{"id":4854,"date":"2013-08-10T12:01:18","date_gmt":"2013-08-10T20:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/?p=4854"},"modified":"2013-08-10T12:03:34","modified_gmt":"2013-08-10T20:03:34","slug":"gentic-engineering-via-interactive-shapeshifting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/10\/gentic-engineering-via-interactive-shapeshifting\/","title":{"rendered":"Genetic Engineering with an SF Interface"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I finished a new painting called \u201cStudy of Picasso\u2019s Girl Before A Mirror.\u201d\u009d Lots <\/em>of work, so many details kept unfolding. Took six or seven sessions. For the last session, I put the original out of sight and focused on making my version smooth and balanced. Fun. Maybe now I’ll try doing a painting (not a copy) in the Master\u2019s style.<\/p>\n


\n \u201cStudy of Picasso\u2019s Girl Before A Mirror,\u201d\u009d oil on canvas, August, 2013, 20\u201d\u009d x 24\u201d\u009d. Click for a larger version of the painting.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to sell the Picasso painting for awhile, want to enjoy having it around, but I\u2019m discounting the prices of my other paintings for a summer\/fall sale, check it out <\/a>if you\u2019re interested.<\/p>\n

Now to the meat of today\u2019s post. Biotweaking. Illustrated, as usual, with whatever photos I have kicking around.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In my forthcoming novel The Big Aha<\/em> our society is using biotweaked plants and animals in place pretty much every type of manufactured good. They call these things nurbs, no particular reason for that, I just like the word (which also has an unrelated meaning in computer graphics, but never mind that.)<\/p>\n

One of the difficult things with genetic engineering is going to be figuring out how to make the correct DNA change in order to accomplish some specified alteration to an organism\u2019s body\u2014let\u2019s call this \u201cretrofitting the DNA.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Unless I\u2019m mistaken, from a computer science standpoint, retrofitting DNA is what they call a computationally unsolvable problem, meaning that there\u2019s no possible algorithm for automatically doing it. The cause of this unsolvability is that there\u2019s no general shortcut for predicting the effects of a specific DNA change\u2014short of putting in the change and regrowing the organism. And, if you\u2019re trying to pick out a desired change from an ensemble of changes whose effects are unpredictable\u2014well, then you\u2019re looking at an unsolvable problem.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m writing a science-fiction novel here, so I\u2019m not going to let this problem stop me. I\u2019ll get around it by invoking one of currently fashionable SF \u201cbogosity generators,\u201d\u009d to wit, quantum computation. In an idealized SFictional world, quantum computers can carry out vast parallel computations, and thereby finesse any trouble with formally unsolvable problems.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019ve solved the DNA retrofitting problem, then I can make an automatic process that converts high-level changes into DNA changes. It\u2019s a little like a Lamarckian inheritance process\u2014changes to nurb\u2019s body go right down into its DNA and you can clone off nurbs with those same new properties. And quantum computation handles the thorny puzzle of figuring out what precise DNA changes will replicate some externally imposed change in a nurb\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

Once you retrofit a nurb\u2019s DNA, you\u2019d need to execute a biological refresh function, regenerating or regrowing all of the nurb\u2019s body, as if by a web-page refresh on a computer screen. Science-fictionally, you can image the refresh happening quite rapidly, like a ripple passing across the organism\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So what we need is:
\n(Retrofitting DNA Design) quantum computation trick for figuring out DNA changes to reflect desired high-level changes in an organism,
\n(Parallel DNA Tweaking) an ability to remotely tweak all trillion of a nurb\u2019s cells at once,
\n(Bio Refresh) a built-in ability for nurbs to refresh themselves like a web page, re-biocomputing their forms from their altered DNA.<\/p>\n

As I said, you can do the \u201cRetrofitting DNA Design\u201d\u009d with a quantum computer. And you can do the Parallel DNA Tweaking and the Bio Refresh with a so-called tweaker virus that might be, let us say, based on the harmaline molecule\u2014recall Terence McKenna\u2019s fantasy that his use of yage and psilocybin in concert had placed a tiny radio-receiver into each of his body\u2019s cells. I miss Terence.<\/p>\n

Anyway, once all this working, you design a web-based tweaker interface that, experientially, feels as if you are molding your nurb with virtual hands\u2014the interface is turning your shape requests into DNA changes and applying the changes to the target organisms\u2019 cells. And the Bio Refresh function, repeatedly invoked, gives you realtime feedback on what your DNA alterations are doing. So it\u2019s like working with paint or with clay.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

SF writing advice to self: Load on the miracles, but keep the explanations simple. <\/em> All I really want is consistency, ease and flash. And be glad I\u2019m not working as a scientist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I finished a new painting called \u201cStudy of Picasso\u2019s Girl Before A Mirror.\u201d\u009d Lots of work, so many details kept unfolding. Took six or seven sessions. For the last session, I put the original out of sight and focused on making my version smooth and balanced. Fun. Maybe now I’ll try doing a painting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4854"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4857,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4854\/revisions\/4857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}