[ Follow Ups ]
Posted by Dov on November 07, 1999 at 16:07:07:
In Reply to: Is there an attack against the concept of genetic program? posted by Ramellini on November 05, 1999 at 11:58:06:
From a recent correspondence with someone :
DLA : When you supply energy to a system to make plastics how much
information is found to result within the polymer ? Is that polymer capable of
issuing any conceptual instructions or "biomessage" ? Why would we
expect any more conceptual information to be found in biopolymers
when they are formed upon supplying raw energy ? It's true that biopolymers
have a physical matrix with greater _potential_ for retaining specified
aperiodicity. But how would raw energy of any form specify conceptual
instructions or "recipe" into biopolymers ? How would raw energy
conceptualize
a single metabolic pathway, let alone something as information-laden as the
citric acid cycle ?
DH : Communication between us,as between many people, is often hindered due to terminology. Your terms "conceptual information", "raw energy", specify conceptual instructions" and "conceptualize" most probably evoke completely different meanings for you and for me. For me information is data,characteristics, of the order in a matter and/or in a system, that may explain their state and their future. For me a "biopolymer recipe" is akin to "memory", a process that entails a flow of released "raw energy" , energy freed when an impression translated into a chemical pulse finds a matching conductor, which is a networkpath that had already been troddenat least once by identical or very similar package of information. I feel that "conceptual instruction" and "biopolymer recipe", like memory, are processes enabled and driven by a decrease of the energy content of the message, of the impression. Yes, even in more complex systems than the Krebs cycle. And I think that the tremendous capacity of a biosystem for a practically infinite specified aperiodicity, as you very well put it, is THE KEY to the aweful active bio information system.
Dov Henis