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Living is Information Processing: From Molecules to Global Systems

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Abstract

We extend the concept that life is an informational phenomenon, at every level of organisation, from molecules to the global ecological system. According to this thesis: (a) living is information processing, in which memory is maintained by both molecular states and ecological states as well as the more obvious nucleic acid coding; (b) this information processing has one overall function—to perpetuate itself; and (c) the processing method is filtration (cognition) of, and synthesis of, information at lower levels to appear at higher levels in complex systems (emergence). We show how information patterns, are united by the creation of mutual context, generating persistent consequences, to result in ‘functional information’. This constructive process forms arbitrarily large complexes of information, the combined effects of which include the functions of life. Molecules and simple organisms have already been measured in terms of functional information content; we show how quantification may be extended to each level of organisation up to the ecological. In terms of a computer analogy, life is both the data and the program and its biochemical structure is the way the information is embodied. This idea supports the seamless integration of life at all scales with the physical universe. The innovation reported here is essentially to integrate these ideas, basing information on the ‘general definition’ of information, rather than simply the statistics of information, thereby explaining how functional information operates throughout life.

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  1. Though some biologists may include viruses.

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Acknowledgments

This work was enhanced by very thoughtful and creative reviews by anonymous referees. It was supported by a Science Technology Research and Innovation for the Environment grant from the Environmental Protection Agency of the Republic of Ireland: 2007-PhD-SD-3. C.G. was partially supported by SNI membership 47907 of CONACyT, Mexico.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, BT9 7BL, UK

    Keith D. Farnsworth & John Nelson

  2. Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas Aplicadas y en Sistemas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, A.P. 20-726, 01000, Mexico, DF, Mexico

    Carlos Gershenson

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  1. Keith D. Farnsworth
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Correspondence to Keith D. Farnsworth.

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Farnsworth, K.D., Nelson, J. & Gershenson, C. Living is Information Processing: From Molecules to Global Systems. Acta Biotheor 61, 203–222 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-013-9179-3

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