[_ Old Earth _] The Role of information

[brother Paul]

Just an opinion here but would love to hear some perspectives...

As we learn more and more it will turn out that we will come to realize through science that it is information fuels the Universe. This is all NOT the result of chance whatsoever. Information directs the formation of all structure and form and directs and commands all innate function. Existence as we know it is not the cause of information, but the effect of it. Information is a predetermined set of parameters that thingness (matter and energy) follows, resulting in purposed subsequence.

Biologist George Williams (see Natural Selection: Domains, Levels, and Challenge, 1992)begins the realization of this within biological processes when he says “Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize that they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of information and that of matter.

He also says in an interview later that...

These two domains will never be brought together in any kind of the sense usually implied by the term "reductionism." You can speak of galaxies and particles of dust in the same terms, because they both have mass and charge and length and width. You can't do that with information and matter. Information doesn't have mass or charge or length in millimeters. Likewise, matter doesn't have bytes. You can't measure so much gold in so many bytes. It doesn't have redundancy, or fidelity, or any of the other descriptors we apply to information. This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and information two separate domains of existence, which have to be discussed separately, in their own terms.

The gene is a package of information, not an object. The pattern of base pairs in a DNA molecule specifies the gene. But the DNA molecule is the medium, it's not the message. Maintaining this distinction between the medium and the message is absolutely indispensable to clarity of thought about evolution.

In biology, when you're talking about things like genes and genotypes and gene pools, you're talking about information, not physical objective reality. They're patterns.

In cultural evolution, obviously, the idea of a coffee cup or a table is something that persists. The coffee cups and tables don't persist, they recur as a result of the persistence of the information that tells people how to make coffee cups and tables. It's the same way in biology: hands and feet and noses and so on don't persist, they recur as a result of genetic instructions for making hands and feet and noses. It's the information that lasts and evolves. Obviously, it's because of the physical manifestations of the information that we know about the information.”

Now though Williams in this presentation

http://edge.org/conversation/chapter-1-quota-package-of-information-quot

does not necessarily agree with my perspective I do believe this is the indication of direction in his thought

He sees a sort of error inherent in emphasizing the ”replication, rather than of proliferation of information.”

Information is neither Mass/Energy nor the result of Mass/Energy….IMHO Mass/Energy either follow information, or they came into existence together.

Again IMO, information governs the forms and functions of Mass/Energy. Biological “systems” deal with the recording, preservation, transmission, and use of information in performing pre-purposed tasks necessary to their perpetuation and purpose. Their forms, forces, functions and all their various inter-dependencies result FROM the information/instruction inherent in their formation. Information can take control over and even oppose nature’s entropy (at least for a while).

IMO for order to arise from chaos information must be an extant probability. Information as a kind of event that affects the state of any dynamic system that can interpret the information makes us rethink the concepts of Universe, the Solar system, and even the cell. The universe is (as well as the living cell) because of information. There is information behind it all…it is the cause that determines the effect and the effect is never greater than the cause. Such complex systemized determinative information does not just “poof” into existence, it came from a source, a determining source (and it is neither mass or energy).

According to Williams and others you can explore The Information by James Gleick (Pantheon 2011); Programming the Universe by Seth Lloyd (Vintage 2007); Decoding the Universe by Charles Seife (Penguin 2007); Decoding Reality by Vlatko Vedral (Oxford 2010); and Information and the Nature of Reality, a collection of essays edited by Paul Davies (Cambridge 2010) if you want different views on this concept!

What is information?
Where did it came from?
Does it instruct form and function or come from it?
Can inanimate matter develop highly complex information based instructional systems from coincidence over time?

There are a lot of questions even physicists are asking that are pointing us to a new frontier as far as theory is concerned. There certainly is enough evidence for the role and importance of information...

What are your thoughts…or perhaps you have never considered it?

 

[brother Paul]

No takers? Hmmm! Maybe I am onto something here...

 

[Barbarian]

George's argument would be greatly improved if he was able to show some actual cases. As you probably know, information theory was first applied to biology by Claude Shannon (whose theory remains the most useful and accepted way of understanding information) and it is a mainstay of population genetics and evolutionary theory.

There is information behind it all…it is the cause that determines the effect and the effect is never greater than the cause.

Chaos theory and subsequent experimental investigation has definitively shown that to be a false assumption. Would you like to see why?

Tiny changes in initial state in many chaotic systems (which are numerous in nature) will have profound affects in output.

Let's test George's assumption. Suppose a population of organisms has two alleles for a particular gene locus. Suppose neither has a selective advantage over the other and they each have a frequency of 0.5. Then a mutation introduces a new allele, and it eventually increases in the population until the frequency is about 0.33 for each one of them. Show us the difference in information. Show your calculations, if you need them to find the answer.

