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Worlds Within Worlds - The Holarchy of Life (Chapter 8)
by Andrew P. Smith, Oct 24, 2005
(Posted here: Sunday, May 27, 2007)


PART II: HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED

 

8. THE INFORMATION GAP

"Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize that they work with two more or less incommensurate domains; that of information and that of matter...The two domains can never be brought together in any kind of sense usually implied by the term 'reductionism'...The gene is a package of information, not an object. The pattern of base pairs in a DNA molecule specifies the gene. But the DNA molecule is the medium, it's not the message."

-George Williams1

 

"If improving the hardware of the computer were the only method of improving the efficiency of information processing in the living system, evolution would have reached its apex in E. coli."

-Lila Gatlin2

 

The Great Chain of Being, the ancient and original statement of hierarchy, was a static structure. All the different forms of life were thought to have been created by God at one time, and their positions on the great scale fixed thereafter. This view of life changed radically in the 19th century with the formulation of evolutionary theory, and as noted in Chapter 1, this theory helped to doom the Great Chain as a unifying theory of existence. The very concept of evolution--the notion that different species of life had not been created at one time, but emerged at different times and were continuing to evolve--by itself would have been sufficient to overthrow the Great Chain. Nevertheless, this concept is not at all inconsistent with hierarchy, with an ordered arrangement of living things according to some consistent criteria, even those that Aristotle himself used. One of the great Greek philosopher's rankings, for example, was based on "powers of soul" (Lovejoy, 1960), which we might interpret today as "level of consciousness". One could certainly imagine an evolutionary process which results in a scale of consciousness, and indeed, that is a key principle in the holarchy as it's being formulated today (Wilber, 1980, 1981, 1989).

In Chapter 2, we saw that the holarchy consists of both levels of existence and stages within each level. I defined transformation as the process by which holons within a level combine to form new, higher-order holons within that level. This process is exemplified by the formation of amino acids from atoms, of tissues from cells, or of societies of organisms. Transcendence, on the other hand, I defined as the process by which all the stages on one level became combined into a new holon representing the beginning of a still higher level of existence. The emergence of cells from atoms and molecules is an example of the process of transcendence.

Based on this view of the holarchy, any comprehensive evolutionary theory should include the processes of both transformation and transcendence. That is, it should provide an explanation of how holons combine to form new stages of existence, as well as how several of these stages become organized into a new level of existence. In addition to these two kinds of vertical changes, however, horizontal change can also occur in the holarchy; that is, holons at one stage can evolve into other holons at the same stage. Thus many different kinds of atoms were formed some time after the origin of the universe, billions of years ago; many new kinds of cells evolved after the initial emergence of this new form of life; and many kinds of organisms evolved following the appearance of the first multicellular holons. Evolutionists usually call this process diversification, while in holarchical terms it sometimes is referred to as translation (Wilber 1980). I will generally use term diversification, to avoid confusion with another meaning of the term translation, the process by which information is read out from the genome or other storage holon (see Chapter 3). Diversification may also occur on different stages within a level of existence; there are many different kinds of protein molecules, and many different kinds of same-stage biological tissues.

In summary, evolution of the holarchy can be understood very generally in terms of three types of processes, which play out on every level of existence. Diversification creates a great variety of fundamental or zero-dimensional holons; transformation combines these holons into higher-order stages; and transcendence organizes all of these stages into a new and higher level of existence. Based on the extensive analogies that we have seen exist between holons on equivalent stages of different levels of existence, we might expect that any evolutionary theory that accounted for one of these three types of processses on one level should, if sufficiently generalized, account for the same kind of process on other levels. That is one major theme I will be exploring in this second part of the book.

On the other hand, as these three types of evolutionary change are all quite different from each other, we would not expect them to emerge through identical evolutionary processes. Nevertheless, it's the hope that if different evolutionary processes are involved, they have enough similarities to be subsumed together under some broader theory. This would be a truly unified theory of evolution.

Many scientists, of course, believe that we already have such a theory: Darwinism. I have great respect for this theory, and agree that it does have enormous explanatory power. In the next chapter, I will put this power on display, arguing that Darwinism, understood in terms of its key concepts of random variation and natural selection, may be an important evolutionary force throughout the holarchy of existence. Nevertheless, there are many questions that Darwinism not only hasn't answered, but in the view of some scientists, probably can't answer. I'm speaking here not just of the evolution of certain major evolutionary adaptations in organisms, over which Darwinists and their critics have argued for more than a century. Much more problematical for Darwinism than these are such major transitions as the evolution of the first cells--which had to occur to a large extent in the absence of genes; the evolution of human culture, which also definitely involves a non-genetic process; and the emergence of consciousness. While random mutation and natural selection may have contributed significantly to all these major transitions, I believe other evolutionary processes must also have occurred. The late Gordon R. Taylor spoke for many when he suggested that "Darwinism is not so much a theory as a sub-set of some theory as yet unformulated."3 Darwin himself, as we shall see later, once expressed such a view.

On what might we possibly base such a broader theory? In Chapter 3, I suggested that there was a close relationship between information and holarchical development. A cell contains more information than an atom, and a multicellular organism more than a cell. Furthermore, multicellular stages have more information than single cells, and societies of organisms more than their individuals. This suggests that evolution of the holarchy might be considered a process of increasing information, an idea that has attracted several other scientists (Sheldrake, 1981, 1989; Chaitin, 1999; Davies, 1999; Loewenstein 1999).

In this chapter, I will attempt to build a basis for integrating the concept of evolution with information. In particular, I will argue that we can use information--in theory, if not quite yet in practice--to quantitate the evolutionary process. That is, information is the yardstick by which we can measure how much evolution has taken place. If this can be established, understanding evolution becomes a matter of understanding how information is created, stored and transmitted by living things.

