Is there really information being conveyed within a cell?

By information I mean any physical property or characteristic of matter that is used to represent something that it is not.

I suspect an answer to that question would first require a more rigorous definition of “information”.

Welcome to the forum, btw. :slight_smile:

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…something that seems distinct from–if not unrelated to–the information studied and discussed by biologists. In places like this:

The meaning of biological information
Eugene V. Koonin

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2015.0065

[Mod edit to add title]

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Would it be wrong to say that DNA is ordered to particular AA sequences, and is therefore “informational” in the sense that Vlad means? We can identify the AA sequence that will result from any given DNA sequence in a particular organism, and we can also recognize that a translation system is malfunctioning if it fails to produce that result. I don’t think recognizing this means conceding that ID is true, since such ‘physical intentionality’ exists all throughout nature without requiring a human-like intelligence.

Not sure, I guess that’s a question for Vlad. He wrote “any physical property or characteristic of matter that is used to represent something that it is not” and that seems different from the well known fact of informational representations in DNA and RNA.

Neither do I nor does Koonin or Chris Adami who wrote an entire book about the evolution of biological information, nor should anyone who is thinking.

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By the definition you offer I would say no. But there are other definitions of information, so it really just depends on which one you choose.

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You need to clarify what you mean by “represent.”

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“Used” might also be a problem.

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Sounds familiar. :face_with_monocle::nerd_face:

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Whether or not DNA is really a code, seems to often be a point of contention between evolutionists and creationists.
Can, for example, something in a ribosome be changed(or “reprogrammed”)so that same mRNA will now cause it to produce a different protein? Or is the output of the ribosome dependent on an unchangeable physical or chemical interaction of matter where, by law, the same “input” can only ever produce the same output?
If it’s the latter, then no information is conveyed between the mRNA and the ribosome. There is only a physical/chemical reaction, like salt melting ice.

So, is there actually information being conveyed in a cell or is all the interplay involved in cellular processes merely the result of pre-existing laws of physical/chemical reaction? Or do we not know?

Why?

(Thanks for your welcome btw)

Would it be correct to say that the definition I am using is actually the correct one to use, when questioning, say, whether or not DNA actually conveys information to a ribosome? And that the meaning of biological information as detailed in Koonin’s paper linked above is more or less just a fancy way of saying that DNA might look like a code to us but it is not really a code because there is no information conveyed in the manner described in my OP?

I don’t think there is really a “correct” definition to employ. I’d rather say different definitions are more or less useful for a given problem.

The definition of information I prefer for cases in molecular biology (such as translation and other biochemical functions), simply because it’s the one that makes the most intuitive sense to me, is Hazen et al. 2007. I like this one because it makes sense of biological information in terms of the functions biological molecules and entities perform, and the degree to which they perform them. It makes it possible to say (and in principle calculate) how much information it takes to specify a particular function, and how much more, or less, information it would take to increase or decrease the degree of function.

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Information is abstract. From my perspective as a mathematician and fictionalist, this implies that information doesn’t actually exist. It’s just a useful way of talking about something else (such as causation).

There isn’t any good answer to the question in your title. It all depends on how you are using the word “information”.

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I mean just in the normal way. For example, the kinetic energy of mercury can be used to represent the temperature in my living room once a value has been assigned to it’s rate of thermal expansion.

Yes. I think it’s more commonly done by changing the tRNA, but ribosomes can be retooled in a process called… wait for it… recoding. Here’s a recent review of the topic:

https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/48/3/1056/5568211

Clearly not.

I can’t even imagine how one would argue that these are mutually exclusive.

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As @Faizal_Ali and @John_Harshman have already suggested, “represented” and “used” are problematical.

Taking DNA as an example (in a fertilised ovum for example), does it “represent” the adult form of an organism? Or is it merely a ‘blueprint’ for constructing that organism? Is a recipe a ‘representation’ of the final dish?

Is the DNA in a fertilised ovum “represent[ing] something that it is not” when the adult form also contains that same DNA?

This is disanalogous to, for example, da Vinci’s representation of the Mona Lisa, which contains only paint (on canvas), not the target’s DNA.

Such disanalogies mean that we have to take extreme care in applying language developed to describe human artifice to the realm of biology.

A problem for what?

That’s good paper, and a reasonable definition of biological meaning.

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DNA is chemistry, and the only meaningful encoding are the laws of chemistry. This is unlike any sort of computer coding, which is the usual bone of contention.

A better analogy is to a recipe, with DNA providing a list of what ingredients that get thrown in a pot for the laws of chemistry to stir. This analogy is also flawed, but it discards the idea of fixed linear instructions typical of computer code.

AND welcome to the forum. :cowboy_hat_face:

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