The more I study biological processes in the human body, the more analogous to computational systems they appear. Anyone who works with software and information systems knows that, if a program or group of programs is left to run long enough, breakdowns will occur if they are not repaired and maintained. Likewise, the processes in our bodies are really just computations carrying out through chemical reactions over an extended period of time, with an astonishing amount of redundancy and capability to repair, work around, and continue functioning despite the steady accumulation of errors (see biological aging, which this talk is about). When the accumulation of errors becomes too large for the system to function or work around, pathology and eventually death result. So if we approach the human body from a systems perspective, and maintain it in the same manner that we might maintain any machine or integration of information systems, biological aging will stop occurring, along with all of the associated diseases (which include the main epidemiological killers in the developed world - chronic diseases). I have been particularly interested in applying the epidemiological method to genetic susceptibilities, to better understand the Gene by Environment interactions that influence our health outcomes and, most likely, catalyze the occurrence of many of these errors in the biological computations that carry out in our bodies. This is where we can know which behaviors lead to the best health outcomes. This knowledge is crucial to understanding how we can live healthily and, likewise, what kind of society would best enable that healthy lifestyle for all people. I think most people understand why we cant just experiment on people to uncover these GxE interactions.... but what we can do is amass information about peoples health outcomes and associate them with particular genomes - well this leads to privacy and fear issues which are due to the profit-driven/competition social paradigms embedded in Western culture. So what if we could have a database set up wherein peoples genomes, behaviors, and health outcomes were associated with each other but de-identified for purposes of linking them to the individuals themselves, and were a result of a mutually beneficial platform through which they voluntarily submitted this information in exchange for being informed as to how they can maximize their health, based on their personal genomes - in other words health empowerment. That is one way to obtain knowledge about the genome and inter-workings of the body, such that we could advance to the next epidemiological transition. However, another way this knowledge could be amassed is through computer simulation. If we build simulated human bodies within computers, meaning a systems simulation with every level of development being carried out at an accelerated rate, from the molecular structure of the DNA onward out carrying out and recording its chemical computations, we could model the accumulation of these system errors and determine precisely where and how they are happening, all without actually experimenting on living subjects (which could include not having to experiment on animals either). Of course, the process would have to be extremely precise to output meaningful information. My questions: Which of these two would be more feasibly achieved? Would one being achieved mean the other isnt necessary, or would they both be needed?
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 04:50:05 +0000
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