luvluv

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see the surfer and the wave analogy as being compatible with what is happening in DNA.

As you say michael, the information is interpreted in the case of the wave by a surfer, presumably a being with intelligence. The difference, I would guess, is that the DNA has to be "interpreted" by unintelligent molecules? In other words the molecules have to "read" the information, understand it, and then build other molecules (or whatever) according to it's dictates. So while it is clear in the surfer analogy that the surfer interprets the waves because of his mind, it is unclear on what basis these molecules (or proteins or whatever) interpret data.

Also, the analogy of the photon... A photon may indeed contain information, but is there an inanimate object that must act upon this information?

Perhaps this is all explicable through laws of chemistry. If so, excuse my ignorance.

[ March 10, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

Axiom of Choice

Thanks for the welcome Scigirl. I hope I'll be able to contribute something useful around here.

Luvluv, it would seem to me that chemistry does the `interpreting' of the DNA, though in my opinion this is a bad term, since it has to connotation of intelligence. A better way of putting it would be that the DNA and RNA cause specific interactions in their surroundings, causing proteins to be built (the simplified explanations I've seen present this as something like a one dimensional jigsaw puzzle being put together). At no time does anything in the cell say: "Oh look, AGGTTAAAC, better react this way."

Of course, biology and chemistry are not my strong suits, physics prefers to stick with simple atoms, mostly because those systems have exact solutions. Others here could probably address this better (Your cue, Scigirl?)

As to the photon, yes, the information carried by the photon can effect inanimate objects. A photon passing through a cloud of atoms carries information about its frequency (and thus its energy), polarization, and direction of propagation, all of which cause the electron clouds of those atoms to oscillate in a particular way. Lest you think this is a phenomenia only seen in labs by guys in white coats with sophisticated apperatus, what I'm talking about is the process by which light is reflected, refracted, absorbed, and transmitted. Its why the sky is blue, glass is clear, and its how you see. So inanimate objects are signifigantly affected by the information carried in photons.

-Edited to correct a redundancy

[ March 10, 2002: Message edited by: buckleym ]</p>

scigirl

How do you classify a molecule as intelligent or non-intelligent? DNA is absolutely meaningless (and thus stupid as all hell) without the expression system. It's just a jumble of letters. Its meaning ONLY comes about when it is "read" by these so-called unintelligent molecules and then translated into protein.

scigirl

HRG

"Interpret" is another part of the metaphoric fog, IMHO. Shorn of the images we associate it, it just means "react in a certain way".

DNA is "interpreted" by chemical reactions with numerous replicases, transferases etc.
Easy. An essential information that the photon carries is its frequency.

The outermost electron of sodium will be excited by photons of one particular frequency and no other (and absorb the photon; hence Fraunhofer's famous D line in the solar spectrum). In the metaphorical language of "information" etc., it acts upon the information contained in the photon.

Regards,
HRG.

Principia

OK, the arguments that mturner are ranting about is becoming more clear.

He wants to categorize the definition of 'information' into 'biological information' and 'physical information' along the lines of the former being 'meaningful' and the latter not. In other words, he is concerned that if all matter has information, then the word has no use (or meaning).

I see quite a few problems in that argument.
Anybody else?
SC

excreationist

[ March 10, 2002: Message edited by: excreationist ]</p>