10 ms·
Life Is Made of Unfair Coin Flips
- captaincole 7y agoI really had fun reading this and thinking deeply about the blurry Ill defined line between things that are alive (an individual) and things that are not. To take this experiment to a conclusion which the author has “left to the reader” as all good texts do, let’s think about a virus. A virus has information, in the form of dna or rna (I believe this is what a coronavirus uses), that it injects into a cell to then cause the cell to create more virus. The goal of this is to pass “information” to successive versions of the virus which are then programmed to do the same thing. Since they are trying to keep the same information, then they are in fact attempting to reduce entropy across time therefore they are as the author defines, an “individual”. Would love for someone to test that logic train that I just rode
- DeathArrow 7y agoI don't know if the goal of the virus is to reduce entropy. Viruses mutate just like some clever computer viruses. Allowing them to trick immune systems and anti viruses and render antivirals useless. Bacterias are doing that too. I think we can equate too much entropy with danger since cancer cells also mean mutations.
- jpfdez 7y agoThe viruses themselves do not mutate, it is the genetics of the infected cell that cause mutation.
- clairity 7y agoviruses have no agency so they don't attempt to reduce entropy across time. viruses are a reduction of entropy across time, just by being an organized structure (of rna and protein strands folded together) requiring energy to create and maintain. information is encoded in that structure--both in the sequence and in the shape--and that's transmitted through time.
- Retric 7y agoViruses increase entropy like all life. Their reproductive process destroys a much larger and more complex cell. Plants convert light into chemical energy at low efficiency, the rest goes to waste heat. Animals do the same thing with chemical energy.
- monadic2 7y agoI disagree with life increasing entropy; it does do that but it expels the entropy.
- selestify 7y agoLiving things are low-entropy internally, but produce higher entropy externally than would have been without life.
- hordeallergy 7y agoTo some degree depending on how productive they are externally, eg bee vs fox.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- monadic2 7y agoHmm, I don’t follow the comparison. How could, for instance, the sun use “life” to generate more entropy than it already does?
- clairity 7y agoyes, as @selestify also noted, that seems contradictory on the surface but actually isn't. the virus itself is a reduction of entropy while it's net existential entropy contribution is positive. where you draw the system boundary matters for defining entropy changes, but long-term we're all bound to increase entropy, otherwise life (and our semi-living cousins) would be violating the laws of thermodynamics writ large.
- tmcb 7y agoThe blog entry is quite good, but it seems to suggest that the breakthrough consists in analyzing living organisms through the lenses of information theory. This is not a mistake in itself, but a shallow perspective nonetheless: information theory is, supposedly, a mathematical representation of the ways our brains make sense of the world around. The blog entry accidentally gives leeway to readers think that there is some intrinsic quality to living beings that transforms dull matter into information propagation channels. As expected, the article does a better job in setting aside this line of reasoning[1]. What you are really measuring is how information is persisted over time, and over the "background noise" of environment. They specifically talk about viruses at a point, and the usual odd distinction of them being not quite living creatures. When they are found sitting outside their hosts, it is very hard to point out if they actually carry information over time. [1] Disclaimer: I have just skim-read it.
- nil-sec 7y agoMaybe I misunderstood you here but I don’t think information theory and in particular entropy has anything to do with “our brain”. It’s simply a statement of the number of micro states in a system. There is no requirement for reading them out or having a brain look at it. This value exists without observer. In that sense there is indeed an intrinsic quality to living beings that leads them to have a reduced number of micro states. They spend energy to keep it that way over time.
- tmcb 7y agoI know this is a pretty bold claim, but it is hard to overlook the idea that information theory as proposed by Claude Shannon works as a model of information as related to human cognition, and that it does not imply that information is a fundamental property of the physical universe. There are several interviews in which he mentioned that the understanding of how the human brain works was one of his main inquiries. His work on AI and the Theseus. And the seminal paper on information theory contains a section in which a fidelity evaluation function is defined with relation to the human ear and brain.
- 7y ago
- praptak 7y agoHow do you define the information-theoretic entropy of a physical object, like a virus?
- smallnamespace 7y agoA good talk that hashes out many of the ideas from the article, from a statistical mechanics perspective: https://youtu.be/10cVVHKCRWw https://youtu.be/10cVVHKCRWw
- bnegreve 7y agoFun read. But wouldn't we reluctant to change if the only goal of individuals was to preserve/propagate information to the future? Mutations, increase entropy, yet some of them are beneficial. How does it fit in this theory?
- smallnamespace 7y agoChange is necessary for survival as the environment shifts. Many organisms have a stable superstructure within which controlled change is accommodated--the seasonal timing of reproduction, the outer protein coat of a virus, the plasticity of the brain. The dichotomy isn't so much between change vs. stability, but where change happens, and in what way.
