Kirk:
Some are under the impression that I think that new functions are impossibly improbable for natural processes to produce. That is complete rubbish and I’m mystified as to why people invent beliefs and then assign them to me. The function of an F-22 aircraft might be difficult for natural processes to achieve, but the function of producing ripples on a puddle by a dripping icicle, is easy to achieve. There are countless functions that require little or no new FI.
All good theories start out as intuitions, but not all intuitions make good theories. We can’t base scientific conclusions on our intuition of how nature works. We need a bit more than that.
Kirk:
Everyone is free to make up whatever mathematical definition for functional information that they like, so long as it gives meaningful results. My own definition for FSC (which in the paper I state is equivalent to FI) is published in my paper I referenced earlier. The FI required for an effect is the difference in Shannon information (∆H) between the ground/initial state of the physical system and the functional state. Simply put, it is FI = ∆H. This method can measure both FI gained (+ve) and FI lost (-ve). It also gives meaningful results when applied to the sub-molecular structure of ubiquitin.
I would be interested to see how you would apply this to catalytic antibodies .
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