Tree rings are “used” to convey information about the age of the tree, for example.
For a definition of information that doesn’t tacitly assume conscious intent.
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“used” is a verb which to some may imply an external entity, whereas codes in biology are explicable in terms of self contained templates and regulation. Something like “acts to” might be more neutral in that regard. Definitions can be finicky.
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No, it is just expanding and contracting as the temperature changes, in accordance with the laws of physics and chemistry. Representation occurs when we human beings use squiggly lines like these: “20 degrees Celsius” to communicate to one another how warm the room is.
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To me, this almost seems like the right answer. But to argue that, because we use conventions in language, the things we talk about don’t really exist, doesn’t sound like a particularly useful way of getting things done. We have to start somewhere, so to speak. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way.
I’ve noticed that whenever I have tried to ask questions like this, the discussion often leads to one side claiming everything is information and the other side claiming nothing is information
So I’ve tried to figure out how to ask certain questions or how to define information in a way that avoids those types of answers.
I agree that at first it might make sense to view information as a causation. But then, doesn’t it becomes even more appearant that information exists, because then information can be defined as “anything that causes us to be informed”? Which then leads to Everything is information…an infinity 
I think my way of defining information is the best way. It ties what can be thought of as an abstract to something concrete, without leading us to infinity or nothingness. Of course it implies an intellect. That is the whole point.
My understanding of biology is obviously very limited. But so far, I’m not seeing anything like information or a code or cipher or a computer program. This is looking more like a mechanical process to me, so far.
If you ran a piece of wood through an old fashioned lathe, no one would say “the wood is a code that tells the lathe what to make!”. Nor would anyone say “We need to discover a lathe-ological context where a new meaning for information can be applied, so we can quantify how much information is in the lathe!” So how sure are we that we haven’t taken a similiar, overzealous approach to biology?
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Yes. Humans assign a value to the rate of thermal expansion. The squiggly lines or the degrees would be the value. Thus, the thermal expansion is made to represent to temperature of the room. This is how information is acquired and conveyed.
No, I still see no representation occurring there. From the length of the mercury column we can determine how hot the room is. And by touching a kettle on the stove we can tell how hot it is. Both are just examples of directly apprehending physical facts regarding our surroundings.
Hey, first off, welcome to the forum. I like your questions and your posts, FWIW. Some nonrandom comments, based on my understanding of your most recent comments:
- I think these questions (about “information”, which @Dan_Eastwood wants us to call “meaning”) are addressed in pleasing depth by David Haig in a book I very highly recommend: From Darwin to Derrida: Selfish Genes, Social Selves, and the Meanings of Life. I could be wrong but I think you might like his writing, even if you prefer to view the cosmos as evincing an “intellect.” This review of the book by Robert Richards can give you a taste of its themes.
- You are interested in the concept of a code, of “information” that “exists” separate from the concrete, from “a mechanical process.” Can you describe, or at least ask about, a biological scenario we can use to think about this? You asked at first about ribosomes, which I do think is a good place to start since ribosomes are about translation of one kind of information into another. But maybe it would help to enter the world of (for example) viruses. A typical virus, broadly but accurately speaking, is a vehicle for injecting genetic information (DNA or RNA, doesn’t matter) into a cell, resulting in the wholesale reprogramming of the cell into a factory for the storage and/or production of more viruses. What this looks like to me is: a physical text is delivered to a system, which reads the text and is transformed physically and in its purpose. Assuming you/we are comfortable with my description of a virus: where does that DNA/RNA molecule fit in your conception of information? This is not a gotcha question. It’s a real question and, to me, an interesting one.
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Btw thank you for this. I did learn something from it but the types of errors this paper is talking about seem more like “mechanical” errors, similar to where something gets jammed up in a machine. I understand these are referred to as programming or reprogamming errors in the literature, but i don’t any real evidence of anything being programmed.
You might consider rereading the paper. It’s not primarily about errors, and definitely not about anything that can be usefully compared to “something jammed up in a machine.” It’s about ways that the ribosome can (and does) read the “code” in different ways. One of them is called “programmed ribosome frameshifting” and the last section is about an even more interesting (to me) phenomenon called translational bypassing. These are not errors–they are mechanisms whereby systems read the same message(s) in different ways. Intentionally. Heh.
We can, if a value is has been assigned to denote a specific metric (lines on a thermometer). Or if we so good at remembering where the lines should be, we could remove them, I guess. But that still would have required an a value to have been assigned at some point.
Symbolize might be a better word. The point is mercury is not a temperature. But we can assign a value to a property of it and use it to convey temperature. Which of course, is what we do.
Sure, but the signal sent to our brains isn’t heat. It’s a signal that represents heat. That’s all I mean. Our nerves arent transfering the kinetic energy from the pot to our brains.
Ok, thanks. I’ll take another look at it. It very well could be that I got it totally wrong. 