 

The Relationship of Genetic Information to Evolution

At the beginning of this chapter, I pointed out that evolution of the holarchy involves three kinds of processes: diversification, transformation and transcendence. Diversification produces new holons on the same stage of existence; transformation produces new stages on the same level; and transcendence produces a new level of existence. At first glance, these three processes may seem quite distinct. However, all of them can interact, which can make it difficult to define a particular evolutionary process. For example, the evolution of different organisms might seem to be a diversification process, but it clearly involved transformation at some points as well. The emergence of vertebrate organisms was to a great extent a transformative process, as was the evolution of our own species from other primates. The transformations involved the creation of higher stages of biological existence--more complex brains, for example--and in the case of our own species, higher stages of mental existence also, that is, social organizations.

At the outset, then, we need a more precise definition of diversification, a way to draw the line more clearly between this kind of process and transformative ones. Suppose, as a preliminary attempt to address this issue, we define diversification as any evolutionary process which does not involve an increase in information. More specifically, let's say diversification results in a change in the quality of information, but not in the quantity of information. The change in the quality of information is reflected in the evolution of a new form of life; the lack of change in amount of information is reflected in the fact that the new holon is on the same stage of existence as that from which it evolved.

Consider a typical, clear-cut example of diversification, one in which we can agree no transformation has occurred: the evolution of a new species of organism from another species of the same family or genus. The new species has certain phenotypic features that distinguish it from the former species. For example, a new species of bird might have a larger bill, a different color plumage, or different nesting habits from that of the related species from which it evolved. These new features, I argue, represent differences in the quality of information the organism expresses, but not in its quantity. Each species of bird contains approximately the same quantity of information.

This definition of diversification obviously will not be very useful, of course, unless we can define, and hopefully quantitate, information itself. What do I mean when I say an organism expresses a certain quantity of information, which is no greater than that expressed by another organism of the same species? In the conventional scientific view, the information specifying any organism is contained in its genome. With this in mind, we could define diversification as a process by which the quality of genetic information changes, but not it's quantity. Though we have no completely reliable method of determining the quantity of genetic information any organism has--a crucial point I will return to later--we can estimate fairly accurately its number of genes. So let's define the quantity of information present in any organism--again, in a preliminary manner--as directly related to the number of its genes.

Applied to our previous example, this definition of information seems to be quite suitable and appropriate. Two closely-related species of birds will indeed contain about the same amount of genetic information, as measured by the total number of genes they have. Where they differ is that a few of these genes are found only in one species, while a few others are found only in the second species. Thus one bird may have a gene or several genes that determine the formation of a particular kind of beak, while the other species has different genes that determine a different type of beak.

So far, so good. However, we quickly discover a problem with this definition of information. It's possible to identify organisms which most of us would agree are very different, yet which seem to contain about the same quantity of genetic information. A classic example is provided by comparing our own species with that of a non-human primate, such as a chimpanzee. The evolution of human beings from other primates, as I noted earlier, was not a simple diversification process. It involved transformations as well, particularly in the emergence of our larger brain (Preuss and Kaas 1999). Yet our genome is very similar to that of a chimp's. We have virtually the same number of genes (Gearhart and Kirschner 1999) and about 98% of those genes are the same (Stebbins 1983). While we don't know the exact number of genes in either humans or chimps, whatever differences there may be seem highly unlikely to provide a meaningful explanation of the difference between ourselves and chimpanzees. That is to say, information, if it's to be related to holarchical development, can't be equated with any simple quantity of genetic material.

The similarity of chimpanzee genes to our own is well-known to scientists, of course. It's simply assumed that the relatively few genetic differences between the two species are sufficient to account for the very great differences in phenotype. For example, it's a very good bet that many uniquely human genes control the development of our brain, particularly the cerebral cortex, which is much larger and more complex than that of other primates (Preuss and Kaas 1999).

This widely held view, however, regardless of whether it's correct or not, does not address the information gap--the fact that our genomes appear to contain roughly the same quantity of information as those of other primates. To understand why this is so, let's recall the discussion, in Chapter 3, of Gregory Chaitin's information theory. Chaitin introduced the critical notion of compressibility. If two strings or programs are of identical length, the less compressible one is said to contain more information. By this definition, the information represented in any organism is highly compressed. This is why a relatively few genes--roughly one hundred thousand in the human organism--can specify literally billions or trillions of cellular interactions. The highly patterned, repetitive nature of holarchical organization makes it possible for the genome to express all these interactions simply by specifying a few cell types and their rules of interaction.

Chaitin's theory is certainly compatible with the possibility that two organisms with roughly similar quantities of genetic information could not only have a very different structure--i.e., body type--but that one could have a much larger brain than the other. In this case, the larger brain would represent a greater "decompression" of the genetic information; this information would simply specify the growth and connection of a larger number of cells. The key point, however, is that the larger human brain could not contain any more information, in Chaitin's sense, than the smaller chimpanzee brain. The human brain may have the capacity to form many more connections among its neurons that the brain of other primates, but these connections, themselves, do not constitute more information. Some process still must select particular connections in order to create more information. "No program can generate a number more complex than itself," Chaitin tell us;

 

"a one pound theory can no more produce a ten-pound theorem than a one hundred pound woman can birth a two hundred pound child."4

 

This raises an obvious, and seemingly paradoxical, question. If the total information in our genome is about the same as that of a chimp; and if we have a brain with apparently much more information than the chimp's: then where does the extra information come from? This information gap is problematical enough for evolution, understanding how two species with about the same quantities of genetic information evolved brains apparently differing greatly in the quantity of information. But it also applies to human development, where its implications are even harder to fathom. If a newborn child has no more genetic information than a chimp, how can its brain have more information?

