The Central Dogma of Information

Info-autopoiesis or the self-referenced, recursive, interactive process of information self-production that engages all living beings in their efforts to satisfy their physiological and/or relational needs relies on Bateson’s difference which makes a difference. Living beings, as active manipulators...

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Main Author: Jaime F. Cárdenas-García
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2022-07-01
Series:Information
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/13/8/365
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author Jaime F. Cárdenas-García
author_facet Jaime F. Cárdenas-García
author_sort Jaime F. Cárdenas-García
collection DOAJ
description Info-autopoiesis or the self-referenced, recursive, interactive process of information self-production that engages all living beings in their efforts to satisfy their physiological and/or relational needs relies on Bateson’s difference which makes a difference. Living beings, as active manipulators/observers of their environment, derive meaning from the sensorially detected motion of matter and/or energy in the Universe. The process of info-autopoiesis in humans is found to be triadic in nature and incorporates the simultaneity of a quantitative/objective perspective with a qualitative/subjective perspective. In this process of meaningful engagement with the environment, humans create and transform endogenous semantic information into countless expressions of exogeneous syntactic information, which is synonymous with ordered material structure and artificial creation. Other humans can interpret exogeneous syntactic information and uniquely transform it into semantic information that can take multifarious forms. This asymmetrical process is the basis to postulate the central dogma of information that states ‘info-autopoiesis results in endogenous semantic information that irreversibly becomes exogeneous syntactic information’. In other words, once the artificial, syntactic world, including machines, created by humans comes into being it can only be interpreted by others, i.e., it does not necessarily convey the same intended meaning to all. Additionally, these artificial creations only recognize, extract, create, transmit, preserve, store, and utilize syntactic information, unable to transform syntactic information into semantic information. In other words, our resourceful capacity for syntactic creation does not allow for creation of artificial beings with comparable capabilities as us for meaning making. It suggests that our dreams for sentient artificial general intelligence and superintelligence are misguided and parallel the central dogma of molecular biology which states that ‘once (sequential) information has passed into protein it cannot get out again’.
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spelling doaj.art-f4ff65e282954f20a7711432ffc7e03d2023-12-03T13:50:46ZengMDPI AGInformation2078-24892022-07-0113836510.3390/info13080365The Central Dogma of InformationJaime F. Cárdenas-García0Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250, USAInfo-autopoiesis or the self-referenced, recursive, interactive process of information self-production that engages all living beings in their efforts to satisfy their physiological and/or relational needs relies on Bateson’s difference which makes a difference. Living beings, as active manipulators/observers of their environment, derive meaning from the sensorially detected motion of matter and/or energy in the Universe. The process of info-autopoiesis in humans is found to be triadic in nature and incorporates the simultaneity of a quantitative/objective perspective with a qualitative/subjective perspective. In this process of meaningful engagement with the environment, humans create and transform endogenous semantic information into countless expressions of exogeneous syntactic information, which is synonymous with ordered material structure and artificial creation. Other humans can interpret exogeneous syntactic information and uniquely transform it into semantic information that can take multifarious forms. This asymmetrical process is the basis to postulate the central dogma of information that states ‘info-autopoiesis results in endogenous semantic information that irreversibly becomes exogeneous syntactic information’. In other words, once the artificial, syntactic world, including machines, created by humans comes into being it can only be interpreted by others, i.e., it does not necessarily convey the same intended meaning to all. Additionally, these artificial creations only recognize, extract, create, transmit, preserve, store, and utilize syntactic information, unable to transform syntactic information into semantic information. In other words, our resourceful capacity for syntactic creation does not allow for creation of artificial beings with comparable capabilities as us for meaning making. It suggests that our dreams for sentient artificial general intelligence and superintelligence are misguided and parallel the central dogma of molecular biology which states that ‘once (sequential) information has passed into protein it cannot get out again’.https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/13/8/365informationgregory batesoninfo-autopoiesisClaude E. Shannonsyntacticsemantic
spellingShingle Jaime F. Cárdenas-García
The Central Dogma of Information
Information
information
gregory bateson
info-autopoiesis
Claude E. Shannon
syntactic
semantic
title The Central Dogma of Information
title_full The Central Dogma of Information
title_fullStr The Central Dogma of Information
title_full_unstemmed The Central Dogma of Information
title_short The Central Dogma of Information
title_sort central dogma of information
topic information
gregory bateson
info-autopoiesis
Claude E. Shannon
syntactic
semantic
url https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/13/8/365
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