Evolution of complexity/information

Last Fall I put together much of the contents of a book I was going to write which purpose was to DEFINE homology for all use in panbiogeography and ALL literature (cladistics etc) related to it by reviewing Pascal's essay on geometry and thinking about Pensees etc etc thus to actually DEFINE THIS WORD FOR ABSOLUTE use (by connection to the NONexistent claim in set theory of absolute infinity though actual) but THE REASON I had thought this would help EVEN any probalistic evolution work was that I had been lead in the subjetive side of herpetology to have a 3-D antatomical frame from which any physics could be metrically attached in the future of modeling say even with rxn diffusion questions vertebrate color patterns in a computer.You indeed did address the topic of this thread but I will say again that I think for the probabilitic use of relation of cause and correlation IT WOULD BE STILL POSSIBLE to write such a book for biogeography only I now see the need for this only from the evolutionists' desire to have more evolution taught and not by what was not taught in biology about the time the change amount occurs in.I am amlost at the point of claiming actually there IS absoultely something in biology (but I need a better impression of mechanics and not geometry before I reiefy this next into some canonical status)that potential sheets of Maxwell under his own notion of pressure WIHTIN what it was that made him think was a relation of light and e-m but ONLY IN TERMS OF MUTATIONS and not "the parent form" is an acutal expression of an absolute (no more Fisher criticism would be possible if it IS absolute and not just me to be claiming it is..)Sewall Wright Effect on the nano and up scale of Boscovich's DEAD FORCES which according to the last named only result in velocity differences which would afford molecular biology a means to WORK with molecular adapations in addition to that selected by death of whole organisms by a heirarchical selection that would found the entropy-cell death correlation by FORMS of negentropy ASSYMETRICAL intervals by molecuarl embryology of the symmetry. The consequences for Kimura view based on this being true, I have not even begun to speculate the base therefore... This would be an absolute in THEORETICAL BIOLOGY just as absolute as the language I used to come to this truth (if true) has 26 letters. I would not find analogy to language useful for the "evolution" of the information on complexity in life helpful but would remand with Lammerts that geneticaly there is MORE info than is transmitted in this communication of x-ray chageable insults on the soma etc. A new basis for the phenomena of disease would on instance result and that would make it practically infinite abosultely if not absotulty infinte in the praxis which would be enough for all but the theologians as the secular skin of the pyramind would also likely become defined even if I choose not to define "homology" anymore. It is simply a matter of reading and understanding so far. Next to continue will be the visual proof of the same.When you say "buy into" is that becuase you would not vote for a politicain in NEw Jersey or do you mean something other than some garden variety stated "equivocation"? I simply had to change the NEtwork channel between Philly and NYC abeit I saw C-o lake rarely...[This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 05-31-2003]

Shannon's work on data signal processing is expressed
in a manner such that 'data' and 'information' are often
but not always interchangeable.His work (important stuff) is all about how much can we
leave out and still be able to reconstruct the original
data.He calls this core 'information' or the information content
of the message.Like 'txt' is all you really need to send in order to send 'text',
most people who use computers are used to all manner of abbreviated
versions of words (mainly missing vowels) like 'ctrl'.With signals it's about sampling frequencies (needs to be at
least twice the fastest freq. in the signal).In effect Shannon information is about the amount of uncertainty
in a message.When Shannon says 'information' it largely means 'the minimum
amount of data for message reconstruction' ... but the reconsturction
is done by some intelligent agent (or an algorithm that acts
in proxy of one).The information content of the word 'text' is not embodied in
the letter string ... so I suppose 'meaning' is more what information
is about (although meaning implies that something has a
distinct objective meaning whereas information is more subjective
in nature).If you want to look at genomes again ... it's chemically complex
systems (which there may be some definitions of information
or information formalism that are approriate to) that result
in something.It's not strictly speaking a 'this sequence of DNA codes for
blue eyes' kind of relationship ... it's 'this sequence of DNA
produces proteins which then interact with other cells products
in particular development modes that lead to blue pigment in
the iris'.A ball doesn't roll down a hill because it has a code within
it that tells it how to ... there are numerous forces and factors
interacting with the hill and the ball which lead to the ball
rolling down the hill.

I see what you mean about the arbitrary selection of
a reference point .. that makes sense to me so long as,
as you say, it is a relevent one and is used consistently.The problem I have with anti-evo 'information' arguments is that
they fundamentally assume that the genomes of organism are
the same as a blue-print or design spec.That is, something which tells the cell how to grow.That is the sense in which 'information' is used most often
in this context ... a definition much closer to the one I
lean towards than to the more restricted forms used for data
signal processing.Anyone who deals with computers and believes that computers
can handle information should stop and think very hard about
what they beleive information to be.

Pete. the intereseting thing is that I do not asume this desgin print but unlike Lewontin I DO not think that velocity, mass and distance are only analogy biologically. There is a difference here that IS HARD to explicate but it seems that there is only generally the bipolarity of thought you indicated.Lewontin says this because he knows that bioforms are chunkier than physcio-chem but still in biogeography DISTANCE IS the main datatype. Since I have been on the net I have been streesing velocity and soon i will start to write about mass when it comes to Mendelism more by equality than not still there must be some DESIGN of these physical quantities biologically but stocasticism IS NOT ruled out in the HOMOLOGY whatever it is..

