[1]
Hugh Bone's questions on genes, matter, and information are challenging.
This I suspect is the reason why I have waited with my answer until now;
there are some among our participants who are better qualified to discuss
this matter than me, and I had vaguely hoped that one of them might do that.
However, his comment is still open, and I will try to respond: from the
point of view of zero-reference. This might at least serve as a starting
point for discussion, and I hope for vigorous protests from those who know
better.
[2]
Discussions about information nowadays seem to be mostly confined to the
handling of information within information theory, as formulated by Shannon
and others since 1948. This assumes that 'information' and 'messages' are
already understood in their meaning, as Bone reports he did himself in the
past, while now he has become skeptical about it. He also questions the
meaning of 'matter', and here, similarly, the meaning is usually pre-supposed
to be clear, following Hume, who accepted 'objects' (like also 'events'
and 'matters-of-fact') as unquestionably 'given', even though he conceded
that one was unable to know about 'nature' per se. This means, in my opinion,
that although Hume advised against metaphysical reasoning, he used it here,
without acknowledging it. I suspect that the empiricist and realist lack
of skepticism about matter, which largely stems from there, is the cause
of much present conceptual difficulty.
[3]
From a zero-derivation (0-D) point of view the situation appears as follows.
We build mental structures (forms) within the origin of ongoing experience,
which is primarily not structured nor even divided into mind and nature.
The split is a secondary event: it is one aspect of the ensuing structure
formation. Before this point there is no question of forms being transferred
from outside to inside, it comes up only in case one assumes that subject
and object are divided. The latter opinion is on the other hand perfectly
reasonable for many practical uses - but one ought to remain aware that
it is the result of a secondary step, whose adequacy is blindly pre-supposed
in a short-cut operation, and that it is not the original situation. In
order to understand the nature of information, it is necessary to consider
this origin.
[4]
Conceptually, information theory starts from an extension of the subject-object
split (but the split is usually implied to be fundamental rather than secondary)
to various other systems which are then handled as being mind-independent
and as independent of each other. In this context one can even treat the
information as a further independent entity, and packages of information
(of forms, of functioning structures) as being transferred from one system
to another. The systems can include not only technical creations but also
biological organisms (including transmission of information by genes) and
to some extent the human mind. One can treat neuronal activity in such a
way, also behaviour, and to some extent verbal crystallizations of (internal)
experiences (eg, in psychological tests or opinion polls). This can work
so long as one does not try to include ongoing experience which, being at
the origin of all this, cannot be distanced and remains irretrievably subjective.
The failure to consider this last point I suspect is the main reason for
conceptual problems in this area.
[5]
So matter and information are structure formations within ongoing experience.
They become communally standardized in use, and can to a considerable degree
be handled as if they were mind-independent, but not entirely. As for the
difference between information (such as genetic blueprints) and matter (such
as biological molecules) to be informed, these distinctions are also of
a secondary rather than fundamental nature, and can be derived from the
structuring process within ongoing experience, described above. The difference
between the informational, chemical, and matter aspects of genes is in principle
not more complicated than the one between the informational, quantum physical,
and matter aspects of radio signals, I would think, or between the information
transmitting, wrapping, combustion, and recycling aspects of the morning
newspaper.
---------------------------
Herbert FJ Muller
e-mail <mdmu@musica.mcgill.ca>