GENE EXPRESSION AND ITS DISCONTENTS Developmental disorders as dysfunctions of epigenetic cognition

I(X|Y)=H(X)+H(Y)-H(X,Y),

which contains products of terms and their logs, sub ject
to constraints that the sums of probabilities are 1 and each
probability is itself between 0 and 1. Maximization is done
by varying the channel matrix terms P (yj |xi) within the con-
straints. This is a difficult problem in nonlinear optimization.
However, for the special case M = L, C * may be found by
inspection:

If M = L, then choose

P (yj |x_i) = δj_,i ,

where δi,j is 1 if i = j and 0 otherwise. For this special case

C^* ≡ H(X),

with P (yk) = P(xk) for all k. Information is thus trans-
mitted without error when the channel becomes ‘typical’ with
respect to the fixed message distribution P (X).

If M < L, matters reduce to this case, but for L < M infor-
mation must be lost, leading to Rate Distortion limitations.

Thus modifying the channel may be a far more efficient
means of ensuring transmission of an important message than
encoding that message in a ‘natural’ language which maxi-
mizes the rate of transmission of information on a fixed chan-
nel.

We have examined the two limits in which either the dis-
tributions of P (Y ) or of P (X) are kept fixed. The first pro-
vides the usual Shannon Coding Theorem, and the second a
tuning theorem variant, a tunable retina-like Rate Distortion
Manifold. It seems likely, however, than for many important
systems P(X) and P(Y ) will interpenetrate, to use Richard
Levins’ terminology. That is, P (X) and P (Y ) will affect each
other in characteristic ways, so that some form of mutual tun-
ing may be the most effective strategy.

19 Acknowledgments

The author thanks Dr. C. Guerrero-Bosagna for comments
useful in revision.

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