If I understand woofie11 correctly, it means that the probability that an error in a single mRNA corresponds with an error in another mRNA to cause a larger perceivable effect is small. The errors would have to be made in the exact same way.
If an mRNA mutation were to make a self-replicating virus, or make something which damages DNA leading to cancer, or something wonky like that, I guess that's in abstract possible. It can make abstract proteins, and we don't know what those will do.
In that case, if I have twice as much mutated mRNA in my body, the odds of that happening almost exactly double. It's like rolling a 1-trillion sided die twice instead of once and seeing if I roll a 1. With one roll, I have a 1-in-a-trillion chance. With two rolls, I have a 2-in-a-trillion chance (minus 1-in-a-septillion of having the same thing happen twice, which we don't know what it would do, but is a small enough possibility we can ignore).
But yeah, unless something really wonky going on, I'm not going to end up with hundreds of strands of mutated mRNA in my body *all doing the same thing*.
The statistics as derived from the dynamics of “how rna works” - yeah that’s compelling.
This:
“If an mRNA mutation were to make a self-replicating virus, or make something which damages DNA leading to cancer, or something wonky like that, I guess that's in abstract possible. It can make abstract proteins, and we don't know what those will do.”
Sounds astronomically I likely, but with unknown error bars. Sounds like our If our cross section test Is large enough going on long enough, we might just get there.
A prion (misfolded protein that causes other proteins to misfold) is more likely, but even then prions need to misfold in specific ways that encourage their replication as well. In all likelihood the error is just going to prevent the ribosome from finishing transcription and we'll have just a fragment of whatever protein the RNA initially encoded for.
I’m confused so let me try an analogy with DNA: most mutations do nothing. Every now and then, cancer. Sample a large number of mutations for a short duration, and you have proven nothing regarding nonlinearity globally. Roughly speaking.
Another example: I can measure a the air near (but not to near) a shockwave, or just under (By human scale) the free surface of the ocean, and find pretty much linear behavior if no other pathologies are present. The underlying physics however, is not linear, it is only my approximation which is. Maybe it’s valid over configurations of interest. But then I better know something about the limits of my approximation.