One might argue that the brains of humans and chimps really aren't that different, at least not in potential (Griffith 1992). Darwin himself almost seemed to believe this, insisting that there was "no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental qualities."5 It's certainly true that a great deal of the difference between human intelligence and that of other primates results from social development. However we want to define information in the brain, it's clear that much, probably most of what we possess we have obtained through years of learning in society. (This, however, raises another information gap problem which I will discuss later). Yet we also know that our brains have much more potential to learn, from birth. Numerous studies have demonstrated that other primates--even when exposed to similar learning environments--can't develop nearly as far mentally as the typical human child does (Tomasello and Call, 1997; Gill, 1997; Parker et al. 1999; Albert et al. 1999). The ability to learn language, in particular, is far more advanced in humans. Not even the most ardent believer in the educational potential of other primates would maintain, I think, that there are not very great differences in potential between our brains and theirs. Such a difference in potential implies a difference in information. In order to make use of the information in our social environment, we have to have a certain amount of information to begin with.

What really clinches this argument, moreover, is that we don't even have to compare ourselves to other primates in order to appreciate that there is some kind of a disconnect between genome and brain. Even the lowly mouse seems to have about as much genetic information as we do. This is true whether we measure this information in terms of total number of nucleotide base pairs (about three million for each species), or as the total number of genes (Gearhart and Kirshner 1999). Granted, the degree of similarity of genes is less than for humans vs. chimpanzees--perhaps 80-90%. Thus we have, say, ten or twenty thousand genes that a mouse does not have. This number is surely adequate for understanding why we are so physically and biologically different from a mouse. But again, it appears to be irrelevant to the question of information.

In summary, there is a major problem when we attempt to define evolutionary differences between organisms in terms of the amount of genetic material they possess. While there is a general trend of increasing number of genes with higher forms of life--from bacteria to plants to invertebrates to vertebrates (Lewin 1997; Gearhart and Kirschner 1999)--this trend breaks down completely when we reach the higher vertebrates. We can't explain the differences between these species in terms of the quantity of genetic information they contain. This not only invalidates a purely genetic approach to information. It also implies that either a) the genomes of non-human vertebrates contain far more information than is actually used to specify the organism; or b) there is far more information in ourselves and some other higher vertebrates--however poorly we are capable of understanding or measuring it at this point--than can be accounted for by information in the genome.

Each of these possibilities has rather profound implications, so before discussing them further, it would be well to make certain that there really is a discrepancy between genetic information and brain information, as I have been maintaining. Is it not possible that the apparent gap simply reflects our poor understanding of what genetic information really is--that is, the relationship between DNA sequences and the final development of the organism? We are just learning how certain master genes control the expression of large numbers of other genes during development (Raff 1996; Lewin 1997; Gearhart and Kirschner 1999), surely a major factor in compressibility. As we learn more about these genes, new principles of genetic regulation may emerge. Furthermore, we may discover that non-coding sequences of DNA, which comprise about 97% of the genome, have an informational role. There are already some studies suggesting that this DNA may have its own language (Liu and Liu 1991; Tsonis, et al. 1991; Flam 1994; Moore 1996). It has even been suggested that the amino acid sequences of proteins have a hitherto unrecognized language as well (Berman et al. 1994).

However, while we haven't identified all human genes, nor do we understand the function of more than a fraction of those we have identified, we do know enough about the genome to be confident that there will be no major surprises. When the unique human genes are finally identified, they will undoubtedly turn out to code for proteins much like other known proteins. Some of these proteins probably control large sets of other genes, but to reiterate, this property does not give them more information, in Chaitin's sense. It simply means that the information they express is more compressible. And while other information may be present in non-coding DNA sequences, it must be kept in mind that these sequences are just as large and numerous in lower mammals as they are in humans (Lewin 1997; Gearhart and Kirschner 1999). Indeed, some plants have more DNA of this kind than we do.

Some scientists accept that there is a disconnect between information in the genome and that in the organism, but argue that it can be easily accounted for by the fact that the new organism develops in an environment--the mother--that strongly influences its development. This point is emphasized by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart:

 

"It's not that the program image of DNA is completely false, but the 'program' is only part of the developmental process...Our current obsession with information technology and messages as literal strings has led us to focus almost exclusively on DNA as software and to ignore the contextual hardware in which it produces its actions...In most sexual animals the egg begins development without involving the embryo's own genes, and only when the embryo's ground plan is sufficiently well developed do its own genes take control. Mammals take the whole process much further; they invest far more in the mother, thereby simplifying what has to be put in the embryo's DNA."6

 

This is fine as an argument against a strict deterministic role for genes; other factors do interact with genes. However, it clearly does nothing to explain why a human brain is so much more developed than a chimpanzee's or a mouse's. The same program may run differently on different hardware, but the hardware can't change the amount of information in the program. Actually, the maternal environment is not just hardware; it may also add some information to the developing organism. But the amount that can be added is nowhere near enough to account for the differences we are concerned with. All the mother can add is more compressed information, such as some of her own genes; there is no way she can add to the embryo the information in her brain. She can't do this, because as I just emphasized, most of this information isn't in the genes to begin with. And even if she somehow could add such information, there is no apparent way the embryo could make use of it. The "ground plan" of the embryo still lacks essentially all of the information that will later be found in the brain.

A second argument against the relevance of the maternal environment for explaining gene-brain information differences is that as Cohen and Stewart note, the maternal benefit, to the extent that it does exist, is for all mammals. It does not address the issue of why some mammals have much more information in their brains than others.

Still another means of reconciling genetic information with evolutionary development may lie in a revision of Chaitin's definition of information. This definition is based on an analysis of computer programs, but are we really certain that we can apply it to living systems? Is it possible that information in the latter sense is somehow different? I believe this argument may have merit, but not as a means of reconciling, or equalizing, the amount of information in genome or brain. Rather, it seems to me that it would much more likely explain how such a gap came to be created and maintained in the first place. I will return to this point later.