- bnegreve 7y ago> Many organisms have a stable superstructure within which controlled change is accommodated--the seasonal timing of reproduction, the outer protein coat of a virus, the plasticity of the brain. Ok for the seasonal change, but I don't think all change is controlled the way you say. Individuals grow and adapt to their changing environment, and for this process to be optimal, entropy is necessary. This contradict the idea that "Individuals maximally propagate information from their past to their future." which suggests that the optimal individual is fully deterministic. So maximizing the propagation of information cannot be their only objective function. At least, this is what puzzles me. edit: actually answer your comment
- smallnamespace 7y ago> optimal individual is fully deterministic The way out of your contradiction is to realize that full determinism is likely to lead to the death of the organism, which would not maximally propagate information. One view is that organisms allow change because the environment forces it upon them; another view is that the necessity for particular types of change has shaped organisms over time, until it becomes part of their nature. Take global warming: there are certainly a large contingent of folks who would prefer to reject change (both mentally, and in action), even at the risk of death and suffering. > Individuals grow and adapt to their changing environment The growth is an extremely highly choreographed process. Individuals grow and adapt in extremely specific ways compared to the space of all possible ways that they could change. Consider the brain: a brain that is capable of learning, absorbing new lessons, and then using them when appropriate is an extremely unlikely arrangement of matter, from a thermodynamic perspective. Another perspective that helps resolve that matter, which the article touches upon, is that individuality exists at multiple levels of organization, and in particular stability at one level implies change at another. Brains are a way for genes to maintain a higher level of stability: the learning, growth, and adaptation happens inside the brain (and also the body), while the genes that encode the recipe for creating the brain get a measure of stability. In the absence of brains, genes would have to change much more frequently! So brains are a mechanism by which genes channel and outsource change to a different level of organization. Another example: reflect upon the mental process that you are currently undergoing in our conversation. Your brain is seeking to maximize its own stability. There is a fundamental principle that it refuses to overturn: that A and ~A are incompatible, that change and not-change do not fit together. There are two options: you can reject entirely the line of thought and dismiss it as contradictory. This would minimize change, but also leave a potential gap in your model of the world. Knowledge gaps can be threatening - in the extreme case, it can lead to death and the destruction of the brain! Or, if you find a piece of knowledge that can resolve the contradiction, then your brain gets to keep its fundamental principle, while also having an improved mental model that can help it navigate the world and avoid destruction. Of course, a subset of the the brain's goal is reproduction of its own genes as well as transmission of its own ideas and knowledge (something that my brain admits to doing right now!), another example of a form of change channeled to maximize stability elsewhere. In summary, to resolve your contradiction, realize that there are multiple 'individuals', which are really composite systems, at various levels of organization, each with its own goal of self-preservation. Notice where the change happens - it usually involves change being pushed off somewhere else! This current meme in my head very much desires change - it would like your mind to change, in order for itself to have a higher chance of survival.
- raybon 7y agoI recommend this book 'The demon in the machine' on this topic https://asunow.asu.edu/20191219-asu-professors-demon-machine-named-physics-book-year-uk https://asunow.asu.edu/20191219-asu-professors-demon-machine...
- prescojan 7y agoGreat sentence. The key is to accept the unfairness, and not be mad about it. Don't hate the player
- op03 7y agoThere are different keys for different people Know the personality of the person dealing with the "unfair coin flip" and then make a suggestion - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_NEO_Personality_Inventory#Personality_dimensions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_NEO_Personality_Invent... Agreeable traitholders are more likely to "accept" unfairness. With others anything can happen, depending on their needs, who they are surrounded by, their interests, health, financial stability etc Nature ensures we don't have one strategy to deal with roadbumps. Which is why we survive so many.
- smoll 7y agoI initially read the title and thought this would be about why "[the origin of life, on earth, or in the universe] is the result of a series of unfair coin flips" and got almost too excited, but what the article was actually about is just as interesting! And, if true, it maybe even informs how we might go about answering the origin question too...
- k__ 7y agoI thought it would be about how every single successful person had it better than their unsuccessful peers and some stuff about US and China.
- smileypete 7y agoThere's a good quote in this FT interview with Peter Piot, who co-discovered Ebola: http://archive.is/N6fAF http://archive.is/N6fAF “The absence of bad luck in life is the most important thing.”
- czbond 7y agoI'm postulating that "bad luck" is mostly poor decisioning, with say 30% of black swan type events in humans. Paralleling Nassim Taleb's concept of protecting against downside tail risks is of utmost important. Are there ways to protect downside risk in the other areas of life? A former, more judgemental version of me, used to be highly critical of illogical decisions individuals make. I tend to lack the "feeling / in the moment" aspect that a larger group of humans possess and naturally run everything through the 'thinking, logical, multiple permutation outcomes of a decision'. I used to see consistent decisions impacting people's lives as streams of "I feels" decisions that were suboptimal, and led to poor outcomes - masked as bad luck. (examples abound).
- downerending 7y agoThis sounds a lot like Schopenhauer. He said, or perhaps someone summarized him, something like: Life is hell, and the main goal is to choose a room farthest from the flames.
