Abstract
As discussed in the previous chapter, life is based on a continuous supply of energy and matter. In order to guarantee this continuous supply and to maintain other functions necessary for survival, the organism must gather and process information about its environment and turn it into adequate behavior. However, while widely used, “information” is an ill-defined notion. A strict definition of “information” exists only in its technical sense of an ordered sequence of symbols which is recorded, transmitted, or stored. As already stated by the “fathers” of information theory, Shannon and Weaver (1949), this sequence of signals is either inherently void of meaning or can have arbitrary meaning.
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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Roth, G. (2013). The Language of Neurons. In: The Long Evolution of Brains and Minds. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6259-6_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6259-6_5
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Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6259-6
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