In conclusion, I believe the gap between the amount of information contained in the genome and that expressed in the organism is real. Therefore, either a) some organisms have more information in their genomes than they express, or b) other organisms have more information in their brains than can be accounted for by their genomes. If we accept a), we must conclude that the eukaryotic genome reached its evolutionary culmination--in terms of information content--with the emergence of mammals. At this point, it contained virtually all the information needed to specify human beings, even though we did not evolve until some millions of years later. In a sense, then, our species has existed--in terms of potential--for a far longer period of time than our natural history suggests. The central problem of our evolution--the acquisition of enough information to specify our larger brain--was solved long before we actually emerged as a distinct species.

If we take this possibility seriously, then we must regard the eukaryotic cell as far more evolutionarily advanced than it's usually considered to be. Indeed, we must conclude that--by an informational definition--essentially no further evolution occurred after the emergence of this cell as it exists in lower mammals. All further evolution, through the primates and human beings, reflected simply new ways to tap this pool of information, to express increasingly greater quantities of it. A mouse, in this view, has just as much potential for intelligence as we do, but its developmental programs are unable to make the full use of this potential.

This conclusion, it seems to me, is completely inconsistent with any "bottom-up" theory of evolution, that is, one beginning with physical matter. It's difficult enough--in the view of some scientists, too difficult--to understand the evolution of cells even if we accept that every emergent feature provided some new measure of adaptive fitness, the ability to survive and reproduce better than its predecessors. But this difficulty is greatly magnified if we are to believe that the cell actually evolved with a great quantity of information that was latent, that simply sat in the nucleus, taking up precious space and energy, and doing nothing at all. To be sure, an important part of evolutionary theory is that evolved features that serve one purpose can sometimes later be put to some other purpose. Evolution may "discover", so to speak, a new way to use some adaptation, which evolutionists sometimes call a process of pre-adaptation (Mayr 1988; Gould 1995). But it's virtually impossible to imagine large quantities of information in the genome serving any purpose except to code for proteins.

The precocious evolution of the eukaryotic cell could become understandable, of course, if we scrapped the idea of bottom-up evolution, and postulated the existence of an intelligent creator. Most explanations of of our origins of this kind assume that this higher form of life either created everything at once--the fundamentalist view--or simply started the evolutionary process in motion with the creation of the physical universe. Neither of these views seems to fit very well with the idea of advanced eukaryotic cells. Biochemist Michael Behe, however, who accepts a limited role for evolution, takes a different creationist view. In a devastating critique of Darwinism, he argues that the enormously complex and detailed functional arrangements of proteins in the eukaryotic cell--exemplifed by ciliary motion, blood clotting, and the formation of antibodies--can't possibly be explained by random variation and natural selection (Behe 1996). Thus he concludes that cells were the product of an intelligent designer, and seems to believe that they were the real starting point of evolution on earth.

Even some scientists who accept the established view of evolution have suggested that life on earth might have been begun at the level of the cell. It could be that cells evolved elsewhere, and reached earth by chance or even by design (Hoyle 1981; Davies 1996). This scenario, however, does not address the problem of how the first cells evolved, and in Behe's case, we have the problem of the origin of the intelligent designer. Furthermore, there is substantial evidence that advanced eukaryotic cells were preceded on earth by cells with smaller genomes, including the prokaryotes. Thus it does not seem that such life-by-design arguments--whatever their other merits--provide an entirely satisfactory solution to the information gap. In Chapter 12, I will further discuss the possible role of intelligence in the origins of life.

So let's consider the alternative explanation for this gap: that primates, and particularly our own species, have far more information than is accounted for in the genome. This conclusion surely gives new meaning to the notion of emergence. Understood in this way, organisms like ourselves have not simply properties, but quantities, of something that can't be understood in terms of their components. Somehow, in the process of evolving, we must have acquired information from extra-genetic sources. Nor is this just a problem for evolution. As I pointed out earlier, the same disconnect between genome and organism also implies an information gap that has to be crossed every time a new organism is created. If the information in the genome is not sufficient to specify the information in the developed organism, where does that latter come from? We have, it seems, an evolutionary mystery occurring right here and now. The so-called miracle of birth really begins to look like one.

Perhaps there is another way of looking at the problem, though. As I discussed earlier (Chapter 3), there seems to be a close relationship between energy and information. We accept that living organisms are capable of accumulating energy from their environment. As Roger Penrose (1989) has pointed out, we usually don't so much gain energy as make up for that we lose. Yet in the process of maturing, a newborn organism surely does gain energy; its body accumulates far more of it than it possessed at birth. Is it not possible that a developing organism can also accumulate information? That is, could a newborn child, independently of whatever information it gains from growing up in a complex human society, also gain information of another kind from its environment? And could relatively small differences in information at birth result in much larger changes in information later gained?

But where exactly does this information come from, and how is it accessed? Several theorists have proposed the existence of extra-genetic information. In Chapter 11 I will discuss Rupert Sheldrake's morphic fields, hypothesized non-manifest forms of existence that can shape evolution, development, learning and other processes of change by a process of information transfer (Sheldrake 1981, 1989). It's also possible to interpret the collapse of the wave function in quantum physics in terms of the transfer of some unusual kind of informaton (see Chapter 5). The notion of extra-genetic information is is obviously a very speculative idea, and I will put off further discussion of it until later.

