Information And Life
by Gérard Battail /
2013 / English / PDF
3.1 MB Download
Communication, one of the most important functions of life,
occurs at any spatial scale from the molecular one up to that of
populations and ecosystems, and any time scale from that of fast
chemical reactions up to that of geological ages. Information
theory, a mathematical science of communication initiated by
Shannon in 1948, has been very successful in engineering, but
biologists ignore it.
Communication, one of the most important functions of life,
occurs at any spatial scale from the molecular one up to that of
populations and ecosystems, and any time scale from that of fast
chemical reactions up to that of geological ages. Information
theory, a mathematical science of communication initiated by
Shannon in 1948, has been very successful in engineering, but
biologists ignore it.
This book aims at bridging this gap. It proposes an abstract
definition of information based on the engineers' experience
which makes it usable in life sciences. It expounds information
theory and error-correcting codes, its by-products, as simply as
possible. Then, the fundamental biological problem of heredity is
examined. It is shown that biology does not adequately account
for the conservation of genomes during geological ages, which can
be understood only if it is assumed that genomes are made
resilient to casual errors by proper coding. Moreover, the good
conservation of very old parts of genomes, like the
This book aims at bridging this gap. It proposes an abstract
definition of information based on the engineers' experience
which makes it usable in life sciences. It expounds information
theory and error-correcting codes, its by-products, as simply as
possible. Then, the fundamental biological problem of heredity is
examined. It is shown that biology does not adequately account
for the conservation of genomes during geological ages, which can
be understood only if it is assumed that genomes are made
resilient to casual errors by proper coding. Moreover, the good
conservation of very old parts of genomes, like theHOX
HOX
genes, implies that the assumed genomic codes have a nested
structure which makes an information the more resilient to
errors, the older it is.
genes, implies that the assumed genomic codes have a nested
structure which makes an information the more resilient to
errors, the older it is.
The consequences that information theory draws from these
hypotheses meet very basic but yet unexplained biological facts,
e.g., the existence of successive generations, that of discrete
species and the trend of evolution towards complexity. Being
necessarily inscribed on physical media, information appears as a
bridge between the abstract and the concrete. Recording,
communicating and using information exclusively occur in the
living world. Information is thus coextensive with life and
delineates the border between the living and the inanimate.
The consequences that information theory draws from these
hypotheses meet very basic but yet unexplained biological facts,
e.g., the existence of successive generations, that of discrete
species and the trend of evolution towards complexity. Being
necessarily inscribed on physical media, information appears as a
bridge between the abstract and the concrete. Recording,
communicating and using information exclusively occur in the
living world. Information is thus coextensive with life and
delineates the border between the living and the inanimate.