But I view those differences to be an emergent property
of the extremely complex chemical interactions within
cells (and between cells), rather than as any 'real'
information/blue-print type construct.In a similar way that 'transportation' is an emergent property
of a collection of wheels, cogs, chains, pedals, and frame
form a bicycle, but the interaction of those components
with an environment create a 'transportation' property.

That's fine, philosophically with me. Richard Boyd ALWAYS talks about 'emergence' and yet I had in writing with his consent to work on DOWNWARD CAUSATION in whatever of this "emerges" which for me was just a word like JD MUrray's who said in Oxford, your area, that I could "SEE" (there) what "developmental" biology I would be doing. I DID NOT WANT TO SEE THIS, for choosing this kind of biology I wanted to 'develop' it like one does a negative and not see it first and then explain it.I do understand this point I never have not. Simon Levin at one point INSISTED that I see Hutchinson @Yale before he would passed on for I did think a while about the notion of NICHE and tricycle sizes produced in manufacturing as expresing the barb relations in mosquito bills but this line of thinking failed even to raise Boyd's "emergent" evolutionary mind a decade latter which was about 2 years ago. Thanks again. and God Bless Scotland yard long.

I appreciate the power of understanding the way that
'emergent properties' are generated, but my objection lies
in the application of the term 'information' to genomes because
this is more likely to obscure such explanation than to facilitate
it.

On this we likely agree. Which all the more indicates to me that some kind of c/e colloboration IS possible to benefit the whole of science. I have never thought otherwise.Likely, we would need an extended dissucsion of the "evolution" of dominance to ferret out any extenuating differences which once informed should still even if insitutionally ejected should not attract third party doctors into involuntary capitulation. For one I have been surprised that not more press has been given to Galton's notion and use of the Ogive curve. It looks to me prima facie to be at least an a priori form to make a better statistical refinement of the data coming out of genomics into but obviously an empirical base of the resultant would be preferred not matter what output is pretext to invent the device of data collection of the collections already biologically collected.

I think we do.I read recently a comment on understanding genomes ... along
the lines that given a DNA sequence one could produce the
right set of amino-acids ... but reconstructing the actual protein
from that would not be trivial due to working out the folds.I'm not a biochemist, but this is in line with my way of thinking.DNA is not a blue-print in an information sense ... it provides
a kind of catalyst for the necessary chemical reactions that lead to
living things.Evolution of dominance may be an interesting topic to discuss in
another thread (if not already there).Not sure how you would apply an Ogive curve (in Sir Francis' sense)
to genomic data though.

I dont know if any different view (Dawkins? etc ??) can be extracted from the difference between the similiarity of our agreement to agree as I agree I have always thought that "folds"=issue of denaturation was exiciting and now that Sheraga from Cornell is overseeing the Bufflao Bioinformatics Divsion that Clinton pumped we can hope indeed that benefits instead of Gould's claim to head hunter natural selection as having been sufficient for encompassing the INFORMATION in biochange that is not the DNA itself as we said and I DID at first blush think, but I have expanded this notion from Richard Boyd sugggesting I *actually* (as opposed to debating) think of downward causation to which folding is not the only exemplar of the non-informatic sense or lack of chemistry to be able to be carrier of cross generational information...so not being a biochemist either I can only say at this place we agree. That was the good news.The application and hence CHOICE of what to do with genomic data in order to get a better coordination before some Fisher/Fordite changes the employment of natural selection as to the entrenched organicist however is really a bit arbitary. I was only suggesting it because it occured in the history of biometry and not in the history of natural philosphy per say but in order to show to the issue of regulation I would indeed likely have to START to discuss dominance (which i , BSM have not on the web really done much with..) in the context of my Grandfather's PhD. in the effect of temperature on wing length in vestigial, while elucidating some of the connections that Gould may have thought destablizing the homeostasis of stablizing selection by critcizing the Russian contribution in morphogeny in spite of the Frech advance...and AT THE SAME TIME indicating some other (I know not what topologically)...oops I started to think in molecular terms...There may be constructive uses of DNA in the sense of it as a blueprint IN THE LANGUAGE of biology but that indeed IS NOT what you said. Once again. We do agree to some generational sense on this. Thanks again it is refreshing to finally start to actually talk about biology on the net instead of being only "freinds" to Tom, Dick, Harry and the three Stoges.

No problem ... unfortunately agreement is a conversation
stumper

In another thread HangDawg made this statment.To start with we would need your definition of both information and complexity. Once we have that we can see if it can increase or not.You should understand that evolution does not operate with random chance alone of course.

Well, I have hundreds of thousands of different structures and types of cells that form my body. A bacterium has only one cell. If a bacterium could spontaneously obtain the genetic material to become a tri-celled organism with new physical features and new functions and overall increase in ability to survive, this would indicate an increase in complexity and information.

Only if you assume that the complexity of a genotype is equivalent to the complexity of a phenotype.It seems to me that all genotypes are of equal complexity; given a certain genetic sequence there's no way to determine if it's the genes for one enzyme or a multi-cellular body plan. All genetic sequences would appear to be of equal complexity, including the junk stuff.

Maybe I am assuming something wrong here. I am assuming that information and complexity are things that can have a number calculated. Since you say "increase" I get "more" from that. To me this means a numeric value. I want to know how that is defined or calculated so I can see if one bacterium has the same as, more than or less than another bacterium.If these are not quantities of some kind then how can we talk of more or less of them? Please define your terms then we can continue the discussion.This message has been edited by NosyNed, 07-09-2004 09:31 PM