Cell Language Theory, The: Connecting Mind And Matter

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“6x9” b2861 The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matter

Thus, the notion of “bumpy folding funnel” would embody the fol-

lowing three elements:

(i) E, energy encoded in the depth of the funnel,

(ii) S, entropy encoded in its width, and

(iii) I, genetic information encoded in the “bumpiness” or “ruggedness”

of the funnel surface topology.

The protein folding theory incorporating these three elements, E, S,

and I as described above may be referred to as the “information–energy

landscape” theory of protein folding (“entropy” being included as a part

of “energy”, an abbreviation for “free energy”) to contrast with the now

widely accepted “energy landscape” theory of protein folding. It is my

opinion that the “energy landscape theory” of protein folding is a physical

theory and not a biological one. To transform the energy landscape theory

into a biological theory, it is necessary to combine it with a theory of

biological evolution (in the form of, say, a cell model). One such biologi-

cal theory is the “information–energy” landscape theory outlined above,

which can be viewed as a manifestation of the information–energy com-

plementarity (or gnergy) principle (see Section 2.9).

3.2.14 Three Classes of Molecular Structures in the Living Cell

There are three distinct classes of molecular structures that can be recog-

nized inside the living cell. Table 3.6 lists these structures with their

potential roles in the physiology and linguistics of the living cell.

Table 3.6 indicates that it may be necessary for cell biologists to learn

from linguistics (i.e., adopt the concepts developed in linguistics) in order

to be able to describe how the living cell works on the molecular level.

Based on the assumptions that (i) there are three classes of structures in

the cell (covalent, noncovalent, and gradient or dissipative) and (ii) these

structures are analogous to the well-established three classes of the objects

in linguistics (words, sentences, and texts), we can infer the possible bio-

logical functions of the three classes of intracellular structures as indicated

in the last row.

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