Re: [asa] Information and knowledge

*Let's go through the basic elements of Shannon's thinking*:

Yes, but you are being too literal in how it applies. Shannon originally
thought of his ideas in the context of communications networks. They have
been extended to other areas, including computational biology.

On 4/12/07, Rich Blinne <rich.blinne@gmail.com> wrote:
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> On 4/12/07, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > As to RNA, that isn't the point I was trying to make. The point is that
you can take information from a genome out of the biological realm entirely
and process it in a mechanical realm, a computer. It is not inconceivable
that in the relatively near future engineers will be able to then take that
information out of the mechanical realm and return it to the biological.
> >
>
>
> Let's go through the basic elements of Shannon's thinking:
>
> An information source which produces a message
> A transmitter which operates on the message to create a signal which can
be sent through a channel
> A channel, which is the medium over which the signal, carrying the
information that comprises the message, is sent
> A receiver, which transforms the signal back into the message intended for
delivery
> A destination, which can be a person or a machine, for whom or which the
message is intended
>
> The "message" of our DNA here has specific copy numbers in it. The plasmid
DNA generation in your example is one not chromosomal DNA and two
artificial plasmids often have a high copy number. In short, it's not the
"message" of our DNA and thus Shannon does not apply.
>
> If our message was: "The quick brown fox." The plasmid message is "The the
the the the the the ..."

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Received on Thu Apr 12 17:44:40 2007