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Evolution of Natural Agents: Preservation, Advance, and Emergence of Functional Information

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Abstract

Biological evolution is often viewed narrowly as a change of morphology or allele frequency in a sequence of generations. Here I pursue an alternative informational concept of evolution, as preservation, advance, and emergence of functional information in natural agents. Functional information is a network of signs (e.g., memory, transient messengers, and external signs) that are used by agents to preserve and regulate their functions. Functional information is preserved in evolution via complex interplay of copying and construction processes: the digital components are copied, whereas interpreting subagents together with scaffolds, tools, and resources, are constructed. Some of these processes are simple and invariant, whereas others are complex and contextual. Advance of functional information includes improvement and modification of already existing functions. Although the genome information may change passively and randomly, the interpretation is active and guided by the logic of agent behavior and embryonic development. Emergence of new functions is based on the reinterpretation of already existing information, when old tools, resources, and control algorithms are adopted for novel functions. Evolution of functional information progressed from protosemiosis, where signs correspond directly to actions, to eusemiosis, where agents associate signs with objects. Language is the most advanced form of eusemiosis, where the knowledge of objects and models is communicated between agents.

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Notes

  1. For semantic theories of information in cybernetics see (Carnap and Bar-Hillel 1952; D’Alfonso 2011).

  2. For definition and classification of agents in the context of Artificial Intelligence, see (Franklin and Graesser 1996).

  3. Here my understanding of signs differs from Peirce: if an object releases a mark, then this mark is not a sign yet. It belongs to “hidden correlations” in the outside world unless it is detected and utilized by some agents as a sign.

  4. The term inheritome (i.e., heritable information passed from parents to offspring) was suggested by Prasad et al. (2015).

  5. DNA replication is a direct copying because new nucleotides come into direct contact with matching parental nucleotides. In contrast, new histone modifications are added without direct contact with parental histone marks.

  6. The difference between copying and coding is not qualitatively sharp because the input and output are different even during DNA copying, where nucleotides A, C, G, and T are paired with different nucleotides T, G, C, and A, respectively. However, copying is reversible and recursive, whereas coding is irreversible, as in protein synthesis.

  7. Here I do not consider human codes that can be fixed by design (e.g., Morse code). However, even human codes that are fixed within our life time may change over millennia together with other cultural features.

  8. Note, that I consider emergence as a semiotic phenomenon (i.e., change of interpretation by agents) rather than simply an unpredictable thing, event, or a new kind of causation in nature, as discussed by Kim (1999).

  9. Here I do not discuss additional possible functions of wing-like appendages, such as thermoregulation (Kingsolver and Koehl 1985) or sexual display (Dickinson and Dudley 2009).

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported entirely by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Aging (NIA/NIH), project ZIA AG000656-13. The content of the paper is not endorsed or suggested by the funding organization.

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  1. Laboratory of Genetics and Genomics, National Institute on Aging, 251 Bayview Blvd., Baltimore, MD, 21224, USA

    Alexei A. Sharov

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Sharov, A.A. Evolution of Natural Agents: Preservation, Advance, and Emergence of Functional Information. Biosemiotics 9, 103–120 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-015-9250-3

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