IIMX will be launching our new podcast series soon. In our first episode we will first be talking to Professor Alexie Papanicolaou, expert in evolutionary and computational biology and senior lecturer at Western Sydney University.
The concept of information and the nature of information in the molecular biosciences is a huge topic with many open ontological questions. There are many current methodological, metaphysical, logical, and general philosophical arguments about it. Opinions vary among philosophers of biology and science about realism about information in biological systems, and about the nature of biological information and its transmission in different systems.
Some examples are:
- There's no real (biological natural) information in biological systems: information is just a useful metaphor that is applied differently across many phenomena and systems (in generational transmission, genotype to phenotype, genetic codes and coding sequences etc.) (Griffiths).
- (Biological) information is objectively real, but it is only realised in the presence of an evolved interpreter/receiver/consumer of a signal or message. The meaning of the information is established by evolved function, and/or mechanism, and/or configuration (Millikan, Shea, Rovelli).
- Information is real, and it's just the reduction in uncertainty about some source based on some signal (probabilism).
- Biological information reduces to signalling and signal dynamics and contents in some way (Godfrey-Smith, Sterelny).
- Information is real, and it has a basic physical structural basis like dinosaur footprints, fossils, and emissions from celestial X-Ray sources. Ontic structural realism and reductive reference to physics are ineliminable from consideration.
- Information is real, and it's got a structural basis and can be measured in terms of algorithmic complexity theory and minimum description length (Kolmogorov and Chaitin)
- Information is established only in the presence of recursive teleonomic autopoiesis in dynamical systems, or on the basis of feedback loops. (Maynard Smith, Wiener, Deacon).
- Information is real, but it is specifically about signs and semiotics (Deacon, Sarkar).
- Biological information has dynamical, morphological, and conformational features - not just sequential and modular features. (Sarkar)
There are other views.
Many working scientists do not bother trying to work out metaphysical issues with respect to philosophical clarity, and they're not expected to. Others are very interested in the nature of information, along with the nature of whatever natural phenomena and systems they are studying, and seek to establish hypotheses about it. Scientific metaphysics must listen to what scientists say about what exists and how it exists. It de-emphasises armchair postulates and speculation (or even rejects it.)
An overarching (and perhaps positivistic) hope is that pluralism about the nature of information will either help deliver, or at least allow for, the identification of a unifying or else reductive and objective conception of natural information. Professor Pananicolaou has some fascinating insights on many of these topics.
A Selection of Related Interesting Background Readings
Artiga, M. (2014).
Teleosemantics, Infotel-semantics and Circularity. International Journal
of Philosophical Studies, 22(4), 583–603.
Zenil, H., Kiani, N. A., & Tegnér, J.
(2016). Methods of information theory and algorithmic complexity for network
biology. Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology, 51, 32–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.semcdb.2016.01.011
IIMX will be launching our new podcast series soon. In our first episode we will first be talking to Professor Alexie Papanicolaou, expert in evolutionary and computational biology and senior lecturer at Western Sydney University.
The concept of information and the nature of information in the molecular biosciences is a huge topic with many open ontological questions. There are many current methodological, metaphysical, logical, and general philosophical arguments about it. Opinions vary among philosophers of biology and science about realism about information in biological systems, and about the nature of biological information and its transmission in different systems.
Some examples are:
- There's no real (biological natural) information in biological systems: information is just a useful metaphor that is applied differently across many phenomena and systems (in generational transmission, genotype to phenotype, genetic codes and coding sequences etc.) (Griffiths).
- (Biological) information is objectively real, but it is only realised in the presence of an evolved interpreter/receiver/consumer of a signal or message. The meaning of the information is established by evolved function, and/or mechanism, and/or configuration (Millikan, Shea, Rovelli).
- Information is real, and it's just the reduction in uncertainty about some source based on some signal (probabilism).
- Biological information reduces to signalling and signal dynamics and contents in some way (Godfrey-Smith, Sterelny).
- Information is real, and it has a basic physical structural basis like dinosaur footprints, fossils, and emissions from celestial X-Ray sources. Ontic structural realism and reductive reference to physics are ineliminable from consideration.
- Information is real, and it's got a structural basis and can be measured in terms of algorithmic complexity theory and minimum description length (Kolmogorov and Chaitin)
- Information is established only in the presence of recursive teleonomic autopoiesis in dynamical systems, or on the basis of feedback loops. (Maynard Smith, Wiener, Deacon).
- Information is real, but it is specifically about signs and semiotics (Deacon, Sarkar).
- Biological information has dynamical, morphological, and conformational features - not just sequential and modular features. (Sarkar)
There are other views.
Many working scientists do not bother trying to work out metaphysical issues with respect to philosophical clarity, and they're not expected to. Others are very interested in the nature of information, along with the nature of whatever natural phenomena and systems they are studying, and seek to establish hypotheses about it. Scientific metaphysics must listen to what scientists say about what exists and how it exists. It de-emphasises armchair postulates and speculation (or even rejects it.)
