From: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: CWACKers and Complexity (bits of information definition)
Date: Sat, 07 Nov 92 18:58:29 EST
Reply-To: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
Organization: Kalki's Infoline BBS, Aiken, SC, USA

tlode@nyx.cs.du.edu (trygve lode) writes:

> In article <1d91uoINN9e4@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bz754@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (De
> >
> >        I am in need of some explanation of the definition of bits of
> >information as discussed in Dr. Robert Gange's book 'Origins and Destiny.'
> >I hope some of you have read this (any CWACKers?)

............. etc.....

> >        Gange states that investigation into protein molecules has come up
> >with the mathematical result showing that 1500 bits is roughly the informati
> >existing in a large protein molecule (very similiar to the machine replicati

> >Question #1:  Where does this figure come for a large protein molecule?

A typical protein molecule in an E. coli cell contains about 300 amino
acid subunits. Each subunit may be any one of twenty different amino
acids. The number of possible protein molecules of this size is
therefore 20e300. each protein may be uniquely specified by a string of
300 Log 20 = 1297 bits (log to base 2).

> >        In appendix 6 of the book the information content of various sources
> >is discussed.  A footnote in chapter 13 states 'All descriptions can be
> >reduced to a one-dimensional sequence of symbols whose complexity is the
> >information content of the shortest algorithm that completely describes it.
> >So I am assuming the scalar of 1500 bits refers directly to the apparently
> >huge algorithm describing a protein molecule.  Informational bit content
> >is listed for other sources.  The number of bits increases logarithmically
> >as the magnitude of the information grows, which means that large changes of
> >information are measure by comparatively small numbers of bits.
> >
> >                No. of books (one book = 200 pages)     No. of bits
> >                        1                               22
> >                        1K                              32
> >                        20K                             36
> >                        100K                            38
> >                        4M                              44
> >                        40M  (library of Congress)      47
> >                        300B (all of human knowledge)   60
> >
> >Question #2:  I'm hazy on how 1 book is represented by 22 bits, and how
> >              the logarithmic progression is achieved to 60 bits in
> >              'all of human knowledge.'

Using an alphabet of 64 characters (6 bits to specify each character),
if we take 200 pages, 70 chars/line, 40 lines/page as the size of a typical
book, (200x70x40 = 560,000 characters), then the number of possible
books is: 64e560,000. Each book may be uniquely specified by a string of
560,000 Log 64 = 3,360,000 bits.

Of course, there are vast numbers of "possible" books that consist of
gibberish, as there are large numbers of "possible" protein molecules
that would not be stable.

If we confine the discussion to actually existing books, eliminating the
nonsense ones and the ones which were never printed, then it is possible
to compress the descriptions with suitable coding (i.e. Huffman). But
this introduces an algorithm whose information content must also be
taken into account. In addition, we would have to supply all the text of
all the existing books to the coding process!

I truncated the rest of your letter, because the numbers from this
fellow Gange's book do not seem right. There is another book by a
mathematical biologist, Dr. Richard Thompson, which discusses these
points in an orderly, lucid fashion. The book is titled Mechanistic and
Nonmechanistic Science, published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. It is
highly recommended.

Sincerely,
Kalki Dasa


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