Re: Dawkins gives incorrect answer

From: Guy Hoelzer (hoelzer_at_unr.edu)
Date: 09/08/04 

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 05:19:23 +0000 (UTC)

Robert,

in article chjf67$1okf$1@darwin.ediacara.org, rem642b@Yahoo.Com at
RobertMaas@YahooGroups.Com wrote on 9/6/04 9:58 PM:

>> From: Guy Hoelzer <hoelzer@unr.edu>
>> Objective information, which I take to be essentially synonymous with
>> structure or pattern, does exist and can be observed with standardized
>> devices and methods (not dependent on the subjectivity of individuals).
>
> If you intend to measure the number of bits of such information, I
> disagree with you. It is impossible to define how much information
> something has without first establishing an a priori definition of what
> all the possibilities are and what factors are to be ignored when
> equating two messages.
>
> Consider a genome consisting of only six bases of DNA. You would
> compute 12 bits of data, right?

I would not not make that computation. My calculation would not depend at
all on the number of possible bases. You haven't told me enough to make my
calculation, which would depend upon the number of different kinds of bases
manifested in the string, their relative abundances, and their sequence.
The number of objective bits represented by the string is not contingent on
anything but the string itself. Indeed, I don't think it is clear that we
should always think of information as existing in "bits" in nature. It is
rather like the particle/wave dichotomy. There may be a way to estimate the
number of bits, or the effective number of bits as in a dimensional
analysis, for a DNA sequence; but I don't know of such methods, so I prefer
to think of information in relative amounts rather than in bits in such a
context.

> Well that's a subjective calculation
> based on your prejudice that DNA can have only four possible bases. In
> an objective sense, the information content of that six-base message is
> unlimited, perhaps infinite.

It is limited only by its size and the diversity of its parts. I hope you
see how my comments make the rest of your post irrelevant to the
structuralist view of information.

[snip]

Cheers,

Guy

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