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Comment by cjbgkagh | Hacker News Reader

Birds have a higher neuron density. Each neuron is a mini Turing machine running on DNA instructions so they could also have better instinctual software.

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This makes no sense in the way neurons work as far as I understand it. RNA 'instructions' are processed by the Ribosome to make proteins, it isn't software in a machine code sense but more of molecular specification for a piece of material to be produced.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome

DNA does more than make proteins…

DNA doesn't make proteins at all...

Fine, DNA contains the instructions for much more than the production of proteins

"Template" is a better term than instructions.

in the strictest sense DNA doesnt make anything.

the interaction between DNA and polymerase class nucleo-polymers result in assembly of sequence conservative polymers.

for the most part this is RNAclass material, but includes DNA during replication and error correction events

Not sure if that analogy holds exactly. Neurons don't “compute”, they simply emit a signal that depends on how “saturated” they currently are, right?

Feel free to research it. The ‘saturated’ analogy is overly simplistic and elides the incredible complexity of what’s actually going on.

But neurons certainly aren’t mini Turing machines, either? Happy to inform myself more if you can point me in the right direction.

Cells perform a staggering number of parallel computations. Neurons are cells, and perform these same calculations and more in addition to emitting spikes. Spikes, rather than being the major form of computation, appear instead to be a means of maintaining synchronization.

I quite honestly did not think of it this way. But it makes some sense. I always thought cells perform, for lack of a better term, self-maintenance operations independently from their macro function (the receiving and emitting of spikes, in this case). I did not think of the internal operations of a cell being connected to the macro function in any sophisticated or meaningful way. I would love to inform myself better on this topic since it is not by area of expertise, and I have an admittedly cursory understanding.

I do think the field of psychopharmacology is probably sufficient to give an appreciation of the complexity involved at the same time as being useful to the practical understanding of how medications (and food) change behavior. It's also well studied and there are good books. I think Dr Stahl's books are the university standard. Like a lot of science though I think much of it is 'current best guess'.

For information on the modifying DNA expression in neurons that's under epigenetics and not as well studied.

That simplifies neurons a bit too much. There are a variety of neuron types including mirror neurons and pyramid neurons. These can feature more or less branching even.

My point is they operate more like gates. They aren’t mini Turing machines.

neurons have gates, these gates interconnect and form logic networks.

these are histeretic, programable, and dynamic.

the neuronal body state, the electro-osmotic environment, the past history of state are primary effectors of structure,and function resultant in the logic.

You are correct. Neurons are not Turing machines. However, they are complex enough that they can be Turing machines so it can be fun to call them that.

I didn’t expect this topic to be so controversial to be honest. I’m not surprised though.

I fully admit I may be underinformed. I had thought, though, that neurons were not sophisticated in the way a Turing machine is and much more akin to memristors. However, that may be a memristor tinted view of the world.

Neurons definitely compute. The dendrites that aggregate signals to initiate an action potential are not just simple summations but complex arrangements of signal promoters and inhibitors. The complexity of a pyramidal neuron is equivalent to a 5-8 layer artificial NN.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-computationally-complex-i...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089662732...

And that result is just from a computer simulation of a neuron that focuses on the dendrites and doesn't appear to extensively model the nucleus.

"Unfortunately, it’s currently impossible for neuroscientists to record the full input-output function of a real neuron, so there’s likely more going on that the model of a biological neuron isn’t capturing. In other words, real neurons might be even more complex."

I only downvoted you because "each neuron is a mini Turing machine running on DNA instructions" isn't a very helpful observation except at the most abstract level.

In my extensive research of neurons (as an independent/citizen scientist) it looks like the closest analogy to me. Neuron behavior is not only mediated by DNA but neurons can also write changes back into DNA, not to mention the nucleus soup that acts a bit like registers. I work on small molecule peptide medicine that changes gene expression in the neurons and other to glia cells to treat medical conditions.

This isn't even wrong. Seriously, if you want to do science get educated, your statements on this subject ("I should add that I've taken to do my own research because I little faith in the actual scientists to do a good job, and the faith that I have left is diminishing.") make me discard your output as 'likely noise' rather than signal. If you want to be taken seriously then you should make a minimal effort to try to understand what it is that you are talking about, as it is you come across as a kook and that likely isn't your intention.

I don’t work alone, I do work with scientists who I think are good. When I speak in generalizations it is just that a generalization. Science has been subtly redefined from a methodology to ‘what a scientist does’ and scientists these days produce papers.

Please attack something that user said that is unfactual instead of engaging with his stance on other matters

I don't like your phrasing this as the need to attack something unfactual or not, and it's not 'other matters' it is precisely this matter: to come up with stuff that goes against established science in a way that makes it difficult, if not impossible to argue with.

Do you have any evidence for this? Sounds interesting if so.

The general field is Epigenetics (gene expression based on environment), and within that there is research on how peptides act as modulators by silencing and un-silencing different genes. You can get a list of known bioactive peptides by reading it from the DNA or by using mass spectrometry (there’s a proper name for this but it escapes me atm). So putting the two together you can have quite a bit of external control over gene expression.

HPLC [1] or Electrophoresy [2] would be instrumental in isolating peptides based on mobility, and molecular mass.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-performance_liquid_chroma...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrophoresis

I was thinking of MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry devices used in Protiomics research. It’s a bit out of my field but I think it’s an improvement to HPLC.

Probably GC-MS? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chromatography%E2%80%93mas... Dunno how that would isolate the sample, rather than just analyzing it though

I’m not involved in the process of acquiring the ‘omics data. I just analyze it and read papers from other people analyzing it. I think MALDI-TOF is the gold standard for proteomics.

mass based deflection and deposition.

isolation,and analysis are two different activities, many instruments are capable of both modalities, depending on technique.

the problem is selecting a procedure that will not induce confounding artefacts of chemical, or physical interaction w the subject molecular entity.

Even if it's self-modifying, can continue state, etc, the Turing machine analogy is a bit of a stretch. And the current mainstream considers the primary function of neurons to be their information-transmitting capability, rather than their self-modifying ability.

Don't let my negative attitude keep you from doing research- I just think that epigenetics has been a bit overblown as a functional mechanism, or its just too hard to prove anything useful with experiments. Personally, if I was working on this I'd focus much more on neural differentiation during neurogenesis, rather than self-modification during "runtime".

I’m aware of how attractive the information-transmitting analogy is given the elegance of the theory. A few simple rules when combined form an infinitely complex emergent behavior able to sufficiently explain all observations; what’s not to love about it.

I’m focusing on the epigenetic aspect of neurons due the possibility of the ME/CFS/LongCovid family of conditions being due to silencing of certain genes. The brain is closely linked with the immune system and I think the so while these present as immune conditions I believe it starts out more as a neural condition, maybe microglia. In addition it makes sense to focus on this area more as I can’t consciously restructure the neurons in my brain but I can introduce peptides that change gene expressions.

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