Re: Comments to Mark Burgin and James Barnham

ROEDERER JUAN GUALTERIO wrote:

> Dear FIS-ers:
>
> I refer to James Barnham's response to Pedro and Gyorgy, as quoted by Mark
> Burgin on May 17, and to the contradiction pointed out by the latter.
>
> Barnham writes:
>
> >we must always be careful to distinguish the epistemic and ontic planes
> > when thinking about life and information, and realize that our knowledge
> > of the cell is one thing, and the cell's own existence is something
> >else.
>
> I agree fully, as long as we do the same for the physical world, and add
> to the above: "Our knowledge about the physical world is one thing, and
> the physical world's own existence is something else. In the first,
> information appears through OUR interactions with the physical world--in
> the second, information plays no role 'in its own right' " .
>
> I fully agree with the summary statement given in that same response:
>
> > while in the subjective, extrinsic, observer-dependent sense,
> > all structure can be considered information---for us, as observers---in
> > the objective, intrinsic, observer-independent sense, there simply was
> > no information at all before the origin of life, because there were no
> > systems yet able to enter into the right sort of dynamical interactions
> > that are in fact constitutive of information-use.
>
> Concerning Mark Burgin's noted "contradiction ("There is no information
> where there is no life, hence Life cannot exist!"), I'd like to convince
> you that there is no contradiction at all! To do that, let me bring up
> something I did not see mentioned too often in the FIS discussion so far:
> EVOLUTION.
>
> Indeed, as I state on several occasions in my paper (see the end of
> section 4), information and life should have emerged together in the
> course of evolution. In other words, life did not emerge DUE to
> information processes, but WITH information processes. No doubt, there was
> a prebiotic "transition period" in which (and I quote from my paper)
> "...large and complex polymer-like macromolecules emerged as code-carrying
> templates whose effect on other molecules in their environment is to bind
> them through a catalytic process into conglomerates according to patterns
> represented by the code. Some of these polymers also served as templates
> for the production of others like themselves--those more efficient in this
> process would multiply....Concerning these macromolecules, we can say that
> beyond a certain degree of complexity, information as such begins to play
> the decisive role in organizing the chemical environment. Because of the
> role of information as the controlling agent, these molecules can trigger
> chemical reactions that would be highly improbable to occur naturally
> under the same environmental conditions and energy sources...".
>
> Concerning a later stage in the evolution of life and the question of
> "information stored in the genetic structures of an organism", I state in
> my paper "...the information content is not derived from physical laws and
> deliberately stored, but ... emerges gradually in the course of a long
> Darwinian process of selective adaptation. It could be called an
> "unreflected learning process by trial and error"... in which ... the
> prearranged accord between sender and recipient--an essential part of
> information-based interactions--comes into existence. There is no
> pre-existing information or purpose in adaptive evolution--the latter just
> happens if the circumstances are right."
>
> And in Earth's environment, they were right!
>
> Juan
>
> Juan G. Roederer
> c/o Director's Office
> The Abdus Salam
> International Centre for Theoretical Physics
> Strada Costiera 11
> 34014 Trieste
> Italy
>
> Phone: +39 (040) 2240607

Dear Juan and other participants of FIS,
To make my remarks clearer, I would like to explai that in the general theory
of information (M. Burgin THE ESSENCE OF INFORMATION: PARADOXES,
CONTRADICTIONS, AND SOLUTIONS), information is a relative phenomenon.
According to the Principle O2a of this theory, what we consider as
information depends on the choice of the class of infological systems. If we
choose large and complex polymer-like macromolecules as infological systems,
then Juan is right - there is no information without these molecules and
thus, without life.
However, when we choose other kinds of infological systems, we can find
information even in unimated nature. Different types of infological systems
are related to different types of information. The situation is similar to
the situation with energy. There are different types of energy: potential,
chemical, kinetic etc.

Sincerely,
   Mark
Received on Thu May 23 22:43:13 2002