Re: [Fis] A definition of Information (II)

Pedro here (below) points out the importance of erasure in information
systems. Without this, systems would senesce very much faster than they
do. I would just point out that it is the necessity for erasure that
prevents the possibility of there being a Maxwellian Demon, who tries to
evade the SEcond Law!

STAN

>Dear colleagues,
>
>Thanks to Stan, Viktoras and others for their recent comments. About the
>discussion on entropy and information, I think better that we reserve our
>best ammunition for the next weeks (around beginnings of April), when we
>will start the new session in a more or less organized way. In particular,
>I much appreciate the coherence of Stan's views (and other parties') about
>the entropic theme in biology, but at the same time I strongly feel that a
>new point of view is needed. The pervasive phenomenon (protein, cellular,
>neuronal, economic, cultural), biologically rooted, of massively getting
>rid of un-adaptive parts --parts which are perfectly healthy in themselves
>concerning their functioning-- has only been known in biology in the 90's
>(protein degradation in proteasomes, apoptosis, rhythms of synaptic growth
>and decay). It is amazing that it has been left largely out of theoretical
>focus. In my opinion, as I have argued too often in this list, the
>resulting 'evanescent permanence' of the living is at the very center of
>its 'informability', the capacity to alter the own structure after some
>signal has been received, implying both synthesis and degradation of
>components (the global coupling of the communicational, structural and
>generative forms of cellular information). In other words, thorugh protein
>synthesis/degradation, we would be talking about the very fabric of meaning
>at the biomolecular level...
>
>Of course, I just point out the amazing parallel among all those realms,
>and have not found the analytical keys at all. At least one has to put into
>brackets the usual view of conflating this emerging (and un-analyzed) form
>of dynamics with the workings of the 'entropic hands', the norm almost
>everywhere (let us remember the discussions on ecological economics). This
>does not mean that I attack the enormous importance that thermodynamic
>entropy deserves at the micro-meso and macro levels (and also of other
>forms of entropy as argued in this list).
>
>Let me conclude by putting things into colorful writing. The divine
>Pantheon should be presided by the serene beauty of Gaia (the Greek Goddess
>of Life on Earth), caught in a romantic triangle with Oknos (the Egypcian
>rope-maker, the God of agile fingers endowed with the wonders of "molecular
>recognition") and Kali (the jealous, irate Hindu Goddess, of powerful but
>stumped hands that disperses everything)... I promise not to indulge in
>further theologies.
>
>best regards
>
>Pedro
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Mon Mar 8 10:00:46 2004