ok...what distinguishes the two? The analogy seems quite strong to me: from one point of view, DNA is just a more complex form of crystal, with a couple of crystal associates, that, when working together, seed self-copies. How is this different in kind from a salt crystal seed providing a surface for recursive crystal growth?
I don't know that it is different, dohn. Are you suggesting that DNA and DNA alone is the source of information in self-organizing (living) systems? We were recently pondering that one on the "Monism" thread. But the crickets are really chirping over there, these days. Thanks for writing!
I think you both have the salty description incorrect.
A crystal is a low-information state, low entropy. It doesn't take much to describe a crystal, the lattice descriptor, the origin, and how much salt. One can even tell exactly how many flaws a crystal will have if given the temperature.
A suspension is very complex, high-information, high-entropy state. One must (generally) supply heat to bring a crystal into a suspension; and remove heat to crystallize a suspension.
The more random, the higher the entropy, and the more information needed for description.
