origin of information

[j102]

i have a question for those who are familiar with dna and genetics.

through modern science we know that dna, the molecule for life carries with it genetic codes and information which are essential for life and depending on the type of code the dna has determines what type of organisim will be produced.

so my question is where did the genetic information come from in the first place? for informational and code theorist alike most agree that information and codes are a byproduct of consciousness.

[j102]

any ideas or theorys any one?

[LuftWaffle]

Hi D-9,

Hope you're well. It's been a while since we had a chat.

I guess it all depends on what you consider genetic information. The "code" is a human analogy of the properties of molecules and the interactions thereof. You can go about your question in various ways, but perhaps the salient point here is that none of them require consciousness anymore than consciousness is required for oxygen and hydrogen to come together to form water, or any other chemical reaction you can think of that occurs in nature.

It it possible that you're confusing the code with the medium in your above explanation? The chemicals in DNA make up the alphabet characters of the code and strung together form the medium of transmission, but the chemicals aren't the code.

Using you description one may say that the text appearing on your computer screen are caused by red, green and blue pixels lighting up according to the electrical signals coming from your computer's graphic processor. While this medium is natural/mechanical/electrical or whatever, the source of the information, the very sentence that I'm typing which is transported across many natural mediums, ultimately comes from my mind. Likewise I am warranted to assume that your words that I'm reading come from a mind, even though I cannot detect your mind inside my computer, or in the airwaves of my WiFi connection.

A Definition of information is needed. This is how I understand information and this definition seems to be inline with how most information theorists define it. (j102, you've started this discussion so if you have a different definition, then by all means feel free to correct mine.)

Information (a code) is a message consisting of a set of symbols transmitted across a medium between an encoding and decoding system.

All in all, simplified, the information of the genetic code is stored in the physical characteristics of specific molecules as well as the sequence of DNA.

I agree. The medium often is physical, but the information isn't. In fact I believe that the existence of information makes a strong argument against physicalism.

Think about it, information is stored in books, so the code is stored in the physical characteristics of ink sticking to paper, but the information isn't ink and paper.

A Magnetic tape is code stored on a physical medium that relies on the characteristics of magnetism, but again the information itself isn't mere magnetism, it's a software backup, a recording of a business meeting, or an old Iron Maiden album.

The origin of the sequence, if you go all the way back, goes to before life got started, where the sequence of DNA (or whatever molecule they used, DNA was not the first molecule of inheritance) would have been purely random - whatever material was available at the time, and subsequently evolved into what we see today. The specific characteristics of the molecules originates from the chemistry or the laws of nature.

No, this would be like saying the origin of Beethoven's music goes way back to before music was started and the sounds were basically just vibrating airwaves. It's important to distinguish between the code and medium. While the chemicals making up DNA may have existed for a long time, we're talking about the origin of the information.

If a leaf falls from a tree and lands in a pond, the leaf will displace the water (creating information) and the water will ripple out in waves sending out information across the water. It may take a consciousness to understand this information, but that information is there regardless of consciousness. Although another way to look at is that the genetic code isn't really there at all, it is a conceptual tool devised by humans to help make sense of the world.

A leaf hitting a pond is not sending out information. As you well pointed out a conscious mind can derive information from the leaf by interpreting it in some way, but on it's own there's no encoding and decoding system.

One aspect of information is that the information transmitted across the medium is distinct from the medium itself. as I've said.

A Leaf hitting a pond on its own isn't a symbolic representation of anything other than a leaf hitting a pond.

DNA however has all the characteristics of information. DNA is encoded and decoded, by a transmitter and receiver respectively. It uses an alphabet, has symantics and syntax. It's represents something other than itself. It can be translated to a different medium. etc.

[LuftWaffle]

I am not sure that the existence of information makes a case against physicalism (or naturalism).

I didn't think you'd embrace this view. Note that I am not offering information as proof against naturalism. I simply stated that I believe it makes a strong case against it, for the simple reason that information is neither matter nor energy and since the physical world consists of those things, information is not physical. Many prominent information theorists agree.

East German scientist J.Peil made this rather pithy comment, "Even the biology based on a materialistic philosophy, which discarded all vitalistic and metaphysical components, did not readily accept the reduction of biology to physics...Information is neither a physical not a chemical principle like energy and matter, even though the latter are required as carriers".

Then there's mathematician Norbert Wiener who said, "Information is information, neither matter nor energy. Any materialism which disregards this, will not survive one day."

