Side Comments: Is there really information being conveyed within a cell?

[Dan_Eastwood]

@Patrick

@Argon

I suspect the term ‘entropy’ refers to somewhat different things in thermodynamics and information theory.

No entropy in thermodynamics and information theory are the same quantity and meaning. Only the units are different. In thermodynamics the units of entropy are in Joules per degree Kelvin J/K. In information theory the units are in bits.

The math is the same. I wouldn’t say the interpretation is the same, but rather it is parallel.

There is no Second Law of Information Theory preventing the creation of new Information. There Information inequalities (ex: Cramer-Rao, Kullback–Leibler) that are roughly equivalent.

For two probability distributions A and B that are not identical (do not contain all the same Information), you cannot make B more similar to A (more of the same Information) by using any deterministic function on B.

You CAN make B more similar to A by adding random Information, then discarding “waste” Information that does not reduce the difference.

Arguments claiming that “evolution cannot create new Information” are making a parallel version of the old “2LoT prevents evolution” argument.