becomes relatively
easy to upend meaning, value, knowledge-recombination and other
members of the conceptual cluster that usually accompanies
information.</span></p>
<p><span class="st">Thanking in advance for the patience!</span></p>
<p><span class="st">--Pedro</span><font size="+2"><span class="st"><br>
</span></font> </p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/">http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/</a>
-------------------------------------------------
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