Ladderpath Approach: How Tinkering and Reuse Increase Complexity and Information

分类： 信息科学与系统科学 >> 信息科学与系统科学基础学科 分类： 物理学 >> 交叉学科物理及相关领域的科学与技术 提交时间： 2022-08-15

Liu, Yu Di, Zengru Gerlee, Philip

摘要： The notion of information and complexity are important concepts in many scientific fields such as molecular biology, evolutionary theory and exobiology. Many measures of these quantities are either difficult to compute, rely on the statistical notion of information, or can only be applied to strings. Based on assembly theory, we propose the notion of a ladderpath, which describes how an object can be decomposed into hierarchical structures using repetitive elements. From the ladderpath two measures naturally emerge: the ladderpath-index and the order-index, which represent two axes of complexity. We show how the ladderpath approach can be applied to both strings and spatial patterns and argue that all systems that undergo evolution can be described as ladderpaths. Further, we discuss possible applications to human language and the origin of life. The ladderpath approach provides an alternative characterization of the information that is contained in a single object (or a system) and could aid in our understanding of evolving systems and the origin of life in particular.

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