In the Beginning was Information

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Figure 11: A computer printout of some proverbs (in German) translated intohieroglyphics.Translation of the German text: It is better to receive one helping from God,than 5000 dishonestly. Do not speak evil, then you will be loved by everybody.Take care that you do not rob a distressed person, nor do violence to somebodyin poor health.4.1 The Lowest Level of Information: StatisticsWhen considering a book B, a computer program C, or the humangenome (the totality of genes), we first discuss the following questions:– How many letters, numbers and words make up the entire text?– How many single letters does the employed alphabet contain(e. g. a, b, c,..., z or G, C, A, T)?– How frequently do certain letters and words occur?To answer these questions, it is immaterial whether we are dealingwith actual meaningful text, with pure nonsense, or with randomsequences of symbols or words. Such investigations are not concernedwith the contents, but only with statistical aspects. Thesetopics all belong to the first and lowest level of information, namelythe level of statistics.54
As explained fully in Appendix A1, Shannon’s theory of informationis suitable for describing the statistical aspects of information,e. g. those quantitative properties of languages which dependon frequencies. Nothing can be said about the meaningfulness ornot of any given sequence of symbols. The question of grammaticalcorrectness is also completely excluded at this level. Conclusions:Definition 1: According to Shannon’s theory any randomsequence of symbols is regarded as information, without regardto its origin, nor whether it is meaningful or not.Definition 2: The statistical information content of a sequenceof symbols is a quantitative concept, measured in bits (binarydigits).According to Shannon’s definition the information content of a singlemessage (which could be one symbol, one sign, one syllable, ora single word) is a measure of the probability of its being receivedcorrectly. Probabilities range from 0 to 1, so that this measure isalways positive. The information content of a number of messages(signs for example) is found by adding the individual probabilitiesas required by the condition of summability. An important propertyof information according to Shannon is:Theorem 4: A message which has been subject to interferenceor “noise”, in general comprises more information than anerror-free message, according to Shannon’s theory.This theorem follows from the larger number of possible alternativesin a distorted message, and Shannon states that the informationcontent of a message increases with the number of symbols(see equation 6 in Appendix A1). It is obvious that the actual informationcontent cannot at all be described in such terms, as shouldbe clear from the following example: When somebody uses manywords to say practically nothing, this message is accorded a largeinformation content because of the large number of letters used.But if somebody else, who is really knowledgeable, conciselyexpresses the essentials, his message has a much lower informationcontent.55
Page 3 and 4: Werner GittIn the Beginningwas Info
Page 5 and 6: ContentsPreface ...................
Page 7 and 8: A2.1.2 Complexity and Peculiarities
Page 9 and 10: PrefaceTheme of the book: The topic
Page 11 and 12: Acknowledgements and thanks: After
Page 13 and 14: Figure 1: The web of a Cyrtophora s
Page 15 and 16: 3. The Morpho rhetenor butterfly: T
Page 17 and 18: few days later another wonderful ev
Page 19 and 20: 5. The organ playing robot: Would i
Page 21 and 22: PART 1: Laws of Nature
Page 23 and 24: aspects are not covered. Models are
Page 25 and 26: 2.2 The Limits of Science and the P
Page 27 and 28: numerous mathematical theorems (exc
Page 29 and 30: mulated on earth, were also valid o
Page 31 and 32: F = G x m 1 x m 2 / r 2The force F
Page 33 and 34: The nine above-mentioned general bu
Page 35 and 36: R2: The laws of nature enable us to
Page 37 and 38: Conservation theorems: The followin
Page 39 and 40: Figure 6: Geometrically impossible
Page 41 and 42: ical bond. The half-life T is given
Page 43 and 44: PART 2: Information
Page 45 and 46: Since the concept of information is
Page 47 and 48: tents and because of the encoding p
Page 49 and 50: chemical quantities can be steered,
Page 51 and 52: and there are 468 Greek words. This
Page 53: Figure 10: The Rosetta stone.53
Page 57 and 58: Theorem 5: Shannon’s definition o
Page 59 and 60: elementary sounds, but pictures are
Page 61 and 62: - Punched cards, mark sensing- Univ
Page 63 and 64: Get nymph; quiz sad brow; fix luck
Page 65 and 66: Theorem 7: The allocation of meanin
Page 67 and 68: Theorem 11: A code system is always
Page 69 and 70: Knowledge of the conventions applyi
Page 71 and 72: Sequences of letters generated by v
Page 73 and 74: system must have been created by an
Page 75 and 76: We can distinguish two types of act
Page 77 and 78: a) Concerning the sender:- Has an u
Page 79 and 80: no purpose or intent; he represents
Page 81 and 82: We still have to describe a domain
Page 83 and 84: 5 Delineation of the Information Co
Page 85: Definition D5: The domain A of defi
Page 88 and 89: 6 Information in Living OrganismsTh
Page 90 and 91: code with four different letters is
Page 92 and 93: Figure 17: The way in which genetic
Page 94 and 95: 6.2 The Genetic CodeWe now discuss
Page 96 and 97: Figure 19: The theoretical possibil
Page 98 and 99: Figure 20: A simplified representat
Page 100 and 101: inevitable interactions ... The ori
Page 102 and 103: We now discuss some theoretical mod
