Stan,
Your response hit the mark for me. I find your assertion about the
primacy of the cell compelling in many respects, concisely stated,
too. I suppose Margulis & Sagan would agree with you. Cells,
however, are not unique to biological systems. I need to mull this
over for a while, and maybe read their book. But there is one thing
that, to my mind, competes with the cell for the title of biological
primacy; it's the gene. I would abandon this POV if I could
understand how natural selection or any other known means of
evolution allowed a cell to evolve a digitally "symbolic" (i.e., non-
stereochemical) language with a geometrically precise dictionary
(e.g., GAU �> aspartic acid). How can cells do this when Crick's
central dogma (another biological law?) prohibits them from writing
or rewriting their own genes, which themselves amount to linear
scripts of "pure digital information" (Dawkins)? The only other time
in natural history that I know of where amalgamations of cells
evolved a digitally symbolic language was when humans did it about
10,000 years ago. (This assumes, of course, that signals and songs
of insects, birds, and other social species are not digitally symbolic.)
So the mystery for me is how living cells evolved a digital language
to manage its own structural affairs. How can a molecular analog
dictate digital script? I know of no scientific principle that
allows for ANY analogous entity in nature, save humans, to store its
structural information digitally on a specific kind of molecular
template. And why only ONE kind of molecule? Since I can't find my
answer in a hierarchical context, I've looked elsewhere. So far, only
parallel universes seem to hold any promise, and they certainly do
amount to unworldly speculation. Still, there seems to be something
awfully important about symbolic languages and the digital
communication of information.
Best regards, Richard
����
Richard -- A good question! Note first that my statement is
minimalist in
order just to note its large difference from the other two common
conceptions of information.
Now, in order to see that the genetic system would come under this
general
usage of information as carrying meaning, we need to stipulate a
'system of
interpretance' for whom genetic information would be meaningful.
This we
can assign to the cell. The cell enagages in measurements (semiosis) by
relating to some object (concentration of molecules, or numbers of
impacts
with some kind of molecule. Its reaction to this information is to
generate
interpretants (production of RNA nucleic acid entities), which induce a
sign (finished mRNA), which acts to feedback on the genetic system by
producing more RNA nucleic acid entities. The triadic relations between
Object, Interpretants and the Sign is formally like perception. The
meaning here emerges during the triadic relations of perception. It is
created by the cell. The difference that makes a difference to the
cell is
some marked increase in some molecular species that it can detect as
requiring a response. If I were a cell biologist or 'systems
bologist' I
probably could make this reading more detailed.
STAN
> Stan,
>
> Of your three concepts of information:
>
>
>>> (1) Shannon's information is a reduction in uncertainty or
>>> variety of
>>> possibilities.
>>> (2) In the mathematical sciences, information is any constraint
on
>>>
>> entropy
>>
>>> production (which is any event whatever in our universe). It is
>>>
>> represened
>>
>>> in constants in descriptive equations.
>>> (3) In semiotics information is Bateson's 'a difference that
makes a
>>> difference' to some system of interpretance, changing ts
behavior.
>>>
>
> am I correct in assuming that genetic information is falls under the
> third, semiotic info? If so, this concept seems awfully thin to
> support something so rich and dynamic as an informed genome.
>
>
> Best regards, Richard
>
_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
fis@listas.unizar.es
http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
Received on Thu Nov 2 20:19:44 2006
