[HN Gopher] Assembly theory explains and quantifies selection an...
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       Assembly theory explains and quantifies selection and evolution
        
       Author : netfortius
       Score  : 58 points
       Date   : 2023-10-05 13:22 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
        
       | teach wrote:
       | The nature article is a bit over my head and the press release
       | seems a little hand-wavy, so forgive my ignorance but....
       | 
       | It sounds like "all" they've done is develop a formalism that is
       | (1) mathematically precise, (2) testable and (3) useful for
       | describing evolutionary processes.
       | 
       | That is, they haven't actually showed how selection can overcome
       | the constraints of physics and randomness; they've just developed
       | a useful framework so that hopefully a future breakthrough can be
       | found more easily.
       | 
       | Do I have that right?
        
         | derbOac wrote:
         | I think they mischaracterize evolutionary theory and overstate
         | the gap, if any, with physics. But I think there's some kernels
         | of useful insight, like this:
         | 
         | "The more complex a given object, the less likely an identical
         | copy can exist without selection of some information-driven
         | mechanism that generates that object."
        
         | AlotOfReading wrote:
         | I've listened to Sara talk about this a couple times. It's
         | basically about approaching chemistry and biology from the
         | perspective of a physicist/computer scientist where everything
         | is about information.
         | 
         | The idea is that the possibility-space of molecules is
         | combinatorially vast, even for nature itself. If you can
         | identify a sort of kolmolgorov complexity for molecules
         | (assembly index), the ones with high complexity are indicative
         | of intentional, non-random processes like life.
         | 
         | One of the key differences here from prior approaches is that
         | the definitions they've chosen are computable and universal,
         | though I haven't gotten the same impression of universality and
         | utility from their papers.
        
         | goodmachine wrote:
         | Yes. But it seems perhaps they haven't even done those things
         | correctly.
         | 
         | The project seems to have a slight case of Wolframesque
         | overreach
         | 
         | https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.00901
         | 
         | The 8 Fallacies of Assembly Theory
         | 
         | https://hectorzenil.medium.com/test-8f0be54817c4
        
       | mellosouls wrote:
       | Previously discussed, the Quanta overview:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35827189
        
       | functoid wrote:
       | Erwin Schroedinger explained this in 1944 with a quantity called
       | "negative entropy" instead of "assembly".
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negentropy
        
         | fohfauXoo3erieb wrote:
         | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ectropy
        
         | riversflow wrote:
         | I personally like to think of life as "eddies in the current of
         | entropy"
        
       | netfortius wrote:
       | KISS https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_1008527_en.html
        
       | dadjoker wrote:
       | "We present assembly theory (AT) as a framework that does not
       | alter the laws of physics, but redefines the concept of an
       | 'object' on which these laws act. AT conceptualizes objects not
       | as point particles, but as entities defined by their possible
       | formation histories. This allows objects to show evidence of
       | selection, within well-defined boundaries of individuals or
       | selected units."
       | 
       | In other words, tweaking definitions to fit a pre-defined
       | narrative.
        
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       (page generated 2023-10-05 23:01 UTC)