Evolution of complexity/information

Hi, almost forgot the existence of this kind of discussion. Biologists that are unwillingly to accept the concept of 'information' or 'complexity' I would like to adress 'complexity'.Complexity isn’t
Complexity isn't equal to:

• size: a chest of nails isn't complex (the parts aren't interrelated)
• ignorance: too complex to understand isn't a measure for complexity
• minimum description size: kolmogorov; compression size is more a measure for the amount of information; a greater compressibility would make an expression rather more than less complex!
• variety: not sufficient: music can contain all possible variations of a set of nodes, but hasn't to be considered as complex

Definition
I found nevertheless a very nice definition:
Complexity is the combination of distinction (variety) and connection (dependency) in spatial, temporal and scale dimensions.
Evolutionary variation produces spatial differentation of systems, and selection on the basis of (relative) fitness, which produces structural integration by creating more and stronger linkages between different systems.Why no definition?
That biologists doesn’t want to have the term ‘information’ or ‘complexity’ used, has to do with the abomination for the idea of human as ‘on top of the piramide of complexity’. They

• want to see human as nothing special, animal among animals (mainly based only on the genome size)
• decrease the need for a god as nessecary to guide this hypothetical increase of complexity (what isn’t appropriate if you think randomness and selection suffice)
• haven’t small virtual evolutionary systems to test definitions and see complexity arise (but cybernetics do)

If you do not agree with this, please explain why you abhor the concept of 'complexity' or 'increasing complexity'.Source: Bruce Edmonds, Francis Heylighen Violet book of ‘Einstein meets Magritte’

You're proving my point, thinking that these things matter. They don't!!!The existence of 'complexity' and 'increase of complexity' is something you can discuss objectively. That's fine! So, would you mind to tell me how the complexity in this systems was measured?! (You said that complex systems were produced!)

I think almost everybody would agree with this. I know you want to quantify and not only qualify. But I don't think it will do the evolution thing any good when saying that it can not account for an increase of 'information' or 'complexity', because everybody (with gut feelings) thinks that this will be necessary to account for not being uni-cellular anymore.

I tried to discover why so many biologists don't want to talk about 'complexity', 'increasing complexity' or even 'information'. Therefore I writed down three assumptions. It seems that several were quite correct in your particular case. I post it because it illustrates for others why definitions of 'information' or 'complexity' are not good enough for some persons on this forum. So, that's a binary definition of complexity? If there is any component that can be subtracted then it's complex, and else it isn't?By the way, the definition seems a little bit odd to me for to reasons:

• it's sometimes possible to perform another function when subtracting a component
• maybe it's necessary to add first a component before subtracting others (tower of Hanoi idea)

So, I would like it if you can define complexity for this rather simple 'complex' systems.

How to convince someone
What would help to convince somebody of the power of the evolution process in increasing complexity, are papers like that of Tom Schneider here. He's using Shannon's measure of information to observe information gain in artificial proteins.
Someone wouldn't be convinced if evos keep saying that 'information' and 'complexity' are to difficult to define.{doesn't need reply}

No, I wouldn't suggest that every tiny step is increasing complexity. A very weak definition of complexity, such as the size of genome, would be sufficient to explain an increase in the maximum complexity of all species under evolution.I'm talking about maximum complexity (no average). Because: do we have to take into account amoebes, stones, interstellar space? A world with telepathic amoebes I consider as more complex than a world with ordinary amoebes, because the greater amount of interdependencies. But we're talking about biological analytic complexity isn't it?Quote [Bruce Edmonds]: "It seems almost certain that at some time in the past there were only organisms of (presumably) small biological analytic complexity while now there are complex beings which are difficult to understand (us)."

Why don't you take stones into account too? Then the few (simple) life forms will sink into nothingness in calculating an average complexity. Considering maximum complexity would be more interesting.

I just had to say, it's a strawmen.

No! It's the quote of NosyNed. He takes all the individual organisms to calculate an average complexity and states that it didn't increase. It's a strawmen, 'average complexity' is an useless quantity. Let's say it like this: "In any case, depending on how you define it, earth is still, on average, not much more complex than it was 3 mld years ago. Almost all non-living, complex structures are simpler than bacteria. Almost all the mass of complex structures is in very simple complex (non-living) forms. And by "almost all" I mean darn near ALL."You see, the 'average complexity' depends heavily on the denominator: all vertibrates? all living things? all existing complex forms? all material forms?I think we all know this. And try to find an absolute measure for complexity. But didn't succeed.

Hi Hangdawg13, I've been in your position before. See the thread Evolution and complexity for example.I got pretty convinced by this article (Human specific loss of olfactory genes), regarding human evolution. On the second page you'll see a table with mutations in olfactory receptor genes for human, chimp, gorilla, orang and rhesus. You'll see that a mutation is 'preserved' according evolution theory. When there is a mutation before human and chimp seperated, it's in both their genomes. If you encounter the same mutation in gorilla and human than it's in chimp too! Anyway the chance that the same mutation will occur in the same way parallel in different species is IMHO nearly zero.Edit: Changed linkThis message has been edited by Saviourmachine, 07-20-2004 06:13 PM

Men isn't evolved from dinosaur, nor a cat from a tree. There are no evolution processes involved between different branches of the evolutionary tree. The topic is: "Evolution of complexity/information".