On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Craig Weinberg <whatsons...@gmail.com>wrote:
"This suggests to me that a molecule of DNA belonging to a kangaroo could > have no more information than the same molecule with the primary sequence > scrambled into randomness That is correct, it would have the same quantity of information, but most would be of the opinion that the quality has changed. > or 'blanked out' with a single repeating A-T base pair. No, if its repeating then it would have less information, that is to say it would take less information to describe the result. > "That would seem to make this definition of information the exact opposite > of the colloquial meaning of the term." > That can sometimes happen because mathematics can only deal in the quantity of information not it's quality. Quality is a value judgement and changes from person to person and mathematics does not make value judgements, but the quantity of something is objective and universal so mathematics can talk about that. So yes, there is much more information in a bucket of water than in our DNA , but most human beings are more interested in our genes than the astronomical number of micro-states in a bucket of water. That is my opinion too but a bucket of water may look at it differently and there is no disputing matters of taste. But both the bucket and I would agree on the amount of information in the DNA and in the bucket even if we disagree on which is more important. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
