information as interaction

I wanted to respond to Werner's very perceptive posting just briefly, to
say that I agree completely that information implies a relation, and
that this kind of relation comes into the world with the origin of life.
But I just wanted to add that we still need to specify a little more
what sort of relation it is.

I have argued that the correct way to look at information is as an
element in a special sort of dynamical interaction. Within the framework
of F.E. Yates's homeodynamics, we can conceptualize the organism (or
just the cell) as a network of loosely coupled, highly nonlinear
oscillators. I have proposed that each of these oscillators be conceived
of as trigger-dependent, in such a way that a portion or subsystem of
the oscillator is sensitive to a low-energy signal from the outside
world such that the signal is correlated with the normal conditions
supporting the function, in the sense of preserving the dynamical
stability of the oscillator. In other words, all biofunctions are
postulated to use low-energy signals as probes of their environment to
determine when conditions are right for functional action. (Low-energy
is important, because you don't want the signal itself to destabilize
the larger system.) Due to past successful oscillations and the
established correlations, the presence of the signal is tantamount to
the prediction of the future success of a new functional action (where
"success" means the perservation of the dynamical stability of the
oscillator). Thus, according to this model, information is a predictor
of the success of functional action.

This model provides a generalization of the notion of perception. Just
as I use photon collisions on my retinas to move my body through space
in such a way as to avoid high-energy collisions, so too every sort of
biological function is predicted to have an analogous subsystem
sensitive to low-energy signals in the same way. And, indeed, this seems
to be the way that proteins and most other molecular structures in the
cell function. In enzymes, for example, the sense organ is the active
site, which couples to the surround noncovalently. So, this model
provides a picture (albeit a grossly abstract and qualitative one) of
how information can come into the world in the form of a special sort of
dynamical interaction. (Explaining how such an interaction itself is
possible is, of course, another matter, and one I believe that will
require recourse to QFT.)

Finally, Jerry, I liked very much your discussion of information and
thermodynamics, and I just wanted to add the following quote in support:

"the Second Law and Shannon's Law are two different statements; what
they have in common is a mathematical formalism. Such sharing of
formalism is not at all unusual in theoretical physics: thus water waves
and light waves obey the same differential equations---but nobody would
conclude from this that light and ripples on water are the same thing."
(Walter Elsasser, Reflections on a Theory of Organisms, Johns Hopkins
UP, 1998, p. 46.)

James
Received on Fri May 31 01:11:57 2002