Re: [Fis] Group-theoretic biology

Jerry, maybe I am just dense (I've been sick with the flu for a few
days, which may add to that), but I am having trouble understanding
your answers.

At 11:28 PM 2003/06/04, jlrchand@erols.com wrote:

>John:
>
>See interlaced comments.
>
>>>>"jlrchand@erols.com" <jlrchand@pop.mail.rcn.net> 06/03/03 01:37 AM >>>
>
>An Open Comment:
>You ask "why"?
>
>Because the simplest possible mathematical representation of a
>chemical molecule is a labeled bipartite graph.
>
>JDC: It seems to me that there is a lot that leaves out with respect to
>relative energy levels, structure of non-ioniv bonds, and other things.
>Scott's a physical chemist by original training, and is not insensitive to
>the importance of these things.
>
>JLRC: Yes. Chemical attributes are either deduced from the structure or
>measured. If you re-read my post carefully you may wish to reflect on the
>relation to denotation.
>
>And, because the structure of a mathematical object need not
>represent the relations among or correspond to the structure of
>natural object.

Maybe me who was not clear, but it seems that there is a lot of information
about a given chemical that is left out of a labeled bipartite graph (whose
definition in detail I could use at this point, though I vaguely remember
it from when I studied graph theory). That means the graph is
nothing close to a complete description of the chemical properties.

>JDC: Part of the subtlety of Scott's treatment is that he has developed a
>way to test whether or not this is true for specific mathematical objects
>and specific physical states for which we can have evidence. Jaynes argues
>for the ambiguity of information content because of multiple accurate
>descriptions. Scott shows that Jaynes' argument is flawed beecase there is
>a general way to overcome the ambiguity problem. We still need evidence of
>the structure, of course, and we may well not be clever enough to come up
>with an accurate description of this evidence.
>
>JLRC: My original post consisted of comments about chemistry and
>mathematics. At issue are the relations between chemical objects,
>physical objects and mathematical objects. A labelled bipartite graph is
>not ambiguous as a chemical structure. If life itself were simply a
>trivial extension of well known physical and mathematical principles,
>these positions and statements would be superfluous, nicht wahr?

Lack of ambiguity does not equate with complete information. I can mention
Socrates, and everyone on the list knows who I am talking about, but I have
given virtually no information about the person. So the lack of
equivocation seems irrelevant to the issue of information content. I don't
quite get the last, but I suspect we are talking past here on something on
which we agree.

>I conclude that the languages and structures of natural systems are
>vastly richer than I was able to state or imagine.

I can agree with that, in any case, even given I am (or, rather, Scott is)
right above.

John

----------
I've found the link between apes and civilised men - it's us.
                         -- Konrad Lorenz
John Collier collierj@nu.ac.za
Philosophy, University of Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292 F: +27 (31) 260 3031
http://www.kli.ac.at/research.html?personal/collier
http://www.nu.ac.za/department/members/members.asp?dept=philundund&id=3248

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Received on Thu Jun 5 10:45:00 2003