6.4 Further Remarks on Information Generation and Reception

69

1. A repertoire, from which alternative actions can be selected;

2. An evaluator, which assigns values to different states of affairs according to either

given or self-set criteria;

3. A selector, which selects actions increasing a positive evaluation and diminishing

deleterious evaluation.

One may compare this procedure with that of evolutionary computation (Sect. 4.3),

and, a fortiori, with that of evolution itself. Here, the selected actions are used to build

up a presence in the repertoire (and, assuming that the repertoire remains constant

in size, unselected actions will be diminished).

6.3.4

Significs

As summarized by Welby (1911), significs comprises (a) sense (“in what sense

is a word used?”), (b) meaning (the specific sense a word is intended to convey),

and (c) significance—the far-reaching consequence, implication, ultimate result, or

outcome (e.g., of some event or experience). It therefore includes semantics but goes

well beyond it.

Problem. Discuss how the significs ofnn-grams of DNA and of peptides (regulatory

oligopeptides and proteins) could be developed.

6.4

Further Remarks on Information Generation and

Reception

The exercise of intellect involves both the transformation and generation of informa-

tion, the latter quite possibly involving the crossing of some kind of logical gap. It is a

moot point whether the solution of a set of equations contains more information than

the equations, since the solution is implicit (and J.S. Mill insisted that induction, not

deduction, is the only road to new knowledge). If it does not, are we then no more

complex than a zygote, which apparently contains all the information required to

generate a functional adult?

The reception of information is equivalent to ordering (i.e., an entropy decrease)

and corresponds to the various ordering phenomena seen in nature. Three categories

can be distinguished:

1. Order from disorder [sometimes called “self-organization” (see also Sect. 12.4) ³⁰];

2. Order from order (a process based on templating, such as DNA replication or

transcription);

3. Order from noise (microscopic information is given macroscopic expression). ³¹

30 But anyway see the critiques of von Foerster (1960) and of Ashby (1962). We may, however,

consider self-organization as programmable self-assembly.

31 Cf. Shaw (1981).