ious components of living systems when digitally controlled by the DNA language system. Consider two examples in that paper. 1. DNA replicating efficiency Kempes et al. (2017) compute the DNA replicating efficiency of bacteria to be 5.8 x 10-20 J per nucleotide and roughly 10 times the estimated Landauer value of 5.74 x 10-21 J/nucleotide. This shows astonishing efficiency in the digitally controlled replicating machinery of the cell. 2. Translation from DNA to amino acids The calculation here is of the simple computation of writing free-floating amino acids into distinct strings. The efficiency for this translation is found to be 317 x 10-21 J/amino acid which is only 26 times the Landauer value which is calculated to be 12.4 x 10-21 J/ amino acid. To put this in context, Kempes et al. (2017) state that the best supercomputers perform a bit of operation at approximately 5.27 x 10-13 J/ bit which is 8 orders of magnitude worse than the Landauer value of 3 x 10-21 J/bit. What these two examples illustrate is that careful scientific measurements demonstrate clearly that the logical algorithm of the DNA code itself is the driver and produces extremely efficient computational accuracy and such that the energy usage in living systems is close to the minimum possible (the Landauer limit). This shows the validity of the thermodynamic principle (2) for open systems concerning the free energy potential never being greater than the total of that which was already initially in the isolated system and that coming in through the boundary of the system. The information of the DNA digital system is what is constraining the energy pathways such that all the free energy to do work is put precisely in the right locations. And contrary to the claims of Rosenhouse, the top-down approach is testable. The energy efficiency of digitally controlled systems can be measured and shown to be feeding the endergonic pathways by the correct amounts, and to be close to the Landauer limit. Language really is driving the thermodynamics and not the other way round! 3. An important implication A very important deduction now comes to the fore. The work of Kempes et al. (2017) combined with the finding of Bérut et al. (2012) that the Landauer limit has been experimentally verified, shows that wherever information is stored in biological systems, it is using a raised free energy to connect it to the substrate and that this energy can be measured and is close to, but still just above, the Landauer value. Such systems for locally raising the free energy on the DNA substrate nucleotide bonds require a mind to channel precisely the right amount of chemical energy down specific pathways to achieve this, so this is an important apologetic. If the information is entirely removed, there will be a measurable heat loss from such an irreversible change. More research is required to experimentally confirm the connection of non-material information with measurable raised free energy in many other genomic sequences, and to show how close these codon Δg bonds are to the Landauer limit. V. LAWS OF INFORMATION EXCHANGE We finally repeat the laws of information exchange that were presented in previous papers, since in this fast moving area of research where now there are connections being established between the laws of thermodynamics and information, it is important to recognize that there are laws of information exchange that mirror the laws of thermodynamics. Interestingly Basener et al. (2021) in their excellent critique of fitness maximization theories for evolutionary biology make reference to Fisher (1930) and many other authors up to the present who still are seeking unsuccessfully to prove the hypothesis that there are laws of natural selection in biology that mirror the laws of thermodynamics. In reality all the evidence points to a top-down organizational set of principles in biology which have been coded for by the Mind of the Creator. A. The First Principle concerning information, language, and communication Apart from creative intelligence, information cannot be derived from nothing. There has to be a precursor bank of such information. This is a parallel principle to the principle of conservation of mass and energy (the first law of thermodynamics). B. The Second Principle concerning information, language, and communication Apart from a sustaining intelligence, all information degenerates in terms of its functional utility. Information will corrupt unless it is sustained by an intelligent agent. This principle is a parallel to the second law of thermodynamics which effectively states that in a given isolated system, the energy available for doing useful work is diminishing — thus there is a principle of decay in the information as there is also a principle of decay in the material world. C. The principle of Information gain The information content in a system is never greater than the total of that which was there already and that coming in through the boundary of the system. This principle mirrors the thermodynamic principle (2) for non-isolated systems – see Section 1B. VI. CONCLUSIONS In this work we have discussed the thermodynamic principle of non-isolated systems, that the free energy potential will never be greater than the total of that which was already initially in the isolated system and that coming in through the boundary of the system. We have shown that information is non-material and transcendent to the substrate on which it is sitting and yet the presence of information always has a minimum thermodynamic effect, which is the Landauer value. So the presence of information is always with a small energy cost. Furthermore, the free energy of actual codon triplets has been shown to be close to this limiting value and that biochemical machinery in living systems controlled by the DNA language also runs very close to this minimum level. Contrary to many assertions in the literature, the presence of information in a system lowers the local entropy, and thus enables the increase of free energy to be used for cellular machinery. The non-material coding (language) drives and constrains the local thermodynamics to a raised, measurable free energy. MCINTOSH Language, codes, & interaction with thermodynamics 2023 ICC 324
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