An overarching (and perhaps positivistic) hope is that pluralism about the nature of information will either help deliver, or at least allow for, the identification of a unifying or else reductive and objective conception of natural information. Professor Pananicolaou has some fascinating insights on many of these topics.
A Selection of Related Interesting Background Readings
Artiga, M. (2014).
Teleosemantics, Infotel-semantics and Circularity. International Journal
of Philosophical Studies, 22(4), 583–603.
Barbieri, M. (2002). The
Organic Codes. In The Organic Codes. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511614019
Barbieri, M. (2008a).
Biosemiotics: a new understanding of
life. Naturwissenschaften, 95(7), 577–599.
Barbieri, M. (2008b). Life is
Semiosis The biosemiotic view of Nature. Cosmos and History: The Journal
of Natural and Social Philosophy.
Barbieri, M. (2009). A short
history of biosemiotics. Biosemiotics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-009-9042-8
Bergstrom, C. T., &
Rosvall, M. (2011). The transmission sense of information. Biology and
Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-009-9180-z
Collier, J. (2008). Information
in Biological Systems. In Philosophy of Information. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-51726-5.50024-8
Deacon, T. W. (2008). Shannon -
Boltzmann - Darwin: Redefining information (Part II). Cognitive
Semiotics. https://doi.org/10.3726/81605_169
Deacon, T. W. (2010). What is
missing from theories of information? In Information and the Nature of
Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511778759.008
Deacon, T. W. (2015). Steps to
a science of biosemiotics. Green Letters. https://doi.org/10.1080/14688417.2015.1072948
Dennett, D. C. (2013). Aching
Voids and Making Voids A review of Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from
Matter . By Terrence W. Deacon. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. $29.95.
xvii + 602 p.; ill.; index. ISBN: 978-0-393-04991-6. 2012. . The Quarterly
Review of Biology. https://doi.org/10.1086/673760
Drossel, B. (2001). Biological
evolution and statistical physics. Advances in Physics. https://doi.org/10.1080/00018730110041365
Galas, D. J., Nykter, M.,
Carter, G. W., Price, N. D., & Shmulevich, I. (2010). Biological information
as set-based complexity. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIT.2009.2037046
Gilbert, S. F., & Sarkar,
S. (2000). Embracing complexity: Organicism for the 21st century.
In Developmental Dynamics. https://doi.org/10.1002/1097-0177(2000)9999:9999<::AID-DVDY1036>3.0.CO;2-A
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2000). On
the theoretical role of “genetic coding.” Philosophy of Science. https://doi.org/10.1086/392760
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2001). The
role of information and replication in selection processes. Behavioral and
Brain Sciences, 24(3), 538.
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2007).
Information in biology. In The Cambridge Companion to the Philosophy of
Biology. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521851282.006
Godfrey-Smith, P. (2011). Senders,
receivers, and genetic information: comments on Bergstrom and Rosvall. Biology
& Philosophy, 26(2), 177–181.
Kogge, W. (2012). Script, Code,
Information: How to Differentiate Analogies in the “Prehistory” of Molecular
Biology. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 34(4),
603–635. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43831448
Millikan, R. G. (1989).
Biosemantics. The Journal of Philosophy, 86(6), 281–297.
Mitrokhin, Y. (2014). Two faces
of entropy and information in biological systems. Journal of Theoretical
Biology, 359, 192–198.
Nizhnikov, A., Ryzhova, T.,
Volkov, K., Zadorsky, S., Sopova, J., Inge-Vechtomov, S., & Galkin, A.
(2016). Interaction of Prions Causes Heritable Traits in Saccharomyces
cerevisiae. PLoS Genetics, 12(12), e1006504. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1006504
Sarkar, S. (2005a). Maynard
Smith, optimization, and evolution. Biology and Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-005-9017-3
Sarkar, S.
(2005b). Molecular models of life: philosophical papers on molecular
biology. MIT Press.
Shea, N. (2007). Representation
in the genome and in other inheritance systems. Biology and
Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-006-9046-6
Shea, N. (2011). What’s
transmitted? Inherited information. Biology and Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-010-9232-4
Shea, N. (2013). Inherited
representations are read in development. British Journal for the
Philosophy of Science. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axr050
Smith, J. M. (2010). The
concept of information in biology. In Information and the Nature of
Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511778759.007
Stegmann, U. (2012). Varieties
of parity. Biology & Philosophy, 27(6), 903–918. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-012-9331-5
Stegmann, U. E. (2009). DNA,
inference, and information. British Journal for the Philosophy of
Science. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjps/axn041
Sterelny, K. (2011). Darwinian
spaces: Peter Godfrey-Smith on selection and evolution. In Biology and
Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-010-9244-0
Tavernelli, I., Cotesta, S.,
& Di Iorio, E. E. (2003). Protein Dynamics, Thermal Stability, and Free-Energy
Landscapes: A Molecular Dynamics Investigation. Biophysical
Journal, 85(4), 2641–2649.
Zenil, H., Kiani, N. A., & Tegnér, J.
(2016). Methods of information theory and algorithmic complexity for network
biology. Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology, 51, 32–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.semcdb.2016.01.011
