Genome complexity: what genes do and don't do (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, January 25, 2019, 21:06 (1918 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Information is instructions as to how to respond. Information is not active in and of itself, but is reference material which can be used to create actions.

dhw: Your second sentence is precisely what I keep saying, so we can now dismiss your earlier statement that information is a “central active component”. The article you agreed with states that “the information in the DNA code “cannot possibly serve as instructions” for creating a “fully functioning being”, and that “cells “learn” and “create instructions on the hoof” and create them “de novo”. It also tells us that information (= passive “reference material”) is used by the organism, and organisms are communities of cells. We are left, then, with the hypothesis that cells use passive information to create actions.

See my entry today about Davies' news book on information and life. "Comment: Information is either descriptive or provide instructions for functions. ID has always pointed to the latter as very important. Davies is joining in." The information just lying there is inactive, of course, but he cells are totally aware of it and use it in various required actions.