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Re: left/right symmetry, manifest or not



Bernard Cleyet wrote:

since all terrestrial ("natural") proteins are l- would this aid in the room
problem?

It almost certainly does not help.
Feynman discusses this in TCoPL.
One of the rules of the "room" problem is to not use
any shared artifact as a reference.

As far as we know, the handedness of natural proteins is
merely an artifact inherited from a common ancestor.

So in particular if you were communicating with some
extraterrestrial creatures who do not share a common
ancestor with you, it seems perfectly possible that
their proteins are differently-handed from yours. This
possibility means that in general, proteins are a
non-solution to the "room problem".

The only way it could become a solution is if you can
be sure that in an ensemble of _independent_ planets,
the laws of physics _require_ the evolutionary process to
select one handedness over the other. Alas all the known
chiral physics involves weak nuclear interactions, which
are very weak, presumably swamped by thermal fluctuations
under reasonable biological conditions, so betting that
this solves the "room problem" doesn't seem like a very
good gamble.