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This is my response to Mark's response to my original message.
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Subject: Re: What are memes made of?
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 17:07:43 +0000
From: Robin Faichney <robin@faichney.demon.co.uk>
On Sat, 08 Mar 2036, Mark M. Mills wrote:
>Robin,
>
>Thanks for posting your essay. I hope you continue with it.
Thanks.
>My primary criticism is the lack of clear foundations, particularly for
>the key term 'information.'
>
>The essay starts with a description of information as 'simply the form,
>or structure, of matter.' Though not stated, I'm assuming this reflects
>Frieden's use of the term. In the second sentence, you say: "Physical
>information is inversely proportional to entropy..."
>
>I'm assuming this is Frieden's sense of 'information.' I'm more familiar
>with Shannon information theory, so this confuses me. Shannon shows
>information capacity proportional to entropy (higher the entropy, the
>higher the information capacity).
My use of "entropy" is from thermodynamics, not communication theory. These
are different quantities. Kenneth Sayre discusses the relationship between
them in Cybernetics and the Philosophy of Mind, which is unfortunately out of
print, but might be found in your nearest university library. The two
entropies are related, but not (for me, at least) in a straightforward way. But
it's certainly the case that, in some formulations, the relationship is an
inverse one. Though one is not literally the negative of the other, H(A) tends
to decrease as S increases, where these signify comm. theory and thermodynamic
entropy, respectively. I do not pretend to have mastered this stuff, but I
believe I understand it well enough to know that I do not need to cover it --
though I should say something to that effect in the essay, instead of ignoring
the topic altogether. In brief, we're talking physics, not comm. theory, here,
and you'll find that in physics the concept of information as negentropy,
originally due to Brillouin, is a commonplace.
<snip>
>Information, form, identity.. all these terms are very difficult to
>define, but critical to your argument. I could probably in step with
>your use of these terms, I just need definitions and maybe an example or
>two.
Yes, I do need to say something for those familiar with comm. theory but not
physics.
>Here are two words I found myself wishing you would use: isomorphism and
>'bit.' Isomorphism is central to any logical differentiation of one
>'identity' from another. When talking about parent and child 'carrying'
>a single gene, one has to be using some sense of isomorphism.
I don't think that the identity of genes is a controversial area.
>Once isomorphism comes up, the idea of a 'bit' seems to follow. A bit is
>simply the smallest unit of isomorphic form.
I tend to avoid the use of technical terms where I can, writing for a
non-specialist readership. I try to KISS -- Keep It Simple, Stupid. The
concept of identity I use is, I believe, highly intuitive, and perfectly
adequate. Of course people always like to read things written "in their own
language", but sometimes that price is worth paying...
>Back to the essay...
>
>It seems that one of your main points is differentiation of substance
>isomorphism and formal isomorphism. Your comment that evolutionary
>biologists use 'hierarchical, recursive definition, so that one higher
>level gene is composed of two or more lower level ones" was very, very
>interesting. Unfortunately, this theme was not explored explicitly.
It's not my idea. I can't recall for the moment where I first came across it,
but I'm fairly sure it was discussed in the public session of the Kings College
meeting in May '99 -- can anyone help me out here? Though I don't have it to
hand, I believe Dawkins explicitly uses the recursive definition in The
Selfish Gene.
>I would have loved to have read more about this. I'm assuming this is
>suggesting evolutionary biologists use formal isomorphism while molecular
>biologists use substance isomorphism.
I tend to think in terms of levels, but then that's what form versus substance
is about, too. Form = higher level, substance = lower level.
>Instead of elaborating on evolutionary biologists using multilevel genes,
>the essay goes into a discussion of form, identity and coding. It seems
>your goal is a proof that genes and memes are information, not physical
>substance. I'm not sure I'm reading you right, but that's the best I can
>make of it.
I'm afraid you've got it pretty much arse-backwards. Genes and memes are
physical information, which is about as close to substance as you can get.
Your concept of information, deriving from comm. theory, is intentional, not
physical information, and I'm saying that memes, like genes, are most certainly
not that.
If had the "technical equipment", I'd very much like to attempt a formal
characterisation of the relationship between physical and intentional
information, but I doubt I could manage it alone. Perhaps with the right sort
of collaboration, though.........?
> You end the essay saying 'Memes, like genes, are encoded
>physical information, but exist at a higher level of organization.' This
>seems to be a restatement of the evolutionary biologists view (the
>multilevel notion for the term 'gene').
I really don't see how you get that. From "memes are higher than genes" to
"genes are multilevel"?
>Thus, as best I can tell, the essay is really an attack on the
>conventional belief that chunks of DNA are literally genes.
You can take it that way, if that's how it intersects with your concerns, but
your concerns are not mine. I'm interested in information first, and memes
second, and genes only as they help us understand the first two. But a
byproduct of my work is certainly that chunks of DNA are *not* literally genes,
and I guess you're free to see that as the most significant of the things I'm
trying to say (though I hope it's not "the conventional belief" outside
molecular biology).
>Well, that's all. Just some comments. I find the topics very important,
>so I like your paper. Keep working on it!
Thanks for your interest and encouragement.
>PS If you want me to post this reply to the list, let me know.
I think others might be interested, yes. (You might have noticed I had the
list in mind, in one of my comments above.) If you post yours to the list, I'll
send mine (this) when I see it.
-- Robin Faichney -- Robin Faichney===============================This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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