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Genetic algorithms: The so-called
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“The final result of all my resea
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7 The Three Forms in which Informat
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and methods of transfer (e. g. the
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8 Three Kinds of Transmitted Inform
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languages, creating a programming l
Page 116 and 117:
9 The Quality and Usefulness ofInfo
Page 118 and 119:
vertently), deliberately falsified,
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10 Some Quantitative Evaluationsof
Page 122 and 123:
such diverse topics as technology,
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11 Questions Often Asked Aboutthe I
Page 126 and 127:
Q10: Natural languages are changing
Page 128 and 129:
A19: Biological systems are indeed
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continually shifts in order to avoi
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A23: If we are talking about true l
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The information concept was discuss
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The close link between information
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13 The Quality and Usefulness of Bi
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iguously instructed to “Let the w
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Figure 27: God as Sender, man as re
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way its understanding is also a spi
Page 146 and 147:
dom prepared for you since the crea
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would be known about his Person and
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Missionary and native: After every
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the case, as shown in Figure 29; no
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and defects of the information sent
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- Man did not develop through a cha
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15 The Quantities Used for Evaluati
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him: “Today salvation has come to
Page 162 and 163:
16 A Biblical Analogy of the FourFu
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with God (Ephesians 5:18-20). The p
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- energy is utilised, and- the cons
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God’s testing fire; only fruit in
Page 170 and 171:
A1 The Statistical View of Informat
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Figure 31: Model of a discrete sour
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a) the factor n, which indicates th
Page 176 and 177:
) Expectation value of the informat
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A1.2 Mathematical Description of St
Page 180 and 181:
Figure 32: The number of letters L
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A1.2.2 The Information SpiralThe qu
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184
Page 186 and 187:
186
Page 188 and 189:
188
Page 190 and 191:
Figure 34: The ant and the microchi
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a degree of integration of 11.72 mi
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194
Page 196 and 197:
as expressing the highest possible
Page 198 and 199:
H syll = 8.6 bits/syllable. (16)The
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Figure 36: Frequency distributions
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202
Page 204 and 205:
the voluminous data requirements, c
Page 206 and 207:
A2 Language: the Medium for Creatin
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The words of a language are linked
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(tongo), or from the same level (ba
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It should be clear from these examp
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A2.1.4 Written LanguagesThe inventi
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mation as discussed above, are foun
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“Speaking birds”: Parrots and b
Page 220 and 221:
Figure 41: Speechless.(Sketched by
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we might realise. There are countle
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- The impossibility of a perpetual
Page 226 and 227:
Figure 42: Three processes in close
Page 228 and 229:
228
Page 230 and 231:
Figure 44: Ripple marks on beach sa
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glucose is produced from 6 mol CO 2
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individual catalytic enzyme reactio
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nature: mechanical work is performe
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All human nutritional problems coul
Page 240 and 241:
intricately constructed light proje
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p = 0.006/h) to produce propulsion
Page 244 and 245:
leg they fly back to Canada over Ce
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south-east and fly right across the
Page 248 and 249:
[E2] Eigen, M.: Stufen zum Leben- D
Page 250 and 251:
[G15] Gitt, W.:[G16] Gitt, W.:[G17]
Page 252 and 253:
Automatisierungstechnische Praxis 2
Page 254 and 255:
H. 12, pp. 68-87[W2] Weibel, E. R.:
Page 256:
Kemner, H. 146, 167Kessler, V. 11Ki
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