🚀 go-pugleaf

> >>its code.  Thus, genes are abstractions, being encoded in the DNA,
> >>as decoded by the cellular machinery.  Discussion of different kinds
> >>of sequences is irrelevant, in this particular context -- that's just
> >>arguing about the form of encoding, when that point is that genetic
> >>information is encoded -- anyhow.

This doesn't make any sense at all. Of course, genetic information is
encoded (wow!), and the whole point of my question was: is there any
characterization of the minimum information content of strings (or
more complicated structures) carrying such infromation? In order to
answer such a question, we shall definitely need to take into account
the _precise_ form of encoding. In the first place, even to calculate
the Shannon entropy, we need this. If we are to talk about Kolmogorov
complexity of such strings, we _most_ definitely need to know the
kinds of encoding that are possible in the natural world. For the
uninitiated, this means: what is the size of the smallest Turing
machine that can churn out a DNA string? Computing Kolmogorov
complexity is, of course, undecidable, but there is some work going
that tries to find approximations.


> > At any rate, "concrete work" and this "conceptual truth" stuff don't mix ;).
> 
> You have to understand the relationship between them.  Though it's
> basically just theory and practice, and any scientist should know these
> are equally important.

Unfortunately, there is a difference between "concrete theoretical
work" and "vague speculations where neither the speaker nor the
listener know what they are talking about." :) For more details, check
out Richard Feynman's "Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman."


> > Any information theoretic work that deals with a genetic system is going to
> > have to deal quite closely with the exact mechanism of encoding and decoding,
> > as well as the mechanisms of transmission and alteration.
> 
> My point precisely.

Duh, so what's the debate about?

Cheers,
Swarat

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Swarat Chaudhuri, 
Department of Computer and Information Science,
University of Pennsylvania.