Recently I enjoyed an interesting conversation with a friend who shared an idea for why digital media presented on LED screens may not look as “real” as images on old fashioned photographic film. The idea touched on the observation that nature is primarily made of objects that are rounded or circular in cross-section. In contrast, LED screens utilize a matrix of square pixels to generate an image from suitably formatted digital information.
A Fundamental Mismatch
Whether or not this visual effect is the basis for differences in perception, our conversation led me to wonder about a fundamental mismatch between digital information and living organisms. Since the discovery of DNA and the genetic code, it’s become popular to describe life as information. Ongoing research, however, has begun to suggest that the genetic information coded within DNA is insufficient to govern the development and management of the cells of an organism, with epigenetic control playing a major role. Pushing the boundaries further is the thesis of the immaterial genome, brought to light by Richard Sternberg.
I’ll attempt to describe an additional aspect of living organisms that highlights their “wholeness” and negates the possibility of reducing life to information.
Life is more than information, since a living cell could not be assembled from an instruction set that specifies the placement of the components of a cell atom by atom. Knowledge of the requisite information is insufficient for assembly. Why so? We speak of the components of a cell as a complex specified arrangement of atomic constituents, but the juxtaposition of these constituents would not be static nor in equilibrium during any conceivable assembly process.
The physio-chemical forces (the electromagnetic force manifesting between atoms and molecular structures) are always present and actively involved in shaping, moving, and constraining each molecular component of the cell. The components of a cell are all electromagnetically charged particles and any attempt to carefully place them sequentially into their prescribed positions would be frustrated by unbalanced interparticle forces that would inevitably displace them.
A Thought Experiment
Imagine attempting to build a living cell atom-by-atom with a futuristic advanced 3D “atomic printer.” Current technology can “print” a substance that contains viable cells, but this is a far cry from molecular or atomic bottom-up construction. 3D bioprinting, as envisaged today, focuses on manufacturing engineered tissues. A future goal is to 3D-print functional replacement organs, but their differentiated structure and delicate viability conditions render this very challenging.1
Although significant successes have been achieved in engineered tissues, both in research and clinical applications, it is obvious that complex 3D organs require more precise multicellular structures with vascular and neural network integration.
Knowing the exact internal structure of a target organ, one could conceivably program a 3D printing process to manufacture such an organ using harvested or lab grown cells. But the living cells found in various tissues and organs all arose from preexisting cells. On the other hand, if we propose to explain the existence of these first cells, or to create a cell “from scratch,” we encounter a difficulty unsurmountable by more detailed information regarding the cell’s internal structure.
Building a complex molecule step-by-step by any sort of 3D printing process obviously would involve a time-lag between beginning to build and completing any structure. During this time, short as it may be, the interim placement of the atoms will fail to “stay put.” Within a living cell, almost all molecular structures are differentiated, nonhomogeneous, and three dimensional. Building up a 3D molecular structure by successively printing 2D layers will fail because the electric fields and forces at the planar surface of a structure will distort the atomic arrangement out of its intended alignment as a finished 3D structure. These same constraints would also apply to building up the cell from preexisting molecular components.
Whenever we build a macroscopic structure, we only have to concern ourselves with the effect of one fundamental external force — namely gravity, with its uniform downward pull. We’re used to the effects of gravity, and we generally understand how to take it into account during any construction project. We lay a strong foundation and use support beams that are strong enough to bear the weight of overlying structures.
An Inhomogeneous 3D Molecular Structure
But at the interatomic level, electric forces can pull nonuniformly and in any direction. Microscale engineering may involve electric forces in chemical vapor deposition or atomic layer deposition (ALD), which can deposit single-atomic layers on a prepared substrate. However, these processes produce uniform surface layers. They cannot be used to form an inhomogeneous 3D molecular structure.
Cellular function depends not only on the initial arrangement of molecular constituents, but on their dynamic rearrangement due to various manifestations of the electric force. In trying to “construct” a living cell, interatomic forces that are continually at play would have the potential to disrupt any attempt to assemble cellular components — or they may be critically necessary to complete it.
Within a living cell, the formation of essential biomolecules relies not only on information to, say, sequentially select amino acids in the construction of an enzyme, but also on electromagnetic forces to conform the amino acid chain into a functional three-dimensional protein structure. Additionally, in embryonic development of a multicellular organism, cell division eventually involves boundary electromagnetic forces to form the developing organism into an asymmetric 3D shape that continuously undergoes dynamic internal and external reformation.
As stated in an earlier Science and Culture article by Cornelius Hunter on embryonic development, researchers “give a rather blunt admission of the magnitude of the problem, not often seen in the literature.” As cited by Hunter, researchers describe
…the staggering complexity and diversity of cellular and developmental regulatory processes. The configuration space for realistic models of such systems is vast, high dimensional, and potentially infinitely complex. [Emphasis added by Hunter.]
The Fundamental Disconnect
Considering the fundamental disconnect between a living cellular organism and any reductionistic attempt to reduce its assembly and functionality to bits of information, what alternative presents itself as an adequate explanation for the design of life? Michael Polanyi describes emphasizes the disconnect between the information coded into DNA and the underlying fundamental forces as an irreducible “boundary condition.”
The pattern of organic bases in DNA which functions as a genetic code is a boundary condition irreducible to physics and chemistry.
In Polanyi’s observation, the boundary condition becomes an immaterial prerequisite of life pointing to intelligent design. The original wisdom of the design of life manifests profound foresight that envisions the functionality of the whole, incorporating complete knowledge of how individual cellular components and systems interplay with one another. In the reductionistic approach, we dissect the whole to “see” how various pieces may function. But in life, nothing functions in isolation, everything is interdependent.
The interdependence within the cells of life begins with forces between particles at the atomic level, continues with intermolecular forces, and escalates to continuous inter-cellular and systemic forces that generate a dynamic homeostasis for the entire living organism. All of life could appropriately be described as the manifestation of an idea — an idea deeply endowed with wisdom that envisioned and created the whole, from the first cell to a creature fully alive.
Notes
- Cui H, Nowicki M, Fisher JP, Zhang LG. 3D Bioprinting for Organ Regeneration. Adv Healthc Mater. 2017 Jan;6(1), https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5313259/.