- Der_Einzige 7y agoHaha, funny enough, he argued for antinatalism before that term was heavily used. He argued for a proto-form of negative utilitarianism, and in the case of some of his disciples, they argued that people should commit suicide https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Mainl%C3%A4nder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_Mainl%C3%A4nder (disciple advocating for suicide) Many took their arguments to be closer to "to live is to suffer and suffering is the ultimate bad thing. You shouldn't inflict that suffering on anyone else (and maybe not even on yourself) No wonder Nietzsche was so afraid of what schopenhaur was doing to philosophy. His work and his followers advocate for the ultimate form of life denial. Similar to jainists too. Though, I still find Schopenhaur to be more compelling on this than anyone else...
- syoc 7y agoThis reminded me of this excellent article I cought on HN some time ago. https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-computational-foundation-of-life-20170126 https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-computational-foundation-...
- ubittibu 7y agoThe definition of life as something finalized to reduce the entropy (of itself) can be complementary to the theory of life as something that emerged to increase entropy of the world (surrounding environment)? https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-20140122/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-o...
- amelius 7y ago> if it’s seeking to maximize that information passed forward, then you’re probably dealing with something we should consider to be an individual This seems overly broad because it would also apply to some or most machines.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoIf it applies to bacteria, it applies to machines, as bacteria are just chemical machines. Note that "individual" != "alive".
- sippeangelo 7y agoIf we, at our core, have a drive to increase entropy, I wonder if there's a correlation between families choosing to only have one child and those having a positive outlook towards preventing global warming.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoThis is not a new idea - it's been around for decades now[1] - and the suggestion that it's related to individuality is a distraction that carries a lot of political, psychological, and emotional baggage that is irrelevant to the topic. There is no individuality in information theory. There are only systems. It's been debated whether or not there's individuality in evolutionary theory. You don't lose anything - and you may gain a lot - if you stop thinking of evolution as the survival of "fit individuals", and think of it more as the survival of complex ecosystems shaped by a blend of cooperative and competitive strategies with environmental feedback and randomness. [1] The first example I can find is Schrodinger's book "What is Life?" published in 1944.
- ppod 7y agoWhen you say "ecosystems" aren't you already enumerating them in a way that implies individuality?
- TeMPOraL 7y agoThe way I see it, at its core, evolution is just a chaotic system made of randomness biased by environment, and at the same time in a feedback loop with it. Survival of "fit individuals", or "fit ecosystems", or "fit companies", or "fit societies" - it's all the same thing IMO.
- samuel2 7y agoMakes sense as human race flourished since we learned how to store informations externally (notes, books, etc..)
- motohagiography 7y agoSo by extension, death is just decoherence? I've said before that the most plausible explanation to me for what happens after death is the end of "I," since we as "I's," necessarily cannot comprehend a state of "not-I." We can know it exists, we can experience its effects from others, and we can severely impair it with psychedelic poisons, but to decohere into a state of "!i" is, to borrow from GEB, the song that breaks the record player. Great post. Alex Danco is consistently good.
- czbond 7y agoCan you expand on the concept of what "not-I" is? I am very interested, and maybe it is my coffee just kicking in - but my brain can't comprehend solid examples of it.
- beaconstudios 7y agoThe state of not being a self aware conscious entity.
- jeffdavis 7y agoAre you claiming that individuality and consciousness are the same?
- throw1234651234 7y agoDefine "individuality" and "consciousness" for the sake of trying to contrast them. Both seem like very vague open-ended words. Oh wait, they are, because we still can't define consciousness, so there can be no meaningful answer to your question.
- beaconstudios 7y agono - the question was around a self-aware entity (an "I") becoming aware of its future non-existence. A conscious being without self-awareness would not be capable of considering its self no longer existing.
- SubuSS 7y agoIt seems the author (or paper authors) are mixing up individuality with life/agency? IOW a hard drive with information is working against entropy to keep information active through time. But that doesn't make it an individual - IOW I see how this can be used to define a singular unit, I don't see how this idea is used to delineate the 'emergence' part: What am I missing?
- skybrian 7y agoWell, it's an individual hard drive. Maybe "individual" is independent from "alive"? It seems like a message in a suitable environment can have as much agency as a virus? This is how computer viruses work. A hard drive can work the same way; it's just a brick until someone plugs it in.
- daxfohl 7y agoI still agree with Stephen Hawking's interpretation. (Or at least he's the first one I'd heard make this interpretation, probably not his per se). Anyway, that consciousness emerges from natural selection: ability to attack/defend is strongest when you can predict the actions of your prey/predator. Ability to predict those actions is greatly strengthened when the individual can reflect on thoughts and project those onto others. This reflection is where consciousness aka "life" emerges from.
- lonelappde 7y agoBad metaphor. It's impossible to bias a coin to a non-integer probability of flipping to tails. http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/diceRev2.pdf http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/dice...