From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!torn!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ames!pacbell.com!pbhyf!rsprice Tue Nov 24 10:52:44 EST 1992
Article 7705 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rsprice@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Steve Price)
Subject: Re: Life is Information
Reply-To: rsprice@PacBell.COM (Steve Price)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 17:00:20 GMT
Message-ID: <1992Nov23.170020.18787@pbhyf.PacBell.COM>
References: <1992Nov15.013839.9458@u.washington.edu> <1992Nov16.070141.2723@wixer.cactus.org> <69941@cup.portal.com>
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In article <69941@cup.portal.com> PLai@cup.portal.com (Patrick L Faith) writes:
>> [life as information]
>
>I agree basically, with the caveat that life is the
>ability to block and transform information - which 
>blocking and transfering must be balanced.
[omissions]
>
>Some humans have the ability to block and transfer fairly
>large levels of information.  Other humans have the very
>little information processing abilities.  

I think that the statement LIFE IS INFORMIATION is intended to be refer to
much more than the highly specialized forms of information known as human
language or the more recent extrapolations from natural languages that 
computers use to pass and store information.

Living systems are embedded in complex fields of feedback loops; indeed living
systems CONSIST of multileveled feedback systems -- electrical, chemical, 
physical etc.  These feeback systems within and between living (and non-living)
systems can be understood and modeled to a great degree by understanding them
as information exchange feedback complexes.  

In this sense, every human being is constantly processing stagering amounts
of information, whether awake or asleep, conscious or unconscious, clever or
foolish, intelligent or clinically retarded.  To breathe, see, smell, walk,
grasp (anything in any sense of the word), grow hair, metabolize food, or even 
to die and decay involves literally mind-boggling amounts of information 
exchanged between an all most infinite set of complex systems ranging from the
subatomic and quantum to the macro and cosmic scale.  

LIFE IS INFORMATION is a statement bearing much more information than is 
immediately obvious.  

The writings of Gregory Bateson on cybernetics and biology are very provocative
and scientific explorations of the statement LIFE IS INFORMATION.  Sorry,
since I'm not near my library at the moment, I can't provide specific 
references.


-- 
Steve Price 		UNIX: pacbell!pbhyf!rsprice	PHONE: (510)823-1951

We must live within the ambiguity of partial freedom, partial power, and 
partial knowledge.


