Version 5.1 Evolution as a language that speaks itself

The ‘self-referential ’ character of evolutionary process noted by Goldenfeld and Woese (2010) can be restated through a ‘language ’ model in which genes, gene expression, and envi-ronment are represented as interacting information sources. The larger, composite, source that characterizes the high probability evolutionary paths then becomes, in a real sense, a language that speaks itself. The approach represents a signif-icant extension of nonequilibrium condensed matter formal-ism in which the asymptotic limit theorems of information theory beat back the mathematical thicket a full step, pro-viding necessary but not sufficient conditions for punctuated evolutionary transitions that can themselves be expressed as highly structured large deviations having their own grammar and syntax