Biocomputing

I haven't posted on the book Biomimicry in a while, mainly because I haven't had time to read. But now I shall.

The fifth topic in this book is biocomputing. In the field of mimetics, scientists are attempting to find out how nature does the PC. And it turns out that nature doesn't. Silicon computing is so outdated, it's almost funny. And carbon computing is where it's at.

The main point expressed by the author is that carbon computing involves computing in 3D. If you're taking AP Bio, think back to all the talk about enzymes and how they have special shapes to do different jobs. It turns out that nature computes through shape shifting. There are 1s and 0s, ons and offs, but there are also plenty more possibilites where those came from.

This section also covers the placing of consciousness within the brain. Apparently, a major part of "the mind" can be found in the cytoskeleton of neurons. Said cytoskeleton has a protein in it with an electron that bounces back and forth. When someone is put under anesthesia, the protein relaxes from its active confirmation and stops working. And then you lose consciousness. Cool, huh?

This electron, being all electron like, also follows the laws of quantum mechanics. Therefore, it can play around with coherence (something in quantum mechanics that allows for superconductors, etc) and quantum entanglement. This fact may help to explain "paranormal" occurences such as ESP. Because if the electron isn't limitted to only the physical brain it's in (thanks to quantum weirdness), then why not have extrasensory perception? Sweet.

Though, me being the vitalist that I am, I'm a little hesitant to think that consciousness comes directly from matter. I like to think that consciousness is the inside correlate of external matter.

Michael Conrad of Wayne State University in Detroit, a scientist from this section, share a similar sentiment. He feels that we continue to choose flawed metaphors for ourselves, always picking whatever happens to be the pinnacle of man-made technology to describe ourselves. Here's an excerpt about this topic from the book:

We have a habit of making theories about organisms and basing them on the machine of the hour. We used to say that the human body worked like a clock, but that was when the clock was the ultimate machine. There was also a time when we said it worked just like levers and pulleys and hydraulics. Then we said it was like a steam engine, with a distribution of energies. After the Second World War, when we began to devise feedback controls for our factories, we said our body worked like a self-regulating governor or servomechanism. Now, predictably, we're convinced that the body works like a computer. We're using theories from computer science -- theories that come from the machine world -- to explain how the brain works, and that disturbs Conrad.

"We are teaching biology students that our enzymes and neurons are simple swithces, turning on or off. In reality, we're nothing like a computer, nor are we like a clock, a lever, a servomechanism, or a steam engine. We're much more subtle and complex than that.

Amen.