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Bio-Systems as Conscious Holograms
Note: Newest contributions are at the top!
Genetics is experiencing a revolution as the information technology has made possible new research methods and old dogmas must be given up. Before continuing, thanks for Ulla for giving links (see this and this) explaining the results of the article discussed in more detail: this led to a correction of some misunderstandings. See also this for a background.
The mechanism of mutation is reported to involve transcription rather than DNA replication. The mutation would take place for DNA when its is copied to RNA after opening of the DNA double strand. The mutations would have occurred during the period when neurons replicate and the mutation history can be read by studying the distributions of changes in the genome.
This brings in mind the finding that "knockout", that is removing a part of gene does not affect transcription (see the earlier blog posting). This suggests that the dark DNA is not changed in these modifications and mRNA is determined by the dark DNA, which would serve as a template for transcription rather than ordinary DNA. If this were the case also for neurons, the mutations of neuronal genes should not affect the gene transcription at all, and there would be no negative (or positive) effects on brain function. This seems too conservative. The mutations should have some rmore active role.
One can consider also different interpretation. The mutations of DNA could be induced by the dark DNA. As dark DNA changes, ordinary DNA associated with it is forced to change too - sooner or later. Especially so when the genome is in a state in which mutations can take place easily. Neurons during to replication stage could have such quantum critical genomes.
Evolution would not be mere selection by a survival of random mutations by external environment in the time scale much longer than lifetime of individual - but a controlled process, which can occur in time scale shorter than lifetime and differently inside parts of say brain. This is what the idea TGD inspired biology suggests. The modified DNA could be dark DNA and and serve as template for transcription and also induce transformation of ordinary DNA associated with it.
Whether this change can be transferred to the germ cells to be transferred to the offspring remains of course an open question. One can imagine that dark DNA strands (magnetic flux tubes) can penetrate germ cells and replace the earlier dark DNA sections and induce change of ordinary DNA. Or is a more delicate mechanism involving dark photons in question. With inspiration coming from the findings reported by Peter Gariaev I have proposed a model of remote DNA replication suggesting that DNA can be replicated remotely if the needed nucleotides are present: the information about DNA could be transferred as dark photons, which can be transformed to ordinary photons identified as bio-photons. Could Lysenko have been at least partially right despite that he was a swindler basing his views on ideology?
In any case, TGD inspired biology allows to imagine a controlled evolution of DNA in analogy to that what occurs in R&D departments of modern technological organizations. The notion of dark DNA suggests that biological systems indeed have a "R&D department" in which new variants of DNA studied as "dark DNA" sequences realised as dark proton sequences - same about dark RNA, and amino-acids and even tRNA. The possibility to transcribe RNA from dark DNA would mean that the testing can be carried in real life situations.
There indeed exists evidence that traumatic - and thus highly emotional - memories may be passed down through generations in genome . Could the modifications of brain DNA represent long term memories as the above described experiment suggests? Could the memories be transferred to the germ cells using the mechanism sketched above?
This morning I learned in Sciencedaily about extremely interesting finding related to DNA. The finding is just what breakthrough discovery should be: it must be something impossible in the existing world view.
What has been found is that knock-out (removing parts of gene to prevent transcription to mRNA) and knock-down of gene (prevent protein translation) seem to have different consequences. Removing parts of gene need not have the expected effect at the level of proteins! Does this mean that somehow DNA as a whole can compensate the effects caused by knock-out but not those by knock-down?
Could this be explained by assuming that genome is a hologram as Gariaev et al have first suggested? Also TGD leads to a vision about living system as a conscious hologram. Small local changes of genes could be compensated. Somehow the entire genome would react like brain to a local brain damage: other regions of brain take the duties of the damaged region.
Could the idea about DNA double strand as nano-brain having left and right strands instead of hemispheres help here. Does DNA indeed act as a macroscopic quantum unit? The problem is that transcription is local rather than holistic process. Something very simple should lurk behind the compensation mechanism.
Could transcription transform dark DNA to dark mRNA?
Also the TGD based notion of dark DNA comes in mind (see this and this). Dark DNA consists of dark proton sequences for which states of single DNA proton correspond to those of DNA, mRNA, aminoacids, and tRNA. Dark DNA is one of the speculative ideas of TGD inspired quantum biology getting support from Pollack's findings . Ordinary biomolecules would only make their dark counterparts visible: dark biomolecules would serve as a template around which ordinary biomolecules such as DNA strands are formed in TGD Universe.
Although ordinary DNA is knocked out of ordinary gene, dark gene would still exist! If dark DNA actually serves as template for the transcription to mRNA, everything is still ok after knockout! Could it be that we do not understand even transcription correctly? Could it actually occur at the level of dark DNA and mRNA?! Dark mRNA would attach to dark DNA after which ordinary mRNA would attach to the dark mRNA. One step more!
Damaged DNA could still do its job! DNA transcription would would have very little to do with bio-chemistry! If this view about DNA transcription is correct, it would suggest a totally new manner to fix DNA damages. These damages could be actually at the level of dark DNA, and the challenge of dark genetic engineering would be to modify dark DNA to achieve a proper functioning.
Could dark genetics help to understand the non-uniqueness of the genetic code?
Also translation could be based on pairing of dark mRNA and dark tRNA. This suggests a fresh perspective to some strange and even ugly looking features of the genetic code. Are DNA and mRNA always paired with their dark variants? Do also amino-acids and anticodons of tRNA pair in this manner with their dark variants? Could the pairings at dark matter level be universal and determined by the pairing of dark amino-acids with the anticodons of dark RNA? Could the anomalies of the code be reduced to the non-uniqueness of the pairing of dark and ordinary variants of basic bio-molecules (pairings RNA--dark RNA, amino-acid-- dark amino-acid, and amino-acid--ordinary amino-acid in tRNA).
Could dark genetics help to understand wobble base pairing?
Wobble base pairing is second not-so-well understood phenomenon. In the standard variant of the code there are 61 mRNAs translated to amino-acids. The number of tRNA anticodons (formed by the pairs of amino-acid and RNA molecules) should be also 61 in order to have 1-1 pairing between tRNA and mRNA. The number of ordinary tRNAs is however smaller than 61 in the sense that the number of RNAs associated with them is smaller than 45. tRNA anticodons must be able to pair with several mRNA codons coding for given amino-acid. This is possible since tRNA anticodons can be chosen to be representative for the mRNA codons coding a given amino-acid in such that all mRNA codons coding for the same amino-acid pair with at least one tRNA anticodon.
The basic idea would be simple: chemistry does not determine the pairing but it occurs at the level of the dark mRNA codons and dark tRNA anticodons. There would be no need to reduce wobble phenomenon to biochemistry and the only assumption needed would be that chemistry does not prevent the natural dark pairing producing standard genetic code apart from the modifications implied by non-standard dark amino-acid--amino-acid pairing explaining for different codes and the possibility that stop codon can in some situation pair with dark mRNA.
One can consider two options.
I have proposed that dark variants of transcription, translation, etc.. can occur and make possible kind of R&D laboratory so that organisms can test the consequences of variations of DNA. If ordinary translation and transcription are induced from their dark variants and if dark biomolecules could also appear as unpaired variants, these processes could occur as purely dark variants. Organisms could indeed do experimentation in the virtual world model of biology and pairing with ordinary bio-molecules would make things real.
For background see the chapter Homeopathy in Many-Sheeted Space-time