While I can't comment in his prediction that materialism won't survive, I can say that a priori philosophical assumptions limit one's view and skew one's conclusions.

My worldview doesn't require information to be physical, so I can look at the evidence and let it guide my conclusion. I realise that this is not the same for an orthodox materialist though

The problem comes from the reification of relationships or algorithms and by giving them the same ontological status as the object they operate unto.

I have no idea what you wrote here, Viole. Perhaps it's a language thing or perhaps I'm a little dense today. Can you clarify please.

Information, like energy (which is also pretty abstract) is contextual. Energy, for instance, is not an object, it is an operator that takes a certain state of a physical system and spits a number.

If the system is self-contained (not influenced by other external systems), then this number is independent of the state and remains constant. Information is similar (some think that information and energy are two faces of the same medal), it is a function that change configurations of systems in a certain way.

You're talking about energy and simply assuming that whatever applies to energy must apply to information.

It seems you're arguing:

1. Information is like energy

2. When things are like those things in some ways they are like those things in every way

3. Therefore information is physical.

This is a bad argument, Viole.

Information is contextual: if you ask me whether it is raining in Stockholm you expect one bit. This bit has meaning only in this context and cannot be stripped away from the physical situation. Sending this bit out in space (or a cd containing last Opeth's album) is not helpful to an other civilizaton that does not know the context.

It seems what you're arguing here is that since information often informs one about the physical world, it must be physical. This doesn't follow.

Also information can have a non-physical context. Consider a philosophical discussion or a book on mathematics. Are numbers or propositions physical?

It is also difficult, if not impossible, to strip the information from the medium. It can, at best, be transferred to another physical medium.

No, in fact it's very easy to strip information from the physical medium. I can take today's newspaper in printed form and translate it to binary data on a magnetic harddrive. I can then transmit is as a light signal via optic fibre cable to another computer, that can display it on a plasma display.

Same information transferred from one medium to another to another. In some cases the medium was particles (ink on paper) and in other cases it was energy (electric signal, optic signal) etc. While the information is transmitted via a physical medium and can be translated from one medium to another it is distinct from its medium.

Even if the most platonic phylosopher reaches an understanding of an immaterial information, forgets that by doing that it is using the storage of his physical brain. The same philosopher can add value to this information, but it cannot do it without spending energy (eating food), which seems to indicate that the new information is just reusable energy that costed a bigger amount of reusable energy.

The encoding and decoding of information into a physical medium may require energy. It doesn't not follow from this that information is physical since information is distinct from the encoder, decoder and medium.

Information can be measured. It is possible to measure information in grams or electronvolt and this independently of the medium used.

Really? How many grams does Shakespear's Hamlet contain, bearing in mind that you said independent of medium?

Information is measured in bits, Viole that while information has a statistical aspect, it cannot be divorced from it's qualitative aspects.

As such an information rich picture can have the same bit value as white noise.

Thus, it doesn't follow that just because it can be measured in a limited fashion, that it is physical.

No matter how why try to preserve it or transmit it, its content will decay, given enough time.

Shannon entropy is not the same as entropy in the sense of thermodynamics. As for this being the driver of evolution, that is kind of what we're asking, and so can't really be used as proof of an exception.

Information takes space, hardly the property of immaterial things.

Nonsense, information does not have physical dimensions. Mediums require space, information doesn't. A harddrive containing no information is no smaller or bigger than one that's full of information.

Take a sphere; there is a theoreticall maximum of information that can be packed into this sphere, again independently of the medium technology we use.

A sphere can be filled with non-information or information and have the same statistical content. Information is distinct from the medium.

Very little of what you wrote actually deals with the definition of information or the inductive argument from information that states:

1. Every instance of information that we observe ultimately comes from a mind.

2. The genetic code contains information

3. Therefore it must have come from a mind.

It seems your post revolved around trying to argue that information is physical, understandably because of your a priori commitment to physicalism/materialism, while I expected this, I'd really like to get back to the topic, which is about information inductively leading to a mind as source for the genetic code.

[LuftWaffle]

Sorry if I do not address each individual point; I only have access to a tablet and it is not easy (I need too much energy to convey this information, lol).

No worries, as I said, I'm actually interested in the information theory aspect of the discussion and not merely trying to kindle a discussion on materialism.

There is a inherent connection between energy and information. They are basically the same thing. Please check on the Internet for " equivalence between information, mass and energy" for the technical details.