 

[brother Paul]

Let's test George's assumption. Suppose a population of organisms has two alleles for a particular gene locus. Suppose neither has a selective advantage over the other and they each have a frequency of 0.5. Then a mutation introduces a new allele, and it eventually increases in the population until the frequency is about 0.33 for each one of them. Show us the difference in information. Show your calculations, if you need them to find the answer.

Before anyone would venture into such a hypothetical supposition based adventure, can't you see how much information this already presupposes? If it were a factual example (which I do not doubt shows that information and changes to information breed new information...duh!) then just the fact of the presence, importance, selectivity, etc., of the requirement of a system of alleles implicates volumes of required pre-existing information...therefore I do not see how proving "difference" in information or the increase or alteration of pre-existing information challenges or questions Georges premises or conclusions?!?

There is a definite plan to the way this system you have described works (having a predictable effect, at least mathematically, biologically it could be beneficial or disastrous), and it works the same in all animal inheritance, so as far as I can see that is just more evidence, not a contradiction....in The Pony Fish's Glow: And Other Clues To Plan And Purpose In Nature (1998) he realized that "Plan has design implicit to its enactment or production…"! How can anyone deny the logic of this statement? Remember this well recognized Biologist is not an OEC or a Theistic Evolutionist...but his mind is definitely beginning to see with different eyes (not literally)...

 

[Barbarian]

Barbarian suggests:
Let's test George's assumption. Suppose a population of organisms has two alleles for a particular gene locus. Suppose neither has a selective advantage over the other and they each have a frequency of 0.5. Then a mutation introduces a new allele, and it eventually increases in the population until the frequency is about 0.33 for each one of them. Show us the difference in information. Show your calculations, if you need them to find the answer.

Before anyone would venture into such a hypothetical supposition based adventure,

If your belief requires that the real world (the scenario I've shown you is commonly observed to happen) be considered a "hypothetical supposition", isn't that a clue about the nature of that belief?

can't you see how much information this already presupposes?

The existing information is simple to find. All you have to do is find the existing information for 2 alleles, each one-half of the total genome.

There is a specific information level with such a set of alleles. Calculate that, and then calculate the difference with three of them. I had them all be equally numerous to make the math easier for you, but feel free to change the frequencies; the result will show he same thing.

There is a definite plan to the way this system you have described works (having a predictable effect, at least mathematically, biologically it could be beneficial or disastrous), and it works the same in all animal inheritance, so as far as I can see that is just more evidence, not a contradiction....

Just show us how much information there was at first, and then how much after the change. Why are you being evasive?

Do you know how information is calculated in biology? It's the same way it is in other information sciences. Give it a try, and let me know. If you don't want to do it, I'll do it for you, and post the results.

 

[Barbarian]

Well, then...

Two alleles, each 50% of the population means that the information, using the Shannon equation:

Is -2 X (log(0.5) (0.5)) or about 0.30

Now if we put in a third allele by mutation and it increases to each about 0.33, then:

-3 X (log(0.33)(0.33)) or about 0.48

Which explains why any mutation in a population increases information in that population. From where did the increase in information come? From a random mutation. Information is a function of the universe God created, and it spontaneously appears as He intended.

 

[brother Paul]

Barbarian…first let me apologize. My computer crashed and had to get someone in to fix it.

Let me say though that I think the allele point was an attempt to derail the OP supposition (and yes I said supposition because it was a question to consider). The example of the Alleles does not really fit (IMO). That is why I did not respond in the way you asked. Working out the probabilities of the outcome of such differences in inherited chromosomes is irrelevant because the system which codes for (all ready full of specific information) the production of them, is already highly organized and packed with purpose bearing out its intent in what is produced.


Yes of course these changes in information can arise from mutation (but I never said information does not or cannot be changed) so surely this does not address the OPs supposition. As for Williams I asked we look at the language and where these insights are bringing us (that information either preceded form and function or arises simultaneously). In the case of alleles which follow predetermined INFORMATION, a mutation or combination (such as in the case of incomplete dominance) can and does alter the original intent or purpose adding new or new combinations of extant or possible information that results. I do not doubt that for a minute.


But is there information first which establishes or creates a pattern for Chromosomal inheritance? Yes of course there is. Does or can inanimate matter generate information without an urging from an outside force acting on it? Or do it on its own for no reason? There are reasons for mutations even if we do understand all of them. Something caused them. If you say the laws of chemistry and physics, are not laws information governing these processes, and in fact making them possible in the first place? Of course they are! And I think your close in the last post shows you know this (or at least believe it).


So no I won’t go away from the questions the OP asks to some information created secondary or third level removed because it is not relative. An allele (as you know) is an alternative form of gene located in a specific position on a specific chromosome (and mutation can effect this just as rhetoric can ve used to effect the meaning or intent of language) and it is the DNA codes (an incredibly information packed development following the same pattern in all species) that determine the traits that can or will be passed down.


