Information, The Hidden Side of Life

Preface

“The reader of this sentence will cease toexist when he has finished reading.”Metamagical Themas, Douglas Hofstadter

This book grew out of a meeting that brought together three scientists, who had different backgrounds, and who worked in different disciplines, but who all had this in common: their activities had to do with the living entity. Confronting each of them in their own way was the question: what is information?

Whether in ecosystems, human language, genetics or evolution of living organisms, one comes face to face with the idea that information forms the substance of the system(s) being studied, then reproduced, transmitted, coded and decoded, or manipulated in other ways. Such information may not be equally important to everyone, it may not be carried by the same channel, or perhaps even be of the same nature. Yet, one cannot afford to overlook the importance of the concept while continuing to speak of it without a proper understanding of what the much-used term means. The information that we exchange and talk about every day is coded in our language. Now, are other languages coded differently, say nature’s languages? Can we define them, analyze them and quantify them?

Quite possibly, part of what we are going to say here may appear obvious to some readers, but unacceptable to others. Considering the gap between these two reactions, however, it is reassuring that we come across both kinds of comment, perhaps in a sign that there is something non-consensual ...