Biological Systems as Systems of Increasing Entropy: Language and Genetics

TL;DR

This paper formalizes biological system development using chaos theory and physical genetics, emphasizing the genotype-phenotype dynamics and their sensitivity to initial conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a formal approach applying chaos theory to biological systems, focusing on genotype-phenotype interactions and their architectural properties.

Findings

Genotype-phenotype dynamics exhibit hypersensitivity to initial conditions.

Chaos theory provides a useful framework for understanding biological development.

Mathematical modeling can explain phenomena in physical genetics.

Abstract

In this paper we will try to provide a formalization of some characteristics of the development of biological systems aiming at the highest level of adequacy: justificative adequacy, that is, not only what we observe (descriptive adequacy) and how we think it occurs (explanatory adequacy) but also what architectural properties (in terms of matter configuration, for example) license the occurrence of certain phenomena. In the case of a biological instantiation of a physical system, justificative adequacy is to be found in the genotype-phenotype dynamics. Moreover, we will claim that such dynamics should be analyzed from a mathematical point of view, since the genotype is hypersensitive to initial conditions: a small change in a certain state of the system may have drastic effects on the output. Regarding methodology, we will use chaos theory applied to biology and also physical genetics in order to frame our research and give it theoretical weight.