Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
alexdanco.com
Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
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Re: Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
#2I really had fun reading this and thinking deeply about the blurry Ill defined line between things that are alive (an individual) and things that are not.
To take this experiment to a conclusion which the author has “left to the reader” as all good texts do, let’s think about a virus.
A virus has information, in the form of dna or rna (I believe this is what a coronavirus uses), that it injects into a cell to then cause the cell to create more virus. The goal of this is to pass “information” to successive versions of the virus which are then programmed to do the same thing. Since they are trying to keep the same information, then they are in fact attempting to reduce entropy across time therefore they are as the author defines, an “individual”.
Would love for someone to test that logic train that I just rode
Re: Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
#3A good talk that hashes out many of the ideas from the article, from a statistical mechanics perspective: https://youtu.be/10cVVHKCRWw
Re: Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
#4I really had fun reading this and thinking deeply about the blurry Ill defined line between things that are alive (an individual) and things that are not. To take this experiment to a conclusion which the author has “left to the reader” as all good texts do, let’s think about a virus. A virus has information, in the form of dna or rna (I believe this is what a coronavirus uses), that it injects into a cell to then ca…
I don't know if the goal of the virus is to reduce entropy. Viruses mutate just like some clever computer viruses. Allowing them to trick immune systems and anti viruses and render antivirals useless. Bacterias are doing that too.
I think we can equate too much entropy with danger since cancer cells also mean mutations.
Re: Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
#5Fun read.
But wouldn't we reluctant to change if the only goal of individuals was to preserve/propagate information to the future? Mutations, increase entropy, yet some of them are beneficial.
How does it fit in this theory?
Re: Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
#6Fun read. But wouldn't we reluctant to change if the only goal of individuals was to preserve/propagate information to the future? Mutations, increase entropy, yet some of them are beneficial. How does it fit in this theory?
Change is necessary for survival as the environment shifts. Many organisms have a stable superstructure within which controlled change is accommodated--the seasonal timing of reproduction, the outer protein coat of a virus, the plasticity of the brain.
The dichotomy isn't so much between change vs. stability, but where change happens, and in what way.
Re: Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
#7I recommend this book 'The demon in the machine' on this topic https://asunow.asu.edu/20191219-asu-professors-demon-machine...
Re: Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
#8I really had fun reading this and thinking deeply about the blurry Ill defined line between things that are alive (an individual) and things that are not. To take this experiment to a conclusion which the author has “left to the reader” as all good texts do, let’s think about a virus. A virus has information, in the form of dna or rna (I believe this is what a coronavirus uses), that it injects into a cell to then ca…
viruses have no agency so they don't attempt to reduce entropy across time. viruses are a reduction of entropy across time, just by being an organized structure (of rna and protein strands folded together) requiring energy to create and maintain. information is encoded in that structure--both in the sequence and in the shape--and that's transmitted through time.
Re: Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
#9I really had fun reading this and thinking deeply about the blurry Ill defined line between things that are alive (an individual) and things that are not. To take this experiment to a conclusion which the author has “left to the reader” as all good texts do, let’s think about a virus. A virus has information, in the form of dna or rna (I believe this is what a coronavirus uses), that it injects into a cell to then ca…
The blog entry is quite good, but it seems to suggest that the breakthrough consists in analyzing living organisms through the lenses of information theory. This is not a mistake in itself, but a shallow perspective nonetheless: information theory is, supposedly, a mathematical representation of the ways our brains make sense of the world around. The blog entry accidentally gives leeway to readers think that there is some intrinsic quality to living beings that transforms dull matter into information propagation channels.
As expected, the article does a better job in setting aside this line of reasoning[1]. What you are really measuring is how information is persisted over time, and over the "background noise" of environment. They specifically talk about viruses at a point, and the usual odd distinction of them being not quite living creatures. When they are found sitting outside their hosts, it is very hard to point out if they actually carry information over time.
[1] Disclaimer: I have just skim-read it.
Re: Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
#10Fun read. But wouldn't we reluctant to change if the only goal of individuals was to preserve/propagate information to the future? Mutations, increase entropy, yet some of them are beneficial. How does it fit in this theory?
Change is necessary for survival as the environment shifts. Many organisms have a stable superstructure within which controlled change is accommodated--the seasonal timing of reproduction, the outer protein coat of a virus, the plasticity of the brain. The dichotomy isn't so much between change vs. stability, but where change happens, and in what way.
> Many organisms have a stable superstructure within which controlled change is accommodated--the seasonal timing of reproduction, the outer protein coat of a virus, the plasticity of the brain.
Ok for the seasonal change, but I don't think all change is controlled the way you say. Individuals grow and adapt to their changing environment, and for this process to be optimal, entropy is necessary.
This contradict the idea that "Individuals maximally propagate information from their past to their future." which suggests that the optimal individual is fully deterministic.
So maximizing the propagation of information cannot be their only objective function. At least, this is what puzzles me.
edit: actually answer your comment