Biological Information as Choice and Construction.

A causal approach to biological information is outlined. There are two aspects to this approach: information as determining a choice between alternative objects and information as determining the construction of a single object. The first aspect has been developed in earlier work to yield a quantita...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophy of Science Vol. 85; no. 5; pp. 1012 - 1026
Main Author: Pocheville, Arnaud
Format: Article
Published: Cambridge University Press Dec2018
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Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:A causal approach to biological information is outlined. There are two aspects to this approach: information as determining a choice between alternative objects and information as determining the construction of a single object. The first aspect has been developed in earlier work to yield a quantitative measure of biological information that can be used to analyze biological networks. This article explores the prospects for a measure based on the second aspect and suggests some applications for such a measure. These two aspects are not suggested to exhaust all the facets of biological information.