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A THIRD Idea

Recall that  Idea #1  was that  we  might stick  heuristics into  DNA,  to
propose plausible mutations  and warn  of implausible ones.   Idea #2  was
that DNA might have already evolved into such an expert program.   Several
people I discussed these ideas with (including, independently, Feigenbaum,
Friedland, and Stefik) asked WHEN the heuristics are EVALL'ed.   Pondering
this has led me to:

Idea #3:  When exactly would the heuristics be obeyed?  Must we  postulate
yet ANOTHER kind  of regulatory system,  etc.?  For  uniformity/simplicity
reasons, we  are led  to hypothesize  that the  heuristics are  constantly
being obeyed; that the DNA in an organism is constantly "evolving".   This
rather flamboyant idea has  several consequences, some  of which have  not
yet been tested for:  
    >  Embryogenesis  (the embryo develops quickly  because
it is given an extremely efficient  set of heuristics for guidance; it  is
they that encode the blueprint for the final organism, much like a program
that contained  instructions which  produced  some painting);  
    >   Aging  (the organisms DNA has, over the course of its lifetime,
performed so  many experiments that  it is  frequently
breaking down functionally); 
    >   The  amount of change in  DNA in humans  over
their   lifetimes,   and   the   relative   increase   in   such   changes
phylogenetically (has this been tested  for?).  

Note that this  hypothesis explains evolution  of the species  and of  the
individual as arising  from a  common process: being  guided by  heuristic
rules.

If you have any thoughts on this, please feed back!
Doug