So whichever way we wish to interpret the information gap, we are led to some rather remarkable conclusions. I believe that eventually it will be possible to measure the information in both the genome and the brain of organisms in an accurate and meaningful way, and at this point we may be able to distinguish which of these possible interpretations of the gap is correct. The second interpretation, however--that there is more information in the brain of higher vertebrates than in the genome--seems far more likely to me. The brain, after all, has billions of neurons, each of which may have dozens, hundreds or even thousands of connections with other cells. This is many orders of magnitude above the most liberal estimates of the number of genes.

 

The Brain, Information and Evolution

From the preceding discussion, we can conclude that it's not possible to use genetic information to quantitate evolutionary changes in a consistent manner. There is a correlation between the two in some cases. Organisms that are highly similar to each other do have similar amounts of genetic information; and some major evolutionary transitions, as represented in going from bacteria to eukaryotic cells to multicellular organisms, are accompanied by large increases in genetic information. But many large evolutionary changes are not reflected in significant changes in genetic information.

Perhaps this should not be surprising. The genome is the informational holon for the cell, and we would expect that transformative changes in single cells, such as occurred during the evolution of prokaryotes to eukaryotes, would be accompanied by an increase in genetic information. But with the evolution of organisms, a new kind of informational holon emerged, the brain. In Chapters 3 and 4 I discussed the ways in which the brain is analogous to the genome, playing much the same role on its level of existence as the genome does on its level. Thus the brain regulates the function of biological stages in the organism, as the genome regulates the function of physical stages in the cell; and the brain specifies the development of higher stages of mental existence, as the genome specifies the development of higher stages of biological existence.

Given these analogies, we might ask whether we can use information in the brain to quantitate evolution. There is clearly a strong correlation between development of the brain, on the one hand, and evolution, on the other. The first multicellular organisms really had no brains, in the sense the term is usually used, but simple nerve nets, distributed diffusely throughout the body. In higher invertebrates, such as crustacea, molluscs and insects, nerve cells are concentrated in groups called ganglia, some of which are found in the anterior portion of the body and function as a primitive brain (Bullock and Horridge 1965). In vertebrates, centralization of the nervous system becomes the primary feature, with a clearly defined brain and spinal cord. In the higher vertebrates, the brain becomes increasingly larger (Preuss and Kaas 1999).

There is, to be sure, no precise way to correlate brain development with evolution. Currently, scientists know even less about how to measure information in the brain than in the genome. The task is further complicated by the fact that as some species develop--particularly ourselves, of course--the amount of information in the brain seems to increase dramatically, through learning and other kinds of experience. The ability to learn is certainly relevant to evolution, but if we are to use information as a measure of evolutionary development, we want to separate these two factors. We want to be able to quantitate the information present in the brain at birth, treating as an additional problem how information in this organ increases later on.

I see no reason why in principle science should not eventually be able to do this. As I discussed in Chapter 4, we are beginning to understand a great deal about the brain correlates of mental functions like thinking, learning and perception. Such studies suggest that it may be possible to define information in the brain in terms of the numbers of particular kinds of synaptic connections. Even if the way the brain stores information turns out to be much more complicated than this--for example, if information is distributed throughout the brain, by some quantum (see Chapter 5) or classical process--it may still be possible to quantitate it. If we can do this we will have a way of measuring evolutionary change. We will be able to say that the differences in information content of the brains of two organisms reflects the differences in their evolutionary development.

An evolutionary biologist might argue that there are many kinds of evolutionary changes besides those relating to the development of the brain. Many other kinds of organs have of course evolved. But my larger point is that the evolution of all other organs is ultimately related to that of the brain. To reiterate the key point: the brain is the biological analog of the genome, containing all the information needed to control the biological activities of the organism. From this it follows that major evolutionary changes in all other organs or tissues must be accompanied by changes in the brain. For example, a transformative process involving a change in the heart, the lungs or the gastrointestinal tract will invariably be associated with changes in regions of the brain that control these organs. If, and only if, these changes involve substantial increases in the amount of information in the brain, can we define the changes in the other organs--and in the new organism as a whole--as transformative. Otherwise, the change is translational.

Even if we define evolution in terms of information in the brain, however, we soon run into another gap. Human societies contain far more information than is present in the human brain. This gap is quite obvious even if we compare the total information content in society to that in the brain of a single, mature, educated adult. But the information in the latter, by virtue of his participation in society, is already far more than the information present in a human at birth. Where does all this information come from?

Again, the simple answer, the seemingly obvious answer--that we are capable of acquiring, transmitting and storing new information among ourselves--simply does not address the problem as it has been defined by Chaitin. To reiterate, because it is such a fundamental point: no program can generate a program containing more information than itself. If the amount of information present in the human brain is far less than that in human society we are again forced to the conclusion that there is a source of information outside of the system as we ordinarily understand it, that is, outside of the physical, biological and mental processes of the organism.

It seems, therefore, that there is an information gap at every level of existence. There is more information in the genome than in any individual atom; there is more information in the brain than in the genome; and there is more information in our evolving planetary culture than in the brain. Somehow, evolution must acquire information from somewhere as it creates a new level of existence. In the next section, we will try to localize this gap more precisely, see exactly where the new information comes into play.

 

Transformation: The Role of Deep and Surface Structures of Information

 

To summarize the discussion so far, I'm trying to define evolution in terms of information. In diversification processes, exemplified by the evolution of a new species of organism from a similar species, there is simply a change in the quality of information, but not in the quantity of information. In transformation processes, in which a new kind of organism emerges (a new class or order, for example), there is a change in the quantity of information. For lower organisms, this change in quantity may be reflected in a change in the information in the genome. For higher organisms, it's correlated with a change in information in the brain.

This understanding of transformation is consistent with our earlier definition, as a process by which holons associate into higher-stage holons on the same level of existence. As we saw in Chapter 3, the primary property of a fundamental holon that enables it to associate into higher stages is the ability to communicate with other holons. Thus the key role of carbon atoms in all higher stages and levels of life derives from their ability to bond with four other atoms simultaneously. Likewise, eukaryotic cells have the ability to form associations with other cells of their kind; and human beings have by far the most sophisticated forms of communication of all organisms.