It was the first time I have actually heard of “frameshifting” so I’ll give it another go later and run it by you again, if you don’t mind
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I have no problem saying the mercury thermometer, once it has been constructed and we have an understanding of the relationship between temperature and the volume of mercury, could be taken to represent room temperature. And as such the thermometer conveys information.
As long as we are careful enough to point out that the information comes as a product of the science that has been done to determine this relationship, and that an observer of the thermometer needs to be, well, informed about this relationship.
A caveman looking at a thermometer will have no understanding of what the thermometer “represents”, because the information is not intrinsic to the thermometer. So the representation is actually in the eye of the beholder. The information comes ultimately from having worked out the relationship (and then passing this relationship on to others).
Does the thermometer then represent temperature? Only to a person who has this understanding.
To me this seems like a very good question! No offense, but first of all I would be skeptical of your claim that something has been “reprogrammed” unless you can identify to me what value has been reassigned in the program. And then show the resulting change is actually not the result of a mechanical change.
I would be skeptical of your claim that anything is being “read”. In the world of lathes, I might be able to make a good case that a mechanical wheel is reading information. In reality, the wheel is just guiding the wood through the lathe. But if the wheel is set too high and isn’t touching the wood, then you can get problems. And I could maybe convince a child that because the wheel wasn’t touching the wood, the lathe could not read the wood correctly.
In the modern world, we now have lathes where some of the variables are set mechanically and some are set by using a computer program. You would have to convince me that we know how to differentiat the 2, as far as cellular processes are concerned , in order for me to really answer you question.
I would also just add that from an industrial manufacturing perspective, you would first verify the structural integrity of the machine and mechanical variables before you can really say how well the program is working.
I’m not offended, I’m just worried that you are failing/refusing to use metaphors. I’m not granting your apparent definition of “reprogrammed.”
Again, you are badly misreading me (and, perhaps, the whole room). “Reading” is exactly the word used repeatedly in descriptions of how texts are handled by cells. I’m not “claiming” anything: I’m using the language of cell biology. If you don’t think that mRNA is a text, and you don’t think it is read and interpreted by (in this example) a ribosome, then we’re just not speaking the same language and we won’t be able to have any fun.
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If you think that the words “reprogramming” and “reading” implies intent, or rational understanding, then of course these are not appropriate terms to use. Nobody would disagree with that.
None of us, nor the authors of the paper @sfmatheson referenced, believes any such thing occurs during the process of translation.
These words are in this instance only employed as useful metaphors or analogies for the physical mechanisms at play in describing and understanding how the ribosome interacts with the messenger RNA and changes how a particular stretch of mRNA is translated.
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I can see that I need to clarify. Apologies if this becomes a little tedious.
Professionally, I’m a mathematician (retired). As a fictionalist, I take the view that numbers don’t exist.
If somebody comes up with an existence proof that an equation has a solution, I do not say “that’s nonsense because numbers don’t exist.” Instead, I take it that he is using “exist” in a special mathematical sense. When I say that numbers don’t exist, I mean that they don’t fit our ordinary common language meaning “exist”. So the meaning of “exist” can depend on context.
We often make mathematical models of real world things. And we can say that numbers exist within the model, even though they don’t exist in the ordinary common language sense.
You could use a pencil to write “35” on a piece of paper. And that piece of paper exists. The pencil exist. But, strictly speaking, those pencil marks are numerals rather than numbers. The number is the abstract object that they represent.
With information, we get something similar. There are all sorts of marks or signals that we use to represent information. But those aren’t really the information. We use the word “information” in our informational models. And within the context of those models, we can talk about information – provided only that we keep to the rules of that model. But something physical, such as a pencil mark or an electrical signal, isn’t really information. It’s just something we use to represent information.
Back to your question – is there information being conveyed within a cell. And to me, this depends on whether you are properly using an informational model.
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Sure. I guess I’m just wondering at the ability of biologists to produce good metaphors. When I look at DNA transcription I see stuff being moved around and unzipped and parts being put together. This looks to me like more of a mechanical process. Obviously the different sequences of the mRNA are going to have a different effect in this process. I can put different material in a lathe and it’s going to have a different effect also. 
These differences in material could presumably be identified at the molecular level, even if its all just the same piece of wood. I could probably even come up with a few metaphors about lathes that would blow your mind. But at the end of the day, the lathe isn’t reading the wood. And I cant think of any reason why I would need to say that it is.
So I guess I will just have to take your word for now, that within the context of biology “reading” means something more than “One thing in the cell touches another thing”. And maybe I will understand later why it is a useful metaphor?
You really don’t have to take anyone’s word for that. You could read (wait… is that a mechanical process? OH NO) some very basic molecular biology, or just google for things like “mRNA read” and discover very basic materials like this.
If you actually believe that “reading” cannot also be “a mechanical process” you will probably struggle to understand why ANYTHING is a useful metaphor. You seem devoted to a childish dichotomy. It’s weird, and it probably means we can’t talk about information since we don’t share linguistic foundations. Disappointing.
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