There's a definitional problem here. Would a book with instructions for how to order additional copies be a quine? What's the difference? I don't know exactly.
I guess the right question to ask about DNA is, does it contain all the instructions required to produce a copy of the DNA itself? DNA translation involves a bunch of RNA, sure. But DNA copying is mostly done by DNA polymerases, which are typical peptide based proteins encoded in the DNA itself, right?
So in a real sense, the DNA contains the blueprint for the machinery to copy the DNA itself, but not the instructions for building that machine from the blueprint, the same way a software quine doesn't necessarily include the source code for a compiler.
Definitely a definitional problem, but that's my shot at resolving it a bit.
Then again, DNA polymerase is not perfect, and DNA is not immune to single nucleotide changes having a real effect, so it's only a quine in the "spherical cow" way of looking at it anyway. But it's certainly the most "quinish" thing in nature that I can think of.
I just don't think it's accurate to say DNA has instructions in the same way a computer does. It's more like a recipe for a chemical reaction. If we expand the definition of a quine away from being self reproducing code and to self reproducing chemical reaction, it seems like things like crystalization or fire could be considered a quine.
But I may have been a bit unclear about my mapping of computer and biology terminology to this question.
I tend to think of a computer programs as being mathematical machines, and proteins as being molecular/chemical machines. Motor proteins "walking" along microtubules is the most vivid example of this.
I'm sort of torn between both worlds here, honestly. I like both perspectives. Viruses especially have a very quinish quality to them in that they're stripped down to just enough stuff to get a host cell to make more viruses.
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There's a definitional problem here. Would a book with instructions for how to order additional copies be a quine? What's the difference? I don't know exactly.
I guess the right question to ask about DNA is, does it contain all the instructions required to produce a copy of the DNA itself? DNA translation involves a bunch of RNA, sure. But DNA copying is mostly done by DNA polymerases, which are typical peptide based proteins encoded in the DNA itself, right?
So in a real sense, the DNA contains the blueprint for the machinery to copy the DNA itself, but not the instructions for building that machine from the blueprint, the same way a software quine doesn't necessarily include the source code for a compiler.
Definitely a definitional problem, but that's my shot at resolving it a bit.
Then again, DNA polymerase is not perfect, and DNA is not immune to single nucleotide changes having a real effect, so it's only a quine in the "spherical cow" way of looking at it anyway. But it's certainly the most "quinish" thing in nature that I can think of.
I just don't think it's accurate to say DNA has instructions in the same way a computer does. It's more like a recipe for a chemical reaction. If we expand the definition of a quine away from being self reproducing code and to self reproducing chemical reaction, it seems like things like crystalization or fire could be considered a quine.
I actually like that.
But I may have been a bit unclear about my mapping of computer and biology terminology to this question.
I tend to think of a computer programs as being mathematical machines, and proteins as being molecular/chemical machines. Motor proteins "walking" along microtubules is the most vivid example of this.
I'm sort of torn between both worlds here, honestly. I like both perspectives. Viruses especially have a very quinish quality to them in that they're stripped down to just enough stuff to get a host cell to make more viruses.
I like the virus as quine analogy much better than generic DNA as a quine, personally. Seems much more meaningful.