Even the process by which they get passed down and new traits are delivered and others reinforced are all predetermined following a specific predetermined pattern and method of transmission. The pattern and process may be different in prokaryotes and eukaryotes but there is purpose and intent, and a specific plan is carried out that allows species to thrive, or if mutated can kill off individual lines or cause variation to develop. As far as I can see, all this probability with alleles just reinforces the idea of the whole thing being information based and not “form” based (and in the case of alleles the information encoded determines the form and function).

Paul

 

[Barbarian]

Let me say though that I think the allele point was an attempt to derail the OP supposition (and yes I said supposition because it was a question to consider). The example of the Alleles does not really fit (IMO).

The OP was about information. I just showed you how it works in biological systems.

That is why I did not respond in the way you asked.

Few people know what "information" is, and fewer know how to calculate it in any given situation. But as you see, information arises spontaneously in populations as a result of mutation.

Working out the probabilities of the outcome of such differences in inherited chromosomes is irrelevant

Probabilities weren't part of the question. All I did was show you how information arises in such populations. If you're acknowledging that God created the universe in such a way that living things and information happen naturally, then you've got it right.

But is there information first which establishes or creates a pattern for Chromosomal inheritance? Yes of course there is.

Sounds interesting. Show me the numbers.

Does or can inanimate matter generate information without an urging from an outside force acting on it?

You mean like gravity, or tides? I don't think that matter can do anything at all without forces acting on it. The point is that it doesn't take intelligent intervention to produce new information in this world. If you want to refer to God's creation of the universe to make it act this way, you've got a point, of course.

Or do it on its own for no reason?

All non-quantum events are deterministic. I don't see the issue here.

There are reasons for mutations even if we do understand all of them.

Radioactive decay is probabalistic. So a quanta of ionizing radiation can cause a mutation, which would then not be deterministic. Unless you can explain quantum mechanics as deterministic. I'd be open to looking at the numbers, if you want to show us. Bottom line?

In this universe, information arises spontaneously by natural processes. And yes, God made it so.

 

[brother Paul]

Let me say though that I think the allele point was an attempt to derail the OP supposition (and yes I said supposition because it was a question to consider). The example of the Alleles does not really fit (IMO). The OP was about information. I just showed you how it works in biological systems.

Oops! So you did, I apologize...I took what you were saying another way...you were clearly only showing one of the ways for the mathematical view of "Information" as it plays out in biological systems...my bad...

As for what I meant by information, say for example I envision a work table (that imagination is a form of information right there) and then define all the parameters of the table in my mind (purpose, structure, wood stock, size, tools I would need, shape, etc.), the attachments, draws, pegs to hang things on, etc., all are designed and built into it to fit its purpose, and then finding or making those things I will use, I finally construct it, all the time having a predetermined form, function, and purpose, which it fulfills once it is brought into existence.

I guess for me Information (as I perceived it) is not merely limited to the mathematical or scientific definitions. In general, it is any knowledge expressed, communicated, or received concerning any particular fact, thing, circumstance, etc.! Information is therefore something that dictates or defines as well as something that can be derived or determined. I saw in Williams work a language bringing his biological understanding into the realm of design. Implying there is plan and purpose, for example, steps beyond the "materialist" perspective.

Few people know what "information" is, and fewer know how to calculate it in any given situation. But as you see, information arises spontaneously in populations as a result of mutation.

I would see a difference or change to the already extant intended information but it is new....then again, I would never call stemming from an already information packed system that has a predetermined function/plan "spontaneous generation"...

But is there information first which establishes or creates a pattern for Chromosomal inheritance? Yes of course there is.
Sounds interesting. Show me the numbers.

Numbers are irrelevant....that's what I mean by an attempt to divert or derail...that fact is that biological system show a pattern a plan for Chromosomal Inheritance...we ourselves ARE a result of it...

 

[brother Paul]

All biological systems demonstrate plan and purpose both in their being and in how they function. A plan is typically a list of processes foreseen, that if taken using timing and resources, intends to achieve some objective. It can also be a predetermined strategy or any set of intended actions through which one achieves their goal. Purpose is an objective toward which one strives, or for which something is devised or exists. A planned purpose precludes intent. Inanimate matter has no inherent ability to intend or plan such purpose. Do you agree that "Inanimate matter has no inherent ability to intend or plan such purpose?"

 

[Barbarian]

Here, it seems, you're confusing the hammer with the Carpenter.

 

[Paloma]

Let's test George's assumption. Suppose a population of organisms has two alleles for a particular gene locus. Suppose neither has a selective advantage over the other and they each have a frequency of 0.5. Then a mutation introduces a new allele, and it eventually increases in the population until the frequency is about 0.33 for each one of them. Show us the difference in information. Show your calculations, if you need them to find the answer.

There's a joke.

Mankind finally had enough of God and his rules and decided to tell him to buzz off with a contest to see who was best. (now that mankind had developed the ability to create)
God said "Oh really?"
Man said, "Let us have a contest to see who can make the most men from this dirt."
God said, "Oh really ?"
Man said "Yes, we will show you how easy it's done"
God said, "OK. Go get your own dirt."