Connections do not determine identity. While information may behave like energy in a certain sense does make make it equivalent ontologically. Either way I have searched on google and have found Einstein's matter-energy equivalence, but I haven't found anything that seems to confirm what you're saying.

The fact that one is measured in electrovolt and the other in dimensionless bits, is just a matter of choosing the measurement units correctly. Many books set the speed of light as a dimensionless number, so it is not a al issue.

Totally irrelevant as I dealt with the measurement aspect.

On a side note, there are experiments where a nano machine is powered by bits and we can check the work done with a bit to convert it into the appropriate equivalent in joule and, if you want, grams (by applying e = mc^2). But this obvious, thermodynamical entropy can have a energy/temperature dimension or it can be totally densionless (Boltzmann) even thought they represent the same thing.

I actually found that so-called information-driven experiment, and I have to agree with many of the comments that the experiment is unconvincing and seems to be a classic scientific magazine exaggeration akin to "Craig Venter creates life in a lab", when the reality is a prosthetic DNA in an already living bacterium.

So, if you find the minimal string of bits that decodes without loss the whole work of Shakespeare, you can give it a value in grams. But that was already known. Quantum gravity comes to the same conclusion by analyzing the physical effects of information falling into a black hole (Susskind and co.)

Viole, you really need to distinguish between facts and whimsical theories. Susskind and Hawking have been arguing over what happens to information in black holes for ages, and neither has any empirical evidence. To pick and choose between speculative theories and offer them in a discussion such as this is immensely frustrating, because it requires little effort for you to post irrelevant trivia but it takes effort and time for me to respond to it.

Have I not said that information is measured in bits and that while it's possible in a limited sense to measure information it just doesn't justify that it must therefore be physical? The measurement really only measures information's interaction with the physical, it doesn't not measure the qualitative aspects of information. It is precisely those qualitative features that makes information distinct.

There is indeed a theoretical limitation on the amount of information that can be stored in a certain volume of space. That does not have anything to do with the medium, the density of information has simply an upper inviolable limit. This is, incidentally, why three dimensions matter is discrete. Check the holographic principle for the details.

As I said this is because of the features of the medium, not the features of information. Information is distinct from the medium.

If information is equivalent to energy then you do not need a mind to generate it.

If the moon was made of cheese....

On the other hand, this misterious mind should also have a certain amount of information.

You'll need to explain this.

By the way, it is very easy to see how new information can be generated without a mind. Suppose you communicate by telephone the recepy of a cocktail, it is entirely possible that because of a thunderstorm, the communication contains some errors. If the error is lucky enough, the recipient of the message will prepare a cocktail that is much better than yours and, eventually, will replace the original one because it is so much better. Who is the creator of the information that led to this wonderful new cocktail?

You're joking, right? So if errors produce a better tasting cocktail then the information content has increased? You can't measure the information content of a recipe by how well the recipe tastes. It's entirely possible that losing information (and therefore ingredients) could also result in a better tasting cocktail.

Nonetheless, since the argument about information is an inductive argument, you'll actually need to come up with real world examples. Try going to http://www.randommutation.com/ and see if you can increase the information content of a string using just random errors and without smuggling any mental input into the equation. Let me know how it goes.

[LuftWaffle]

Oops, my mistake. Google " equivalence energy information" without the word "mass" which we already know being equivalent to energy.

Are you referring to this sort of thing, "There are close parallels between the mathematical expressions for the thermodynamic entropy, usually denoted by S, of a physical system in the statistical thermodynamics established by Ludwig Boltzmann and J. Willard Gibbs in the 1870s; and the information-theoretic entropy, usually expressed as H, of Claude Shannon and Ralph Hartley developed in the 1940s." - http://en.wikipedia....ormation_theory

If not, then I'm afraid you'll need to send me link

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

Information is inevitably tied to a physical representation. It can be engraved on stone tablets, denoted by a spin up or down, a charge present or absent, a hole punched in a card, or many other alternative physical phenomena. It is not just an abstract entity; it does not exist except through a physical embodiment. It is, therefore, tied to the laws of physics and the parts available to us in our real physical universe.

How it is that you think that what you present represents a challenge to what Luftwaffle pointed out is beyond me since this was exactly his point with the base-pairs. The phyiscal representation is always present. That's the whole point he was making. Base pairs are the physical representation.

