Information processing: Quantitative or Qualitative?

Response to Prof.Dr. Werner Ebeling

> > > 5. There is no life without information-processing. Information-processing
> > > is a 'conditio sine qua non' for life. Life star(t)s with the ability to
> > > create, to process, to store and to transfer free information.
> >
> > Some examples here would be very helpful.
> > (I would have thought just the opposite - that life started with
> > structural chemicals with electrostatic affinities for one another.)

> We believe that the chemicals convert into "life" only at the moment when
> information-processing starts; this we understand as an discrete act
> (a sudden qualitative change). We were unable to find any example of
> information processing which is not (directly or indirectly) connected
> with forms of life. Who knows at least on counterexample ?????
> > > >

Counter examples in this area are extremely plentiful from a biochemical
prospective:

1. About the turn of the last century, German chemists succeeded in
conducting the fermentation of sugar to alcohol without live cells being
presence. This set the stage for the emergence of biochemistry as a
discipline and the subsequent re-naming to "molecular biology".

2. The de novo synthesis of the complete genome of a virus was
accomplished in the late 1960's.

3. The complete de novo synthesis of a protein was accomplished in the
1980s.

4. Membranes have been decomposed and re-assembled.

( I think all of these processes are part of cellular information
processing.)

5. With the completion of the DNA sequence of several micro-organisms,
plans are being formulated for the synthesis of a complete cell. I
suspect that it will be several decades, but I do not know of any
theoretical chemical or biological reason why these efforts should not
work.

One open question in my mind is:

Is information always quantitative?
Or, should physics admit that qualitative description is sufficient for
this concept?

Jerry LR Chandler
george Mason University
Received on Wed Feb 4 04:10:30 1998