The ability of fundamental holons to communicate with other holons of their kind, in turn, is correlated with the amount of information they have. Eukaryotic cells have larger genomes than prokaryotes have, and human beings and other higher vertebrates have larger brains than those of lower organisms. The greater the amount of information the fundamental holon has, the greater the variety of ways in which it can communicate with other holons of its kind. So transformation necessarily implies an increase in information.

In Chapter 3 I also discussed the important distinction between the deep structure and surface structure of information. To refresh our memories, deep structure is the total informational content present in a fundamental holon. The deep structure of the genome is the total genetic information it contains, represented by all the genes. The deep structure of the brain is the total amount of biological information it contains, represented by its hard-wired anatomy, and all the potential activities that anatomy can manifest. The deep structure of the genome is the same for every cell of a given species (species of unicellular or multicellular organism), and the deep structure of the brain is likewise the same for every organism of a given species.

The surface structure of information, on the other hand, is the way that information is expressed in different individual cells or different individual organisms of the same species, or in the same cell or organism at different times. The surface structure of the genome is represented by those genes which are translated in a particular cell at a particular time. The surface structure of the brain is that pattern of neural activity occurring in a particular organism at a particular time.

During transformative processes, changes occur in both the deep and the surface structures of information. However, the involvement of each type of change depends on where in a particular level of existence evolution is occurring. Generally speaking, the evolution of the lower stages on any level is driven by changes in the deep structure of information, while evolution of the higher stages is driven by changes in the surface structure.

For example, evolution of the lowest invertebrate organisms was associated with the emergence of eukaryotic cells with their large genomes. These cells were very different from the prokaryotes that first evolved on earth, and the large genomes continued to evolve as higher invertebrates emerged. With the evolution of the higher vertebrates, and particularly the higher primates and our own species, changes in surface structure became much more important. Indeed, as I pointed out in the previous section, the total genetic information in the cells of all the higher vertebrates is pretty much the same. In other words, these organisms all contain very similar genetic deep structures. Genetically, their differences can be described only in terms of changes of surface structure, how this information is expressed.

The same relationship can be seen on the next level of existence, the mental. The earliest forms of social organization among organisms are observed among the lower vertebrates, and some invertebrate species. These animal societies are associated with evolution of the deep structure of the brain. The highest social forms of organization emerge only with our species, and at this point, virtually all of the evolution is of surface structure in the brain. Thus the deep structure of the human brain completely evolved fifty to one hundred thousand years ago, yet the most profound changes in human social organization have occurred since that time.

Another important lesson we learned earlier is that evolution of social stages generally occurs on two different levels simultaneously. While the surface structure of the genome was perfecting itself within eukaryotic cells, these cells themselves were evolving into more complex tissues and organs, particularly the brain. While the surface structure of the human brain has been evolving over the past several thousand years, individual human beings have been forming ever more complex societies. Note how the relationship works. On the lower level, a change in surface structure (expression of the genome; human language) is correlated with a change in deep structure on the next level (the hard-wired brain; human societies). Thus the higher stages of one level are completed while the lower stages of the next level are formed. When the former process is complete, the higher stages of the next level evolve, accompanied by the lower stages of a still higher level.

To summarize, transformation, in contrast to diversification, involves a change in the amount of information--in the genome or the brain, depending on the level of existence evolving. On the lower stages of any level of existence, this change can be understood as a change in the deep structure of the informational holon. Evolution of the higher stages of any level of existence, in contrast, are associated with changes in the surface structure of information. Changes in surface structure do not involve changes in the total amount of information, but rather in the way in which that information is expressed.

Now, it should be apparent, we can see where in evolution information from outside the system must come in. For to say that changes in surface structure occur is just another way of stating that there is a disconnect between the amount of information at one level of existence, and that on another. Thus the higher vertebrates evolved even while the deep structure of their genetic information did not greatly change. Likewise, the higher stages of human societies have evolved, and are continuing to do so, even while the deep structure of the human brain has not changed. So extra-genetic, or extra-nervous, information is acquired by the evolving level in its higher stages.

In Chapter 2 I discussed how the stages of any level of existence could be understood in terms of dimensions of both space and time, with the temporal dimensions becoming more apparent in the higher stages. Speculatively, then, we can say that the dimensions of space are created by the informational holon within the evolving level (genome or brain), while the dimensions of time are created by information outside of this holon. In the cell, the temporal dimensions are those above the three-dimensional polymer, that is, in macromolecular structures that are composed of many proteins or nucleic acids. These holons are far better developed in eukaryotes than in prokaryotes. In the organism, the temporal dimensions are found in the more organized nervous systems, generally associated with vertebrates.

In both types of holons, perception of time first becomes apparent. Thus eukaryotic cells, as I discussed in Chapter 3, exhibit adaptive responses that allow themselves to adjust to a prolonged chemical stimulus. Vertebrate organisms, likewise, have a much more developed sense of time than invertebrates, being able to communicate by means of behavior patterns.

In conclusion, all transforming processes involve the acquisition of information, so that the higher stage has a greater quantity of information than the lower stage. In the evolution of the first three stages of a new level, more or less, this information is accumulated in an informational holon, such as the genome or the brain, and is manifested as new spatial dimensions. In the higher, concluding stages, this information is outside the system, and is manifested as new temporal dimensions.

 

Transcendence

Transcendence is the third and final phase of evolution, completing a new level of existence. To appreciate how this process differs from transformation, we can review the ways in which a new fundamental holon differs from its component social holons:

 

1) It is autonomous, capable of existing outside of higher-order holons.

2) It can reproduce itself.

