Index # 08774
Will NOT Count Towards Pharmacy MAJOR
Will NOT Count Towards Pharmacy MINOR
Living cells communicate by exchanging molecules such as hormones and neurotransmitters, just as humans communicate by exchanging sounds (i.e., phonons) and visual symbols, e.g., written words (i.e., photons). Since, no communication is possible without a language understood by booth the sender and the receiver of messages, it follows that cells must have a language (called ‘cellese’ for convenience), using molecules as carriers of information, just has humans use natural languages (called ‘humanese’), using sounds and visual signals to transmit information. The relation between these languages and matter is non-controversial – i.e., both languages depend on matter, since, without matter, there cannot be any cells nor any humans that can communicate with one another. But how are cellese and humanese related? There are three theoretical possibilities -- (i) cellese gave rise to humanese, (ii) humnese gave rise to cellese, and (iii) both cellese and humanese arose from a third language called the cosmological language or cosmeses [1]. Of these three possibilities, Possibility (ii) can be eliminated because living cells (and hence cellese) emerged long before humans and humanese. Of the remaining two possibilities, Possibility (iii) will discussed in the seminar since it is thought to be most likely, primarily based on the principle of complementarity.
About Professor Ji
[instructor bio]