Data, Information, and all that....

As near as I can tell, DNAunion is arguing that DNA contains information, while everyone else is arguing it does not. If my count of the protagonists is accurate, then the number on one side has just doubled.Shannon information isn't particularly restrictive. If a system can be envisioned as sending the symbols of a set across a communications channel, then information is being communicated. In the case of DNA this isn't particularly difficult, and in fact there are any number of ways that genetic systems can be envisioned in this way.In Message 192 Peter quoted from a technical paper: This is somewhat ambiguous, but I believe that the meaning of, "compared for sequences of various general types," is a search for patterns generally associated with artificial information, the kind we store on our computers and send across the Internet. That they found nothing of this nature does not lead to the conclusion that DNA doesn't contain information. It only means that the information in DNA does not exhibit the patterns typical in the artificial information we're familiar with. In other words, the symbols of DNA information do not correspond to any encoding system that their algorithms were capable of detecting, which is what is meant by, "present level of sophistication".On the other hand, it appears to me, as it has appeared to most others, that DNAunion's quotes of uses of the term "information" in a biological context do not refer to Shannon information, i.e., are not using the term in an information theoretic context. While the context of the article *is* technical, the topic isn't information theory or even related to information theory, and their use of the term "information" is casual and everyday.I have seen hints at the more familiar issues that discussions with Creationists about information take. Creationists usually argue that information can only be created by intelligence. This is, of course, untrue.--Percy [Delete duplicate title and misspelling. --Percy][This message has been edited by Percy, 03-12-2004]

The Creationist who accepts a natural origin of species but a miraculous origin of life has neither theological nor scientific support. But this species of Creationist can be a comfort since their mere presence acts as counterpoint to those Creationists who assign evolutionists a sinister motive for wanting to keep biogenesis and abiogenesis separate.--Percy [text=wheat][Wordsmithed 1st sentence. --Percy][/text][This message has been edited by Percy, 03-12-2004]

I have to agree that cells are not programmed, if "programmed" in any way implies a sapient entity. But there does seem to be a legitimate analogy to be drawn between DNA at work and computer programs at work.--Percy

I think one can draw many appropriate analogies between computers and DNA, and the one you suggest here has nothing more to recommend it than any other. Consider a Turing machine, the ultimate confusion of program and data. Where one decides to draw the boundary between program and data, while not entirely arbitrary, has few constraints.--Percy

You can flip your interpretation of program and data as easily as that famous optical illusion of the goblets that morph into faces. Consider a microcoded machine. Is the top level program really a program, or is it data interpreted by the microcode? Or is the microcode just data driving a state machine? Is the offset field of a memory access instruction just part of the instruction, or is it data? It isn't quite this simple. A program doesn't perform any operations either. Both program and data sit in memory. Both the program and the data control the operations the machine performs. Where you draw the line between program and data is not unambiguous.One can tighten up the definitions and define program as those elements within memory that can potentially be referenced (in a correctly operating program) by the machine's program counter, but I can write a program that writes program instructions to memory and then transfer control to that memory. Did I write data? Or program?Or I can purposefully place an illegal instruction, say 0, in memory in order to generate an illegal instruction trap. Is the 0 data? Or program?What about jump tables? Are they data or program?To me the question about what parts of genetic processes correspond to which parts of computers is a fluid argument. There are any number of ways in which the analogy can be drawn. The DNA can be considered data or program, any which way you like. I'm all for any analogy with strong explanatory power, but just because one analogy "works" doesn't mean there can't be other analogies that also "work".--Percy