3) It preserves all the properties of the social holons within it.

 

The first two of these features are obviously very closely related. If a holon is to be capable of existing autonomously, it must be able to reproduce itself. Leaving aside point 3) for now, I will therefore consider the emergence of reproduction as a central feature of transcendence. In fact, I will use it to offer a new definition of transcendence: the process by which a group of holons acquires the ability to reproduce itself.

We also saw in part 1 that reproduction requires information. Since a fundamental holon contains and organizes all the stages on the level of existence below it, all these holons must be reproduced in the process of reproducing the fundamental holon. This can only be done if the latter has information about them, information that, in effect, enables it to duplicate each of them. So transcendence, like transformation, involves evolution of information.

In the case of transcendence, however, an entirely new informational holon must be created. The transcendent process associated with the emergence of cells required evolution of the genome. The emergence of organisms required evolution of the brain. Emergence of a planetary super-organism or super-culture, I have argued, requires a new informational holon for that level. So while diversification is associated with a change in the quality of information, and transformation with a change in the quantity of information, transcendence is a change in the organization of information.

Evolutionary biologists have long recognized the problem this poses, particularly in the evolution of the cell. Classically, the problem has been posed in terms of a choice, between function and reproduction. Function includes all the properties that allow a holon to grow and maintain itself, properties that I have defined as assimilation, adaptation, and communication. In the cell, all these properties are ultimately controlled by enzymes, protein molecules that catalyze all the metabolic reactions. Reproduction, on the other hand, is controlled by DNA, which contains the information needed to make these enzymes, and which is capable of reproducing itself.

It's not too difficult (relatively speaking) to conceive of scenarios in which the functional or reproductive aspects of cells evolved separately. In a later chapter, we will see how enzyme molecules can form self-sustaining networks in which the products of one reaction catalyze another reaction. If a group of such enzymes were to become enclosed by a lipid (fatty) membrane, isolating them from the surrounding environment, they would constitute a very primitive cell, in a functional sense.

We can also imagine the early evolution of nucleic acids, formed by polymerization of nucleotide bases. It has been suggested that these bases may have been adsorbed to the surface of silica clays, providing a way of bringing them in close proximity for the polymerization process to occur (Rao et al. 1980; Friebele et al. 1980; Coyne 1985). Once these primitive nucleic acids were formed, they could then provide the surface, or template, for their own reproduction, just as DNA does in cells today.

Neither of these two scenarios is really as simple or as unproblematic as I have implied. I have glossed over substantial difficulties in working out the evolutionary details of these processes. The really difficult problem, however, is attempting to understand how these two kinds of evolutionary events, functional and reproductive, could have been brought together. A primitive sac of enzymes can't reproduce itself; a primitive nucleic acid molecule can't code for enzymes. Somehow, the information represented in the functional cell had to become encoded in the nucleic acids. Only when this occurred could we speak of the emergence of genuine cells.

In Chapter 3, we saw that the computer scientist John van Neumann posed this problem in terms of transcription and translation. When nucleic acid molecules reproduce themselves, a process of transcription occurs. Whatever information the nucleic acids contain is copied, to form a duplicate nucleic acid molecules. When this information is used to synthesize a protein, on the other hand, a process of translation occurs. Thus the cell must not only encode all its information into nucleic acids, but it must be able to read this information in two different ways. In computer science terms, it must be able both to copy the program and to run the program.

In the past decade, a major discovery has been made that may shed some important light on this problem. A class of nucleic acid molecules have been identified, call ribozymes, that have the ability to act as enzymes; in other words, they possess both functional as well as reproductive properties (Zaug et al. 1986). In the past few years, many different kinds of ribozymes have been discovered. Furthermore, scientists can actually create new ones in the test tube by in vitro evolution. In this process, ribozymes are allowed to reproduce, with the new generations being subjected to artificial selection processes (Joyce, 1992). Such studies suggest that ribozymes might once have existed possessing a wide range of catalytic properties.

Many scientists now believe that such functional RNA molecules were a key transitional stage in the evolution of cells. Several hypothetical scenarios have been proposed by which cells might have emerged from such an "RNA world" (Horgan, 1996; deDuve, 1996; Schwartz, 1998; James and Ellington, 1998). These scenarios, like others for early evolutionary events, are largely untestable, and not all scientists accept them. It has been pointed out that a few proteins can reproduce, such as the recently-discovered prions that are thought to transmit mad cow disease and several other major disorders (Prusiner 1997, 1998). Such proteins conceivably might have performed as the missing link between purely functional assemblies of enzymes and reproducing cells.

Nevertheless, the preponderance of evidence seems to favor a role for ribozymes. While it's true that the genetic material of all modern cells is DNA, rather than RNA, the latter plays an essential role in translation, that is, the synthesis of proteins. Indeed, three different kinds of RNA are involved in this process: messenger RNA, which transcribes, or copies, the DNA sequence; transfer RNA, which mediates the interaction of specific amino acids with specific three base sequences in the messenger RNA; and ribosomal RNA, which acts as a sort of scaffolding, or structure site, for the process of amino acid polymerization to take place. Furthermore, RNA molecules can regulate DNA transcription, and many ribonucleotides play key roles as cofactors in enzymatic reactions (Strickberger, 1996). So RNA in many respects appears like a "vestigial organ" of the cell, a once highly functional molecule that now plays a less central role.

In any case, while it will be very difficult to establish just how early cells evolved, the concept of a single type of molecule embodying the two key aspects of function and reproduction is a very powerful one. The problem of unifying or synthesizing these two kinds of processes is not restricted to cells. It's a key problem in transcendence at other levels of the holarchy as well. To the extent that processes on different levels are analogous to one another, we might expect that this problem would be solved in a similar manner at other levels.

