Autocatakinesis, Evolution, and the Law of Maximum Entropy Production

Advances in Human Ecology, Vol. 6 ^ | 1997 | Rod Swenson

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

The simple fact is that he got the entropy issue wrong. His argument is unphysical.

His argument is indeed "unphysical" - that is precisely the point. You are debating an "unphysical" argument using physical entropy which argument itself is evidence of the "incommensurability" he bemoans.

As I tried to explain in post 62, there is more than one kind of entropy. Shannon entropy for instance decreases (reduction of uncertainty) with successful communication in biological systems.

This, information theory, is one segment of the "unphysical" considerations which complete the whole picture in an evolution of one.

For more on Shannon entropy v physical entropy in "information theory and molecular biology": Theory of Molecular Machines. II. Energy Dissipation

[cornelis]

I really am looking for a "Theory of Everything" (ToE);

You don't say you're a monist like general_re?

[orionblamblam]

> gene sequences do not just form from molecules without the information to do so.

What leads you to this blinding insight, given that amino acids "just form from molecules", and proteins "just form from molecules?"

> Evolution and abiogenesis do not account for where this information comes from.

Actually, evolution explains it just fine.

[orionblamblam]

> The theory of evolution itself does not ask or answer the question "what is life?".

Nor does the theory of relativity ask or answer the question "what is light?".

> I very strongly agree with Swenson that more than physical processes are necessary to explain the emergence and evolution of the biosphere

Sadly for you and Swenson, lab experiments have shown that basic physical processes are quite up to the task. No magic needed.


> If you have an explanation for any of the above which is by physical processes alone...

Yes. As to "information:" It's stunningly obvious, and I'm always amazed that people choose to ignore the obvious physical nature of it. A very short gene sequences adds another term, via replication error or whatever; the mere addition of another gene is more information, just as adding one letter at random to a word is more information. Whether that information is useful or not is something the environment will determine, based on its effects on the gene sequence/organism as a whole. If it's a net positive, it stays. If a negative, it dies. Just that simple. Increased genes = increased information.

As to the rest, I fail to see why you need to resort to magic to explain 'em.

[Alamo-Girl]

Er, if I may...

JohnnyM Evolution and abiogenesis do not account for where this information comes from.

you: Actually, evolution explains it just fine.

Information is "the reduction of uncertainty in the receiver or molecular machine in going from a before state to an after state". This is based on Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communications

How does the theory of evolution - which does not even address abiogenesis much less information theory - explain the emergence of information (successful communication, not the message)?

[betty boop]

You don't say you're a monist like general_re?

Ultimately it seems to me that dualism refers to a complementarity that ultimately resolves in Unity. Somehow or other, the Universe is the eikon of that Unity. (There are religious implications here.)

At least that's where my thinking is tending these days. Does this make me a monist or a dualist?

[RightWhale]

Boltzmann’s view of the second law of thermodynamics as a law of disorder

Poor Boltzmann, lost out to ultra-empiricist Mach. Lost everything.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply! But, er, nobody is resorting to magic to explain the "unphysical" aspects of life v non-life/death in nature.

me: I very strongly agree with Swenson that more than physical processes are necessary to explain the emergence and evolution of the biosphere

you: Sadly for you and Swenson, lab experiments have shown that basic physical processes are quite up to the task. No magic needed.

If there are lab experiments to explain the emergence and evolution of information, autonomy, semiosis, complexity and intelligence - then by all means, please list them here! There are a lot of mathematicians and physicists wasting their time if the answer has been discovered in the lab.

Yes. As to "information:" It's stunningly obvious, and I'm always amazed that people choose to ignore the obvious physical nature of it. A very short gene sequences adds another term, via replication error or whatever; the mere addition of another gene is more information, just as adding one letter at random to a word is more information. Whether that information is useful or not is something the environment will determine, based on its effects on the gene sequence/organism as a whole. If it's a net positive, it stays. If a negative, it dies. Just that simple. Increased genes = increased information.

Information is not the message (DNA/RNA) but the successful communication of it. More specifically, information is defined as "the reduction of uncertainty in the receiver or molecular machine in going from a before state to an after state".

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your great posts!

At least that's where my thinking is tending these days. Does this make me a monist or a dualist?

Since I think the same way you do, I'm curious about the label too.

[orionblamblam]

> How does the theory of evolution - which does not even address abiogenesis much less information theory - explain the emergence of information (successful communication, not the message)?


Read my previous post. Evolution explains it just fine.

[JohnnyM]

because in order for a gene sequences to form a single strand of DNA it must constructed in a certain order. These amino acids and proteins have no way of knowing (information) what that order should be.

JM

[cornelis]

Perhaps general_re can answer that better than I. He, too, thinks in a similar way: your "complementarity that ultimately resolves" is his "most scientists tend towards the reductionist - psychology is biology, biology is chemistry, chemistry is in turn ultimately physics - I'm having trouble seeing said incommensurability as much more than a convenient strawman"

[general_re]

I find your lack of faith most...disturbing. </darthvader>

[orionblamblam]

> If there are lab experiments to explain the emergence and evolution of information

Look up the Miller experiments, which demonstrated the production of amino acids from much simpler chemicals, and the follow-up experiemnts by Fox which demonstrated simple physical principles turning those amino acids into proteinoid-based protolife indistinguishable for the oldest microfossils.

> Information is not the message (DNA/RNA)

ERRRR. DNA is self-replicating. DNA is thus both message and messenger.

> autonomy, semiosis, complexity and intelligence

You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

[sauropod]

read later

[orionblamblam]

> These amino acids and proteins have no way of knowing (information) what that order should be.

True enough. Those gene sequences that get it randomly wrong die. Those that get it randomly right live. Just that simple, no magic or "intent" required.

[cornelis]

Yes, well, there's always hope for a clown when his socks are down. </c3po>

[JohnnyM]

To believe a structure as complex as DNA can be formed randomly from amino acids and proteins without the guidance of any intelligence is amazing faith. Each DNA strand is made up of thousands of genes, with each gene being composed of thousands of base pairs (pairs of amino acids). In order for a strand of DNA to be viable all of this has to be ordered exactly right. This simply is impossible to be done randomly.

JM

[JohnnyM]

To believe a structure as complex as DNA can be formed randomly from amino acids and proteins without the guidance of any intelligence is amazing faith. Each DNA strand is made up of thousands of genes, with each gene being composed of thousands of base pairs (pairs of amino acids). In order for a strand of DNA to be viable all of this has to be ordered exactly right. This simply is impossible to be done randomly.

JM

[orionblamblam]

> To believe a structure as complex as DNA can be formed randomly from amino acids and proteins without the guidance of any intelligence is amazing faith.

Hardly. Does it stagger your imagination to understand how a DNA gene five amino acids long could form? If five units, adding a sixth is easy. And a seventh. And an eighth. Soon enough, given billions of years, it is quite easy to see how DNA as long as you want can evolve.

> In order for a strand of DNA to be viable all of this has to be ordered exactly right. This simply is impossible to be done randomly.

WRONG. It is quite possible. In fact... you can see the evidence of it all around you. Besides... it all doesn't ahve to be "exactly right." there is quite a volume of "junk" genes in the DNA of every sizable critter, including you.