> What does this mean? In Roger Lewin's _Complexity: Life at the Edge of
> Chaos_, in Chapter 7 "Complexity and the Reality of Progress", he
> interviews Norman Packard and there is the following exchange:
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> I can see what might be meant by computation in organisms that have a
> brain of reasonable size, I said to Norman, but what about clams and
> trees? "Survival has to do with gathering information about the
> environment and responding appropriately," Norman answered, clearly
> echoing Ayala. "Bacteria do that, by responding to the presence or
> absence of certain chemicals and by moving. Tree communicate chemically
> too. Computation is a fundamental property of complex adaptive systems,
> which, you'll remember, is optimized at the edge of chaos. Any complex
> adaptive system can compute; that's the key point. You don't have to
> have a brain to process information in the way I'm talking about it."
> But it helps? "It's higher on the scale of computational ability, if
> you like."
>
> When you say "higher on the scale", I asked Norman, are you suggesting a ...

> On Sep 17, 1:45 pm, dkomo comcast.net> wrote:
>

>>What does this mean? In Roger Lewin's _Complexity: Life at the Edge of
>>Chaos_, in Chapter 7 "Complexity and the Reality of Progress", he...

> J.A.Legris wrote:
>

>> On Sep 17, 1:45 pm, dkomo comcast.net> wrote:
>>

>>>What does this mean? In Roger Lewin's _Complexity: Life at the Edge of
>>>Chaos_, in Chapter 7 "Complexity...

> dkomo comcast.net> wrote:
>

>> J.A.Legris wrote:
>>

>>> On Sep 17, 1:45 pm, dkomo comcast.net> wrote:
>>>

>>>>What does this mean? In Roger Lewin's _Complexity: Life at the Edge of
>>>>Chaos_, in Chapter 7 "Complexity and the Reality of Progress", he
>>>>interviews Norman Packard and there is the following exchange:
>>>>
>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>I can see what might be meant by computation in organisms that have a
>>>>brain of reasonable size, I said to Norman, but what about clams and
>>>>trees? "Survival has to do with gathering information about the
>>>>environment and responding appropriately," Norman answered, clearly
>>>>echoing Ayala. "Bacteria do that, by responding to the presence or
>>>>absence of certain chemicals and by moving. Tree communicate
>>>>chemically ...

> dkomo comcast.net> wrote:
>

>> J.A.Legris wrote:
>>

>>> I think we need a general definition of information processing. I'll
>>> start with this:
>>>
>>> "Causal interactions that can be simulated exactly on a digital
>>> computer"
>>>
>>> There is an immediate problem here: only purely digital interactions
>>> can satisfy the definition.

>>
>> I don't see the relevance. All sorts of natural systems like the solar
>> system can be simulated on digital computers.
>>

>>> Evidently, natural systems have a degree
>>> of such digital equivalence, but the material substrates get in the ...

> "John Wilkins" uq.edu.au> wrote in message

>> On this account of "information", it would seem that any regular causal
>> influence is information. Hence, all physical things are information. So
>> I wonder what use there is in calling anything information at all, let
>> alone genes. It simply fails to say anything other than "it is physical".

>
> I have said this very thing many, many times. The same is generally true for
> the way "computation" is used. Also, to some extent the same thing occurs
> when it is said that brains "process." What does "process" mean other than
> some neurons 'fire,' and they make other neirons 'fire'"? I use "firing" for
> action potentials, but I could easily have included generator potentials
> and, possibly, gap junction type stuff.

> Glen M. Sizemore wrote:

>> "John Wilkins" uq.edu.au> wrote in message

>

>>> On this account of "information", it would seem that any regular causal
>>> influence is information. Hence...

> dkomo comcast.net> wrote:
>
>

>>J.A.Legris wrote:
>>
>>

>>>On Sep 17, 1:45 pm, dkomo comcast.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>

>>>>What does this mean? In Roger Lewin's _Complexity: Life at...

> For example - there is worth in using the same metric (say, Shannon's
> _H_) for telecommunications independently of implementation, because
> there are physical systems that instantiate Shannon communication
> systems to a relevant degree. What is at issue here, though, is whether
> that is also true of organisms, and in particular of therir system of
> heredity. In other words, is anything gained by equating heredity with
> information transmission (other than convenience or imaginative
> vividness)? The proof would be to show that something like the Shannon
> equation can be used to explain the dynamics of heredity. But this is
> exactly what we lack (and the equations for heredity don't seem to this
> ignorant deluded fool to resemble those of any formal theory of
> information).

> John Wilkins wrote:
>

>> On this account of "information", it would seem that any regular causal
>> influence is information. Hence, all physical things are information. So
>> I wonder what use there is in calling anything information at all, let
>> alone genes. It simply fails to say anything other than "it is
>> physical".
>>

>
> By the same logic, you could say that since all physical things are made
> of matter-energy, what point is there in calling anything physical at
> all? It simply fails to say anything other than "it is made of
> matter-energy."