Friday, May 07, 2021

A chordate able to regenerate copies of it when dissected into 3 parts

The popular article Polycarpa mytiligera can regrow all of its organs if dissected into three pieces tells about  an extraordinary biological discovery.

The creature known as  Polycarpa mytiligera  is a marine animal commonly found in   Gulf of Eilat that is capable of regenerating its organs. The surprising discovery was that  the animal can regenerate all of its organs even when dissected into three fragments.

Such a high regenerative capacity has not been detected earlier  in a chordate animal that reproduces only by sexual reproduction. In the experiment, the researchers dissected specimens in a method that left part of the body without a nerve center, heart, and part of the digestive system. Not only did each part of the creature survive the dissection on its own, all of the organs regenerated in each of the three sections.

This is highly interesting challenge for TGD.  The information about the  full animal body  was needed for a full generation. How it was preserved in dissection? Was genetic information, as it is understood in standard biology, really enough to achieve  this? 

  1.  In TGD inspired quantum biology magnetic body (MB) carrying dark matter as h_eff/h_0=n phases is the  key notion. h_eff is an effective Planck constant defining the scale of quantum coherence. n is dimension of extension of rationals defined by a polynomial defining space-time region,  and serves  as a measure for algebraic complexity and serves as a kind of IQ. MB with high IQ defined by n serves as  the master of the biological body (BB)  controlling it and receiving information from it. The layers of MB also define  abstracted representations of BB. 
  2. If BB suffers damage, the information about BB is not lost at MB and  MB, which carries abstracted representations about BB and able to control BB, could  restore BB partially. Healing of wounds would be the basic example.  A more dramatic example about healing was discovered by Peoch:  the neurons of the  salamander brain can be shuffled like cards in a package but the animal recovers. 

    Indeed, since nothing happens to the MB of salamander or Polycarpa Mytilera,  recovery is in principle possible. The  new finding gives additional support for MB as a carrier of the biological information.

One can also make questions about  the recovery process itself. Could recovery be seen as a self-organization process of some kind? 
  1. In the TGD framework, quantum measurement theory relies on zero energy ontology (ZEO)  and solves  its  basic problem. The basic prediction is that in the TGD counterparts of ordinary state function reductions ("big" SFRs or BSFRs) time reversal takes place.  In small SFRs (SSFRs) identifiable as analogs of "weak" measurements, the arrow of time is preserved. ZEO  makes it also  possible to understand why the Universe looks classical in all scales although BSFRs occur in all scales at the dark onion-like layers of MB controlling the lower layers with ordinary biomatter at the bottom of the hierarchy.
  2.  Time reversed dissipation after BSFR looks like self-organization from the perspective of the outsider with a standard arrow of time, called it briefly O,  and would bea  basic self-organization process in living systems. In dissipation gradients disappear but in time-reversed dissipation they appear from the perspective of O.  
  3. This  makes possible also self-organized quantum criticality (SOQC), which is impossible in standard thermodynamics because criticality by definition means instability. The change of the arrow of time changes the situation from the perspective of  O  since the  time reversed  system tends to approach the criticality. Homeostasis would rely  SOQC  rather than on extremely complex  deterministic control programs as in the computerism based picture. Change the arrow of time for a subsystem and let it happen. Very Buddhist approach to healing! 
  4. The change of the arrow of time would be also central in the healing processes and also regeneration.
      For a summary of earlier postings see Latest progress in TGD.

      Articles and other material related to TGD.

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