Saturday, September 12, 2009

Random stream of consciousness...

The discrete nature of genes and alleles is just how things are. It could be determined in the nineteenth century, and it can be confirmed now. However... There might be other potential models of heredity, with the slight disadvantage, so far as serious science goes, that I can't think of a physical substrate that would support them.

What I have in mind is much different from the idea of 'blood'. That would be boring and invalidate evolution. Suppose, instead, that allelic information were somehow encoded in the sum resonances of a harmonic oscillator... Every allele would have an 'anti-allele', and they would combine simply by adding wave-functions. Now, it probably wouldn't be good to accumulate high amplitudes in a given component, so I'm visualizing high amplitudes increasing the odds of mutation to a lower amplitude at a higher frequency (this probably doesn't make physical sense, but it's a matter of allowing infinite scope for 'dumping')

Presumably, specific genes would have their own 'carrier wave' frequency, or something like that. Or perhaps, each gene would be physically located within a scaffolding-type structure that aligns genes for addition.

I haven't thought about this too much, and I'm too sleepy to do more, but I think it's good to think about things that don't exist; you can't look up the answer, so you have to sharpen your intellect.

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