In the Beginning was Information

forms, as well as the sounds of voices and noises ... – all the presentationsof these in our sense receptor cells, are translated into a signalling languagewhich is more monotonous than Morse code. Furthermore, this signallinglanguage is the only basis through which the profusion of inputs ismade alive in our subjective perception again – or for the first time. Allour actions and activities are also expressed in this signalling language,from the fine body control of athletes to the hand movements of a pianistor the mood expressions of a concert hall performer.“Whatever we experience or do, all the impulses coursing through ournervous system from the environment to our consciousness and thosetravelling from our brain to the motor muscles, do so in the form of themost monotonous message system imaginable. The following novel questionwas only formulated when a scientific information concept had beendeveloped, namely, what is the functional meaning of selecting a signallinglanguage using the smallest number of symbols for the transmissionof such a vast volume of information? This question could beanswered practically immediately by means of the information concept ofinformation theory.“The British physiologist, W. H. Rushton, was the first person to providethe answer which greatly surprised biologists, namely: There exists aresult in information theory for determining the capacity of a communicationsystem in such a way that its susceptibilty to perturbating interferenceis minimised. This is known as the method of standardisation of the propertiesof the impulses. The technique of pulse code modulation was discoveredin the 1930s, but its theoretical principles were only establishedlater. The symbolic language employed in living nervous systems, correspondsexactly to the theoretical ideal of interference-free communication.It is impossible to improve on this final refinement of pulse code modulation,and the disadvantage of a diminished transmission capacity is morethan offset by the increase in security. The monotonousness of the symboliclanguage of the nervous system thus convincingly establishes itselfFigure 35: Comparison of statistical information densities.DNA molecules contain the highest known packing density of information. Thisexceedingly brilliant storage method reaches the limit of the physically possible,namely down to the level of single molecules. At this level the information densityis more than 10 21 bits per cm 3 . This is 7.7 million million times the densityobtained when the entire Bible is reproduced on one photographic slide A. Only if7.7 million million Bibles could be represented on one slide B (this is only theoreticallypossible!), having 2.77 million rows and 2.77 million columns with the entireBible reproduced in each miniscule rectangle, would we obtain an informationpacking density equal to that present in all living cells.195