Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Functional information
Information content of biological systems From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
The concept of functional information is an attempt to rigorously define the information content of biological systems. The concept was originated by a group led by Jack W. Szostak in 2003.[1]
Definition
Summarize
Perspective
They define functional information as follows:[2][3]
- the concept of degree of function is introduced, where the degree of function is a non-negative objective measure of the capability of system to do the physical function .
- the fraction of possible configurations of the system that can achieve at least a particular level of function in regard to the physical function is defined to be
- the functional information relative to a given level of function is defined as
This leads to two conclusions:
- because all possible configurations can achieve zero or more functionality, that is to say , the minimum possible functional information for a system is , which is zero.
- for the highest possible level of a degree of function of a system , there will be a well defined
Note that functional information of a system must always be defined relative to a specific function , without a choice of which it has no meaning.
Remove ads
Proposed law of increasing functional information
![]() | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2025) |
In 2025, a group of researchers proposed a law of increasing functional information, that asserts that a tendency to increase in functional information is an inherent property of the universe, encompassing both biological and non-biological systems.[4][5][6]
References
See also
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads