Seminar Details
| Date |
20-4-2007 |
| Time |
16:30 |
| Room/Location |
Disi Sala Conferenze -3° piano |
| Title |
L'incompletezza logico-causale della Teoria della Programmazione in Biologia molecolare |
| Speaker |
Giuseppe Longo |
| Affiliation |
Directeur de Recherche (DR1) , CNRS & Département. d'Informatique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, France |
| Link |
http://www.disi.unige.it/person/MoggiE/ftp/Longo-2007-04-20.pdf
|
| Abstract |
Since the 1930s and, more specifically, the 1950s, molecular processes
in cellular reproduction have been often analyzed by the "the DNA is a
program" metaphor or even model, in the physico-mathematical
sense. Schroedinger by his 1944 book contributed to this
understanding, but he lucidly hinted to the intended causal structure
underlying the paradigm. Subsequent work by Monod, Lwoff and Jacob
opened the way to a large use of this model or metaphor, as well as to
a Laplacian understanding of biological causality and
randomness. After a short survey on the structures of determination,
from Laplace to modern dynamics, we argue that both the metaphor and
the model are causally inadequate, in particular when derived from the
current empirical practices in Molecular Biology, based on the
"differential method" (a mutation is observed or induced and its
phenotypic consequences are observed). While referring to empirical
evidence and theoretical writings in Biology, we will argue that the
programming/deductive paradigm is theoretically unsound as causal and
deductive frame for relating the genome to the phenotype, even from
the point of view of Physics and Programming. This is in contrast to
the physicalist and computational grounds that this paradigm pretends
to propose.
Two different notions of randomness as unpredictability, in Classical
and Quantum Physics, will be briefly surveyed. We will hint to the
need of a third concept of randomness that the unpredictability of the
ecosystem seems to require in Biology. Finally, the familiar physical
notion of "self-organized criticality" will be "extended" to an
understanding of the long-lasting coherence structures of life, as
"extended criticality", a conceptual frame for the analysis of the
physical singularity of life. (work in collaboration with
P.-E. Tendero and F. Bailly, see below)
REFERENCES (see: http://www.di.ens.fr/users/longo )
Bailly F., Longo G. Mathématiques et sciences de la nature. La singularité physique du vivant. Hermann, Paris, 2006 (Introduction in
English downloadable)
Downloadable papers:
Bailly F., Longo G. Randomness and Determination in the interplay between
the Continuum and the Discrete. MSCS, (in press).
Longo G., Tendero P.-E., The causal incompleteness of Programming Theory
in Molecular Biology. Submitted for publication to BioEssays. (A
preliminary and longer French version will appear as Conférence invitée,
aux actes du colloque "Logique, informatique et biologie", Nice, 9-10
Décembre, 2005, to be published by Vrin, Paris, 2007.) |
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