dcarraher writes:
As a P.S. - One of the posters above states that the RNA has information. My own opinion on the subject (speaking only for myself) is that "material information" is qualitatively different than "non-material" information. RNA has what I call material information - information that is a direct result of its physical/chemical properties. This is the kind of information that even a water molecule has. A Living Cell, on the other hand, has nonmaterial information contained in its DNA - e.g. how to build a protein. The ability to build a copy of itself is not a characteristic of its physical binding chemistry, it is a process that requires messengers and translators. Replicating RNA replicates because of its chemical characteristics, not because of the information it contains that can be interpreted.
This is a very intriguing distinction that you have created! So, if i have never seen a bible and one day I find a bible and read it, I think we can all agree that that bible contains information, the process of my reading that bible conveys some quantity of information to me, and as a result my state of knowledge is increased. We may not agree on the precise quantity of information, but certainly some amount of information is involved. But, suppose that bible is written in hebrew, which I don't understand, so I have someone who understands both hebrew and english translate the bible for me.
In that case, according to your hypothesized distinction, the type and quantity of information transferred to me and the change in my state of knowledge is different in a very significant way. In fact, you are saying that reading a translation of the bible conveys a superior form of information than reading the original, and I would suppose, reading a translation of a translation gets even better. I'm going to have to give this some thought because, if you are right, and I have no reason to doubt that you are, it seems that I can greatly increase the quality of information I acquire by reading extended translations, and do so at no additional cost to myself.
Just to clarify how this works, if I read something that was originally in english, then translated to language X, and then translated back to english, will that convey more information and of a higher quality that if I had read the original? Or am I misunderstanding your point here?
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