Ladderpath Approach: How Tinkering and Reuse Increase Complexity and Information
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2022

The notion of information and complexity are important concepts in many scientific fields such as molecular biology, evolutionary theory and exobiology. Many measures of these quantities are either difficult to compute, rely on the statistical notion of information, or can only be applied to strings. Based on assembly theory, we propose the notion of a ladderpath, which describes how an object can be decomposed into hierarchical structures using repetitive elements. From the ladderpath, two measures naturally emerge: the ladderpath-index and the order-index, which represent two axes of complexity. We show how the ladderpath approach can be applied to both strings and spatial patterns and argue that all systems that undergo evolution can be described as ladderpaths. Further, we discuss possible applications to human language and the origin of life. The ladderpath approach provides an alternative characterization of the information that is contained in a single object (or a system) and could aid in our understanding of evolving systems and the origin of life in particular.

origin of life

language

hierarchy

Kolmogorov complexity

evolution

alien signal

module

Shannon entropy

complexity

syntactic information

Författare

Yu Liu

Beijing Normal University

Zengru Di

Beijing Normal University

Philip Gerlee

Chalmers, Matematiska vetenskaper, Tillämpad matematik och statistik

Göteborgs universitet

Entropy

10994300 (eISSN)

Vol. 24 8 1082

Ämneskategorier

Filosofi

Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap

Systemvetenskap

DOI

10.3390/e24081082

PubMed

36010747

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2023-10-26