Subcellular Systems - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 301

such as the flame of a candle and ion gradients across cell membranes. However, upon
a closer examination, it is clear that neither of these initial impressions can be valid,
since phenotypes can be unstable structures with short lifetimes such as RNA levels
inside the cell (Fig. 11.6 ) and dissipatons can have stable structures with long lifetimes
such as us human beings. So it appears necessary to specify lifetimes whenever we
discuss dissipatons (or the Prigoginian form of genetic information). If we denote the
lifetime of a dissipaton t D, depending on the level of observations, t D may range from
nanoseconds (10 9 s) to years and centuries. Examples of the former include substrate
levels/concentrations of enzymic catalysis (e.g., RNA levels) and neuronal firing
patterns in the brain, and the examples of the latter include centuries (10 9 s)-old
trees. Therefore, t D can span 18 orders of magnitudes in time. Similarly the physical
size of a dissipaton can range from about a micron (10 6 m) to tens of meters (10 m),
thus spanning 7 orders of magnitude in linear dimension or 21 orders of magnitude in
volume and mass. In other words, dissipatons can vary over about 20 orders of
magnitude in both time and mass, the same order of magnitude spanned by the number
of molecules in a macroscopic volume, i.e., the Avogadro's number, 6 10 23 .Thus

dissipatons and the Prigoginian formof genetic information can cover the whole range
of space, time, and mass from the microscopic to the macroscopic, whereas the
Watson-Crick form of genetic information always remains at the microscopic level
(within the volume of about 10 20 m 3 ), most likely because self-replication of material
systems is possible only at the molecular level where thermal fluctuations and the
associated fluctuation-dissipation theorem (Ji 1991, pp. 50-51) become effective and
operative (see Sect. 8.2 and Fig. 8.1 for the essential role played by thermal
fluctuations in generating virtual conformons which are subsequently converted into
real conforms by chemical reactions). In Sect. 5.2.3 , snowflakes were compared with
RNA trajectories in yeast cells which are microscopic dissipatons. This analogy can
now be extended to the process of growth - just as snowflakes represent the process of
the growth (i.e., crystallization) of an equilibron (i.e., a water molecule) from the
microscopic to the macroscopic dimensions (see the left-hand side of Fig. 5.3 ), the
human body may represent (or be the sign of) the process of the growth of a dissipaton
from the microscopic level (i.e., cells) to the macroscopic level. In other words,
equilibrons can grow from the microscopic level to the macroscopic one as
exemplified by snowflake formation, so can dissipatons as exemplified by the devel-
opment (or morphogenesis) of a mature human body from a fertilized egg.

11.2.3 The Iconic, Indexical, and Symbolic Aspects of the Gene

Although the birth of molecular biology was four decades away when Peirce
(1839-1914) (Sect. 6.2.1 ) passed away, it is here assumed that the basic theory of
signs he developed applies to molecular biology as well. According to Peirce
A sign (1) stands for something (2) to someone (3) in some context (4).

(11.2)

We can conveniently represent Statement 11.2 diagrammatically as shown in
Fig. 11.7 . As pointed out in Sect. 6.2.1 , the term “sign” has a dual meaning: (a) the