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It isn’t obvious to me that mutation, in general, would increase entropy. There are mutations that would. For example a mutation that would lead to a random bit
by nil-sec 6y ago
It isn’t obvious to me that mutation, in general, would increase entropy. There are mutations that would. For example a mutation that would lead to a random bit flip during cell division would certainly increase entropy of the system. In my understanding such a mutation is also pretty bad for your organism. Its actually a somewhat trivial observation that systems that tend to higher entropy over time, “die” because they tend to a maximally unordered state over time.
- bnegreve 6y agoMutation is a random process, so individuals that can mutate are more entropic than the ones that can't. If we agree that mutations are desirable (in some cases) then this contradict the idea that individuals are only propagate the information to their future >Individuals maximally propagate information from their past to their future.
- nil-sec 6y agoNo it does not contradict it. You can have random processes induce a reduction in entropy of a system (e.g. random bit flips can lead to the sequence 111111 which has 0 entropy) and in particular a random process can increase the ability of a system to maintain low entropy over time (e.g. a mutation that makes dna replication during cell division more accurate), which is the more relevant point in the proposed definition.