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Fractal Evolution
Evolution by BITs and Pieces: An Introduction to Fractal Evolution
The membrane boundary enveloping each biological cell comprises the structural basis of a biological processor system (see article: Cellular Consciousness). As a processor, the cell’s membrane receptors scan the environment for signals. Obviously the environment is awash in signals. If all the signals were audible, the environment would sound like blaring noise. However, the specificity of reception that is characteristic for each receptor IMP, enables it to distinguish its complementary signal out of all the jumbled ambient noise. The cell’s ability to selectively filter useful information out of "chaotic" noise resembles the function of Fourier transformations [mathematical filtering processes which find signals within what appears to be noise] on complex inputs to perceive specific frequencies as informational signals. While the environment is in a sense "chaotic," with hundreds and thousands of simultaneously-expressed "signals," the cell can selectively read only those signals that are relevant to its existence.
Based upon the functional and structural features of the cell membrane, each single cell (e.g., amoeba) represents a self-powered microcomputer system. As in digital computers, the power or information handling capacity of the "cellular" computer is determined by the number of its BITs it can manage. In computers, the BITs are gate/channel complexes, in the membrane processor, the BITs are represented by receptor/effector complexes. The IMP molecules comprising the cell’s BITs have defined physical parameters and therefore can be "measured."
The dimension of the IMP proteins is approximately the same as the thickness of the membrane. Since the IMPs, by definition, reside within the membrane’s bilayer, the proteins can only be arranged as a monolayer (meaning the IMPs can not be stacked upon one another). To use the bread and butter and olive sandwich metaphor, there are only so many olives that can be layered on the bread. To have more olives in the sandwich requires the use of a larger slice of bread. The same applies to increasing the number of perception-IMP units in the membrane: the more IMPs-the more surface area of membrane required to hold them. The cell’s information processing capability (reflected in the number of perception proteins) is directly linked to the surface area of the membrane.
The profound point of this discourse...Biological awareness is a measurable property, and is directly correlated with the surface area of the cell’s membrane. Consequently the computing power of a cell is physically determined by limitations imposed on cellular dimensions.
The first phase of evolution of life concerned the development and refinement of the individual biological computer 'chip', the primitive bacterium. The size of these primitive organisms is constrained by the fact that they posses a rigid outer skeleton, derived from the polysaccharides of the glycocalyx. The matrix produced by the cross-linking of the sugar molecules in this "coat" provides for the cell’s protective "skeleton," called a capsule. The capsule physically supports and protects the cell’s thin membrane from rupturing under the strains of osmotic pressure.
Posted on: May 6, 05:19 PM
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