Information in Biology — An APS Clarification

Information is one of the most widely used concepts in modern biology.

Genes are described as storing information.
Cells are described as processing signals.
Brains are described as informational systems.
Organisms are described as communicating with environments through informational exchange.

Across molecular biology, neuroscience, systems biology, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science, biological systems are increasingly interpreted informationally.

Yet the meaning of “information” in biology often remains unclear.

APS argues that biological information is not fundamental.

Information becomes biologically meaningful only within viability-oriented systems capable of:

• evaluation
• semiosis
• regulation
• and persistence-maintaining activity

Biological organisation therefore does not arise from information alone.

Rather, information becomes possible because organised living systems already exist.

Why Information Became Central

Informational language became influential because living systems clearly:

• detect differences
• coordinate signalling
• regulate activity
• transmit molecular patterns
• and respond adaptively to changing conditions

Communication theory and cybernetics provided powerful formal tools for analysing:

• signalling
• coding
• transmission
• uncertainty reduction
• and distributed coordination

These approaches transformed modern biology.

Genetics, neuroscience, developmental biology, physiology, and systems biology all adopted informational frameworks to describe:

• communication
• regulation
• and adaptive organisation

APS fully recognises the scientific value of these approaches.

However, informational descriptions do not by themselves explain:

• why some differences matter biologically
• how informational significance arises
• or how living systems exist as organised persistence-maintaining processes in the first place

Shannon Information and Biological Meaning

A major source of confusion arises from conflating different meanings of information.

In Shannon information theory, information concerns:

• uncertainty reduction
• statistical structure
• and signal transmission

This framework is extraordinarily powerful for analysing communication systems.

However, Shannon information does not explain biological meaning.

A signal may contain large amounts of Shannon information while remaining biologically irrelevant.

Conversely, a biologically crucial signal may contain very little Shannon information statistically.

APS therefore distinguishes:

• statistical information from:
• biological significance

Biological meaning depends not merely on signal structure, but on the role differences play within viability-oriented organisation.

A chemical gradient matters biologically because it contributes to:

• regulation
• persistence
• adaptation
• and evaluative activity

not because it possesses informational content abstractly.

Evaluation Before Information

APS grounds biological information in evaluation.

Living systems continuously modulate activity relative to viability conditions.

Some environmental differences:

• support persistence
• threaten persistence
• or alter organisational coherence

These differences matter because systems evaluate them relative to viability.

Evaluation therefore precedes information organisationally.

Without viability-oriented organisation capable of differential regulation, there is no biologically meaningful sense in which information exists for a system.

A nutrient gradient matters to a bacterium because it affects viability.

A stress hormone matters to an organism because it participates in persistence-maintaining regulation.

Information therefore depends upon evaluative organisation rather than generating it.

Semiosis and Informational Meaning

APS also distinguishes semiosis from information.

Semiosis concerns the organisation of differences as biologically meaningful within evaluative activity.

Information becomes biologically meaningful only when differences participate in:

• viability-oriented regulation
• persistence-maintaining organisation
• and organisational coordination

This means biological meaning is not fundamentally symbolic or representational.

Meaning emerges from:

• evaluation
• semiosis
• and viability-oriented activity

before representation or abstract informational coding arise.

APS therefore rejects the assumption that information alone explains biological meaning.

Semiosis grounds biological significance more fundamentally than information considered abstractly.

Information Is Organisationally Derivative

Informational approaches often treat information as though it were a basic explanatory property of living systems.

APS reverses this explanatory direction.

Living systems do not exist because information flows through them.

Information matters because living systems already exist as viability-oriented organisations.

A system must already:

• maintain boundaries
• regulate conditions
• sustain persistence
• and organise activity relative to viability

before informational differences can become biologically meaningful.

Information is therefore organisationally derivative rather than foundational.

Viability-oriented organisation makes information possible.

Information does not generate viability-oriented organisation.

Cognition and Information

Cognitive science often treats cognition as information processing.

APS accepts that many cognitive systems process information.

However, cognition is not reducible to information alone.

Cognition emerges through:

• integrated evaluation
• temporally extended regulation
• context-sensitive coordination
• and viability-oriented activity

Informational processing may participate in these processes.

But informational transformation alone does not explain:

• why systems care about outcomes
• why some states count as failure
• or why cognition is biologically significant

These questions depend upon:

• evaluation
• semiosis
• normativity
• and persistence

rather than on information considered independently.

Information Without Life

Artificial systems may:

• process signals
• encode data
• optimise communication
• perform inference
• and regulate behaviour informationally

Yet such systems are not necessarily biologically alive.

Computers, communication networks, and machine-learning systems may exhibit extremely sophisticated informational organisation while remaining externally maintained systems lacking endogenous viability-oriented persistence.

This demonstrates that information alone is not sufficient for:

• biological agency
• normativity
• semiosis
• cognition
• or organised persistence

Nor does optimisation, representation, prediction, or informational complexity alone explain how systems sustain themselves as living organisations.

The APS Perspective

APS does not reject informational approaches.

It situates information within a broader organisational framework.

From an APS perspective:

• viability-oriented organisation grounds biological agency
• evaluation modulates activity relative to persistence
• semiosis structures differences as biologically meaningful
• information emerges where differences participate in organised regulation
• cognition integrates evaluative activity across time
• and representation may emerge within some advanced forms of cognition

Information is therefore:

• real
• scientifically important
• and often explanatorily useful

But it is not the foundational explanatory principle of life itself.

Information must therefore be understood through the same organisational grammar governing biological explanation more generally:

• agency
• process
• scale
• viability
• evaluation
• semiosis
• cognition
• and persistence

Closing Perspective

Information plays an essential role in biological organisation.

Living systems:

• communicate
• regulate
• signal
• and coordinate activity through informational relations

APS fully recognises these realities.

But information is not the foundation of life.

Biological systems first exist as viability-oriented organisations.

Evaluation modulates activity relative to persistence.

Semiosis structures differences as biologically meaningful.

Only then does information emerge as part of organised biological activity.

Information is therefore not what makes life possible.

It is one of the ways organised life sustains itself.