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Nature and Origin of Biological and Social Information

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Evolution of Information Processing Systems

Abstract

The concept of information has not been created by biologists, nevertheless there are important areas in biology where it is widely used without any epistemological solicitude. The briefest of excursions into the subject of molecular biology, which is concerned with probing the secrets of life, reveals that the subject is entirely dominated by the language and techniques of data and data processing. The two sorts of scientist who can really understand each other are molecular biologists and computer programmers. Based upon this success there are many ventures, mainly in the fields of popular sciences, which generalize the findings of molecular biology and try to base all biological sciences on the concept of information. These attempts have provoked the objections of biologists who are interested in development (Oyama 1985) or other traditional fields of biology. As far as I am concerned I am sure that a proper concept of information can be worked out for the biologist and this paper is a preliminary endeavour.

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© 1992 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Csányi, V. (1992). Nature and Origin of Biological and Social Information. In: Haefner, K. (eds) Evolution of Information Processing Systems. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-77211-5_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-77211-5_14

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-77213-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-77211-5

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