The point you're entirely missing is that the physical representation is meaningless until it is coded and interpreted by some sort of interface which translates the sequencing into abstract instructions. In the case of dna, the physcial presence of base pairs are interpreted as instructions to carry out the function of protene assembly, according to how they're sequenced.

That's the whole point.

If I line up a whole bunch of tables and chairs into a room then I have a mess. If, however, you and I decided to code certain kinds of arrangements of tables and chairs as characters in alphabet and then I order them in a way that communicates a specific message to you that you can translate, and understand the message and carry out the instructions then we no longer just have physical objects but abstract sequences that are interpreted from the physical objects. These messages are totally independent of the tables and chairs themselves, are totally immaterial, and are simply the product and manifestation of an intelligent interface.

The same is true of the cell. The most complex sequencing ever observed is found in the cells of biological organisms and is interpreted by some interface within the cell which responds by carrying out specific and orderly functions according to the coded instructions.

All of the examples you present of physical representation of information are only physical representations of information because they have been coded by an intelligence to communicated predetermined messages.

Since base pairs are assembled into sequences that are interpreted, and the interpretation informs useful functions, then we see that it resembles all of the instances you mention, all of which entirely depend on intelligence to code and decode the physical representation, yeilding information instead of mess.

That's the whole point. It doesn't function without intelligence. It simply couldn't... except if you're an atheist and you need to pretend that God doesn't exist.

[LuftWaffle]

Actually, Internet can only be used as an entry point to serious documentation. My reccomandations are (also listed somewhere but available as separate articles):

Information is Physical (Physics Today, 1991).

The Physical Nature of Information (Physics Letters A, 1996).

Information is a Physical Entity (Physica A, 1999).

Information is Inevitably Physical (In Feynman and Computation, 1999).

A List of article titles do not inform, Viole. What exactly is the evidence that information is physical? If you're not going to make an argument, then I'm not going to do it for you.

it does not exist except through a physical embodiment. It is, therefore, tied to the laws of physics and the parts available to us in our real physical universe.

I would love to see Landau prove that assertion. You do realize that he's making a very bold metaphysical claim here? But what does he base it on? The idea that information affects the physical realm? How does that make information physical? I can understand that it refutes the notion that information isn't real, but it's pretty weak as a proof that information is physical.

By the way, if energy is equivalent to information, then the law of conservation of energy should have an information counterpart, right? I think it would be very hard for you to prove such a thing, and anybody with a harddrive and a magnet or a pencil and eraser could easily refute it.

Www.randommutations.com ?

You are joking, aren't you? Evolution by multiple massive random changes and computer driven natural selection? You were doing fine and now you come with this weird Internet site and the theory of a mind generating information which is, in the best case, not much less speculative than the holographic principle

Not sure what your point is.

I am surprised that the author of this web site is a biologist, this is not at all how biological evolution works.

The topic is the origin of information, not how evolution works. In fact I offered it as a response to your idea that lighting hitting a telephone can improve a cocktail recipe, which you proposed as a way that information can be created naturally.....remember?

C'mon Viole, just one empirical example of information arising without a mind as an ultimate cause will do. Can you provide an example, or are you going to keep trying to derail the thread, with non-arguments and speculations about materialism?

[OldEnglishSheepdog]

The topic is the origin of information, not how evolution works. In fact I offered it as a response to your idea that lighting hitting a telephone can improve a cocktail recipe, which you proposed as a way that information can be created naturally.....remember?

Notice that she doesn't even hazard to suggest that lightning hitting a telephone line could by chance call you up, introduce itself as lighting with the world's best cocktail recipe and provide said recipe before bidding you good day and hanging up - and yet no less would be required and example of information being produced by natural means?

[LuftWaffle]

The topic is the origin of information, not how evolution works. In fact I offered it as a response to your idea that lighting hitting a telephone can improve a cocktail recipe, which you proposed as a way that information can be created naturally.....remember?

Notice that she doesn't even hazard to suggest that lightning hitting a telephone line could by chance call you up, introduce itself as lighting with the world's best cocktail recipe and provide said recipe before bidding you good day and hanging up - and yet no less would be required and example of information being produced by natural means?

Alvin Plantinga made a funny comment once, when he said good arguments can make people dumber.

If you propose a valid argument, with true premises, but your opponent doesn't like the conclusion, then they're forced to reject the premises. So in order to avoid an unwanted conclusion they deny true premises, and by doing so they've become dumber by being presented a good argument.