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>Genome doesn't have sufficient capacity to specify every connection explicitly .. and can encode about 1GB of information (page 6) but genome (raw DNA sequenc
by bra-ket 7y ago
>Genome doesn't have sufficient capacity to specify every connection explicitly .. and can encode about 1GB of information (page 6)
but genome (raw DNA sequence) is only small part of much more complex and dynamic system, which includes regulatory networks, metabolic pathways, RNA interference, cell signalling networks and whatnot [0], surely the number of bits that can be encoded by this is much higher than GB, probably by many orders of magnitude. Genome is just a blueprint of machinery that creates another machinery.
This is not to take away from authors point (and complex systems can be created with simple rules and just a few bits) but innate structure itself can be very complex, I'm wondering if there are any neurophysiological studies showing evidence of a built-in universal grammar, Chomsky's old idea [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_biology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_biology
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar
- PhilWright 7y agoYou cannot use 1GB to encode more than 1GB of information. A 1GB zip file does not encode 1TB of information. Sure, you might have a 1GB zip file that expands to 1TB of data but not information. That is because the 1TB of data has lots of redundancy and inefficiency in how the data is represented that allows the high level of compression.
- orbifold 7y agoThis is only true for closed systems. The nervous system incorporates a lot of external information through learning. Similar to how you need much less information to define a 1TB storage device. The 1GB figure also neglects epigenetics.
- Gatsky 7y agoThe genome is not a code. It is more like a musical score. You only know how the music sounds if you have all the instruments playing.
- PinkMilkshake 7y ago> Genome is just a blueprint of machinery that creates another machinery. In neuroevolution it's called indirect encoding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroevolution#Direct_and_indirect_encoding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroevolution#Direct_and_indi...
- bra-ket 7y agosome interesting work: "Language Universals Engage Broca's Area" https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0095155 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... "Language universals at birth" https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/03/26/1318261111 https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/03/26/1318261111 "The Effect of Sonority on Word Segmentation" https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2011.01211.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1551-6709... "The neurology of syntax" http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.384.838&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.384... "Cortical tracking of hierarchical linguistic structures": https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.4186 https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.4186 "Mapping syntax using imaging": https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~embick/mappingsyntax.pdf https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~embick/mappingsyntax.pdf "Neural Syntax" https://www.researchgate.net/publication/47644138_Neural_Syntax_Cell_Assemblies_Synapsembles_and_Readers https://www.researchgate.net/publication/47644138_Neural_Syn... David Poeppel's lab: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9EyT1mYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9EyT1mYAAAAJ&hl=en... Yosef Grodzinsky' lab: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Qe83EZkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Qe83EZkAAAAJ&hl=en...