Storing information we gather in our world encoded into DNA, sounds awesome for the storage density available.
In reality, we are basically turning what amounts to the firmware for living organisms into an alternate use storage medium. In computers and electronics, firmware runs first in all cases and has unrestricted access to execution as it is always running at the lowest level (highest privilege). From another perspective, encoding information in DNA for mass storage would be similar to taking the English alphabet, arbitrarily mapping each letter to a random Traditional Chinese character (non alphabet based language) and using that arbitrary map to encode all information in English into that arbitrary character translation. Next we can take the result back to ancient times which actively used traditional Chinese for writing and provide it to them to read. Obviously everything will be wrong or even gibberish to someone whom actually reads and writes traditional Chinese. Following instructions to the letter for whatever pattern of characters was encoded by the English remapping event would inevitably lead to failure for whatever was being attempted.
This is how I see storing human level information into the DNA structure that doubles as life's biological firmware. If that alternate language that was mapped onto the typical DNA structure ever gets read and interpreted by a living organism, it will produce bad results (protiens and cascading issues with the legitimate DNA of that organism) because the functional language of DNA will not be the same mapping as whatever method we choose to use to encode our alphabet into said DNA format.
The article keeps talking about managing the risk which doesn't really mean it's safe and causes no harm, but instead means is statistically calculated to be unlikely to harm or to harm only a limited (acceptable) subset of the whole population to the extent that it is considered safe to proceed according to the modeled safety study.
To some extent I'm not against some levels of bioengineering, such as the genetically engineered bacteria that produce insulin (which have been around for decades now) -- they often tweak the bacteria so the "formula" is changed and therefore there is no generic and prices stay high but that's another topic entirely. Anyway, playing with God's firmware (especially the human and plant and mammal genomes) is a terrible idea, but history shows sinful man to always be ready to try a terrible idea just to find out the hard way it leads to destruction.
I do want to add, I can think of one reason it would be cool - in a perfect world without evil intent and corruption deep enough to make that intent into action....
and that would be to store your own memories. Like, you can go back to a special moment in your life and just replay it like a memory - but played like a movie. Especially for the older folks in this world who don't have much left except for memories (that are getting harder and harder to remember)
That said, in this world the last thing I'd want those ghouls to do is have the ability to literally "write" to my dna lol
Have you read this, excellent>>>
In the Beginning Was Information
Between the covers of this excellent book may well be the most devastating scientific argument against the idea that life could form by natural processes.
The science of information is herein explained in detail, with many striking examples to clarify fundamental questions, such as: What are the laws of information? How did language develop? Is artificial intelligence possible?
Because information is required for all life processes, it can be stated unequivocally that information is an essential characteristic of all life. All efforts to explain life processes in terms of physics and chemistry only will always be unsuccessful. This is the fundamental problem confronting present-day biology, which is based on evolution.
. . . The purpose of this book is to formulate the concept of information as widely and as deeply as necessary. The reader will eventually be able to answer general questions about the origin of life as far as it is scientifically possible. If we can successfully formulate natural laws for information, then we will have found a new key for evaluating evolutionary ideas. In addition, it will become possible to develop an alternative model which refutes the doctrine of evolution.
—Dr. Werner Gitt, from the preface
Using DNA for digital storage is not a new idea. I first read about this discovery over a decade ago. No telling how mature the technology actually is today.
Storing information we gather in our world encoded into DNA, sounds awesome for the storage density available.
In reality, we are basically turning what amounts to the firmware for living organisms into an alternate use storage medium. In computers and electronics, firmware runs first in all cases and has unrestricted access to execution as it is always running at the lowest level (highest privilege). From another perspective, encoding information in DNA for mass storage would be similar to taking the English alphabet, arbitrarily mapping each letter to a random Traditional Chinese character (non alphabet based language) and using that arbitrary map to encode all information in English into that arbitrary character translation. Next we can take the result back to ancient times which actively used traditional Chinese for writing and provide it to them to read. Obviously everything will be wrong or even gibberish to someone whom actually reads and writes traditional Chinese. Following instructions to the letter for whatever pattern of characters was encoded by the English remapping event would inevitably lead to failure for whatever was being attempted.
This is how I see storing human level information into the DNA structure that doubles as life's biological firmware. If that alternate language that was mapped onto the typical DNA structure ever gets read and interpreted by a living organism, it will produce bad results (protiens and cascading issues with the legitimate DNA of that organism) because the functional language of DNA will not be the same mapping as whatever method we choose to use to encode our alphabet into said DNA format.
The article keeps talking about managing the risk which doesn't really mean it's safe and causes no harm, but instead means is statistically calculated to be unlikely to harm or to harm only a limited (acceptable) subset of the whole population to the extent that it is considered safe to proceed according to the modeled safety study.
To some extent I'm not against some levels of bioengineering, such as the genetically engineered bacteria that produce insulin (which have been around for decades now) -- they often tweak the bacteria so the "formula" is changed and therefore there is no generic and prices stay high but that's another topic entirely. Anyway, playing with God's firmware (especially the human and plant and mammal genomes) is a terrible idea, but history shows sinful man to always be ready to try a terrible idea just to find out the hard way it leads to destruction.
Thank you for your response. You have thought this out more deeply and comprehensively than I could ever hope to!
Yeah, their comment was phenomenal. I was just going to make up some kind of Matrix joke/reference lol
I do want to add, I can think of one reason it would be cool - in a perfect world without evil intent and corruption deep enough to make that intent into action....
and that would be to store your own memories. Like, you can go back to a special moment in your life and just replay it like a memory - but played like a movie. Especially for the older folks in this world who don't have much left except for memories (that are getting harder and harder to remember)
That said, in this world the last thing I'd want those ghouls to do is have the ability to literally "write" to my dna lol
Have you read this, excellent>>> In the Beginning Was Information
Between the covers of this excellent book may well be the most devastating scientific argument against the idea that life could form by natural processes.
The science of information is herein explained in detail, with many striking examples to clarify fundamental questions, such as: What are the laws of information? How did language develop? Is artificial intelligence possible?
Because information is required for all life processes, it can be stated unequivocally that information is an essential characteristic of all life. All efforts to explain life processes in terms of physics and chemistry only will always be unsuccessful. This is the fundamental problem confronting present-day biology, which is based on evolution. . . . The purpose of this book is to formulate the concept of information as widely and as deeply as necessary. The reader will eventually be able to answer general questions about the origin of life as far as it is scientifically possible. If we can successfully formulate natural laws for information, then we will have found a new key for evaluating evolutionary ideas. In addition, it will become possible to develop an alternative model which refutes the doctrine of evolution. —Dr. Werner Gitt, from the preface
Using DNA for digital storage is not a new idea. I first read about this discovery over a decade ago. No telling how mature the technology actually is today.