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I'm not sure I understand the question. Functional genes are those genes that continue to translate proteins that fulfill a need in the organism. I've never heard them expressed as extropy, but since extropy is the opposite of entropy, perhaps they could be if we don't take it too far.
I'm not asking about extropy, since the concept isn't as complete as entropy. From your previous posts, you were trying to show that as more functional genes lost there functions, the entropy went up, in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics. You were trying to equate loss of information with entropy, isn't this correct?
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Hmmm....I'm getting rather suspicious that you are trying to set me up with something or another, Justin. What do you think would happen entropically if suddenly every protein in an organism no longer worked?
Yes, the organism wouldn't function. I'm not arguing that. I'm using your equations to show an absurdity, and therefore your calculation must be invalid. I know what would happen, but according to your equations the entropy would decrease, as I showed in my previous post.
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No, you keep saying this but I certainly never have. I know exactly what you are attempting here and I'm enjoying see you set it up.
The entropy increases and the further we get to mutational meltdown, it begins to increase even more, arithmetically. The population then goes extinct. Remember the graph I posted?
I know, I saw the graph. But that is besides the point. We are talking about the information in the genome, and what it tends to do. You say it tends to decrease as more deleterious mutations arise, and the entropy increases. This is in accordance to the second law of thermodynamics.
What I am trying to show you, along with other posters using the coin analogy, is that the second law of thermodynamics doesn't apply to information theory. There is a disconnect.
I am using
your equations to do this calcuation, not mine. According to
your equation, as I increase the deleterious mutations past a certain point, the entropy actually decreases. I know this isn't what you are trying to say happens, so I dont' think the equations, or your calculation, are useful in this scenerio.
According to your equations, if I have a fully functional genome, use PCR to amplify it and introduce random point mutations every generation, take a sample, PCR it again, repeat; the information would decrease and the entropy would go up. This is what you want to say happens, correct?
But you can start the other way to, and according to your equations, if I start with a genome full of deleterious mutations and manually replicate them and introduce random point mutations, information would increase.
I know
you are not trying to say this, but the equations you used to calculate the entropy do say this. I showed it in my previous post. I think this calls into the question previous calculation, and calls into question the equating of Shannon entropy and thermodynamic entropy.
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Additionally, You have completely left the second law of thermodynamics at this point and we are no longer on the same subject. The second law dictates that with spontaneous events, entropy will tend to increase. There is nothing spontaneous about your purposeful interference in the system by adding energy in the form of your actions (work) into it.
Not really. I'm would merely be taking the place of the replication machinery of the cell. So I would be adding no more energy than the cell would itself. I'm wouldn't be introducing the information, just replicating it and introducing random point mutations (via UV radiation or some mutagens), just as happens in nature.
You are saying the entropy tends to increase in such a system. Well, if I start with every gene mutated deleteriously, the only way for entropy to increase, according to your equations, is for some of them to become functional again.
To summarize, according to your equations, if I have a bunch of deleteriously mutated genes, I have a low entropy compared to a genome that have half there genes mutated deleteriously and half of them functional. Don't you see a problem with this?
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Water heaters don't come to equilibrium either if we supply them a source of energy with intelligence in the form of a thermostat to reheat the water every time it starts cooling off.
Again, an organism isn't a closed system either. All I would be doing is taking the place of the replication machinery to ensure replication occurs. The intelligence is not introducing information into the system, merely acting as the replication machinery. According to your equations, if I introduce random, spontaneous, mutations throughout a genome that has every gene deleteriously mutated, and entropy must increase, then half will become functional.
Your calcuations assumed a far from equilibrium state in the opposite direction, I'm just assuming a far from equilibrium state in the opposite direction and seeing were your equations take us.
I'll address the rest of the post later.
This message has been edited by JustinC, 05-07-2005 06:27 PM
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