Consider the process of transcendence on the next level of existence, that is, the emergence of the first multicellular organisms. We have seen that the brain is the biological level analog of the genome on the physical level. Just as the genome controls reproduction in the cell, the brain controls reproduction in the organism. It obviously does not do this in a physical sense--the reproduction of tissues and organs in a new organism--for this, too, is controlled by the genome. The brain controls reproduction in a biological sense--that is, it contains the information needed to regulate the functions of these tissues and organs--to control respiration, heartbeat, gastrointestinal processes, muscular movements, and so forth. In all but the most primitive organisms, a brain or centralized nervous system controls the activity of all the body's organs by sending regular messages to them. Thus, I suggested before, all of the latter--the major organs and tissues (more precisely the activity of these organs and tissues)--are the biological analog of enzymes.

We can imagine that during the evolution of the first organisms, there were probably both multicellular functional arrays--primitive organisms capable of digesting food, circulating nutrients, movement, and so forth--as well as multicellular reproductive arrays--a primitive nervous system capable of encoding information in the patterns of connections among excitable cells. As with evolution of the cell, one could imagine either type of array evolving independently. That is, some cells could have associated into primitive organ-like structures capable of carrying out certain functions, and other cells could have evolved excitable properties allowing them to associate into primitive nervous systems. The key issue is how both types of holons evolved together, in such a way that the nervous system contained patterns of information capable of regulating the activity of the organs. This problem, I suggest, was just as difficult to solve as the genome versus protein problem, and I further suggest that it was solved in the same way as the emerging cell may have: by the emergence of a hybrid holon capable of both function and reproduction.

What would such a hybrid holon be like? As a ribozyme can both contain reproducible information (nucleotide base sequences) and function (catalytic enzyme activity), a hybrid biological holon would be capable of functioning simultaneously like a nervous system and a functional organ. Such a holon still exists in most organisms today, including ourselves: the heart. Though the activity of the heart, like that of other internal organs, is regulated by centers in the brain, it also has some ability to regulate itself. Much of this activity is controlled by the sinus node in the atria, muscle tissue which has excitable properties like nervous tissue. In addition, in the absence of control from the sinus node, other parts of the heart can also control its activity. This is why the heart can be completely removed from the organism, severed from all of its connections with other organs, and still beat.

In addition to the heart, there are other internal organs with the ability to function to some extent in the absence of control from the central nervous system. The intestine is innervated by a very primitive kind of nervous system that induces rhythmic contractions in the smooth muscle lining this organ (Gershon, 1998). The vas deferens, part of the male reproductive system, is controlled by a somewhat autonomous network of nervous connections. I suggest that in such tissues and organs we can see vestiges of a critical stage in the evolution of organisms, when primitive organs emerged which were self-regulating, capable of both function and the ability to control this function through reproducible patterns of activity in excitable cells. This stage was transcended only when a more centralized and more specialized nervous system emerged that gradually superseded the local form of control.

What about our own level of existence, the mental level? The scheme of transcendence I am developing here predicts that there should be, or later will be, a similar distinction between holons storing information in a reproducible form and holons exhibiting functional activity. Given that our level of existence has not completed its evolution, we would not expect these holons to be fully emerged. But surely they are beginning to emerge, on the one hand, in the cumulative knowledge of modern societies--in oral, written and printed language--and on the other, by technology, in all its forms. Language, like informational holons on lower levels of existence, is a medium which can not only reproduce itself, but in principle can contain the instructions for reproducing--not in a physical or biological sense, but in a mental sense--all of society. Technology, on the other hand, like functional holons on lower levels, has the potential to translate or execute these instructions.

It also appears that the hybrid holon necessary to complete the transition to a new level of existence--a holon that combines knowledge with technology--is also beginning to emerge. This is the computer culture, including not only computer hardware and software, but the human beings who use them. This culture has the potential, for the first time in human history--i.e., in the evolution of our level--to combine reproducible information and technological production in a single type of organization. Thus computers can not only store all the information needed to reproduce society, but can increasingly function as the technology that executes these instructions as well. We see this in the fact that more and more of our technology today incorporates computers directly into its design.

 

Evolution and Information

To summarize and conclude this chapter, we have seen that evolution throughout the holarchy can be considered to take place in three different phases: diversification or translation; transformation; and transcendence. Diversification is the process by which different kinds of holons on the same stage of existence are created. Transformation is the process by which higher stages of existence are formed from lower stages, on the same level. Transcendence is the process by which a new level of the holarchy emerges.

The ultimate goal of evolutionary theory, it seems to me, should be to develop a framework in which all three kinds of processes can be understood. Part of this framework lies in the recognition that processses on one level of existence are analogous to those on another level. I have already presented abundant examples of such analogies in Part 1 of this book. In succeeding chapters in this part, we will examine the extent to which these analogies are also evident in evolutionary processes.

Further unification of evolutionary theory, however, will require a concept with which we can understand all types of processes. I believe this concept is most likely to be information. I have tried to show in this chapter how each type of process--diversification, transformation, transcendence--can be understood in terms of information. Thus diversification is a process by which the quality of information changes; transformation is a process in which the quantity of information changes; and transcendence is a process in which the organization of information changes.

To be sure, for information to play a truly central role in evolutionary theory we will need both to understand it better and to measure it better. As we learn more about how DNA sequences in the genome and neuronal connections in the brain are translated into the phenotypes of the cell and organism, the nature of information in living things should become clearer to us. At the same time, advances in information theory may help us understand what the relevant genetic and neural processes are that we need to examine.

Of course, it's one thing to say that information changes in certain ways during evolution; it's another to understand how this change occurs. We will now consider some evolutionary theories, to see how well they are capable of explaining the processes I have just described. We will begin with Darwinism, still the central theory of evolution today.

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