Resource Limitations induce Phase Transitions in Biological Information Processing

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that biological information processing strategies can undergo abrupt phase transitions driven by resource limitations, indicating that complexity and architecture are evolvable and can switch discontinuously.

Contribution

It reveals that optimal information processing strategies can exhibit discontinuous phase transitions as resources vary, highlighting the evolvability of biological information processing.

Findings

Optimal strategies show phase transitions with resource changes

Transitions can be discontinuous or regress

Complexity can switch between different architectures

Abstract

Biological information processing manifests a huge variety in its complexity and capability among different organisms, which presumably stems from the evolutionary optimization under limited computational resources. Starting from the simplest memory-less responsive behaviors, more complicated information processing using internal memory may have developed in the evolution as more resources become available. In this letter, we report that optimal information processing strategy can show discontinuous transitions along with the available resources, i.e., reliability of sensing and intrinsic dynamics, or the cost of memory control. In addition, we show that transition is not always progressive but can be regressed. Our result obtained under a minimal setup suggests that the capability and complexity of information processing would be an evolvable trait that can switch back and forth between different strategies and architectures in a punctuated manner.