Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Natural Selection's Speed Limit and Complexity Bound - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 04 November 2007 04:54PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 06 November 2007 06:41:00PM 0 points [-]

Wei Dai, being able to send 10 bits each with a 60% probability of being correct, is not the same as being able to transmit 6 bits of mathematical information. It would be if you knew which 6 bits would be correct, but you don't. I'm not sure how to bridge the disconnect between variance going as the square root of a randomized genome, and the obvious argument that eliminating half the population is only going to get you 1 bit of mathematical information. It would probably be obvious if I'd spent more time on maxentropy methods.

Petteri, I hadn't known that the DNA in a gamete was executed to construct the gamete itself - I thought the gamete was constructed by the parent, and the genetic material packaged inside. At least in mammals, fertilized embryos that begin execution of their packaged DNA are rare enough to be considered conserved. Not so?