The Centrality of information (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Monday, June 23, 2014, 12:27 (3807 days ago) @ dhw

DHW: You would only be able to answer my objections if you could find the logical thread that binds the sections together. You recommended the article, but I found the thinking disjointed. The author appears to be arguing that because information is immaterial, somehow that provides evidence that the source of consciousness is also immaterial, nature may be immaterial, Darwinian evolution is wrong, and the watchmaker is not blind. What you yourself have written makes perfect sense, and there are powerful arguments in support of your own views, but in my opinion this author, by taking the immateriality of information as her basis, has not provided any. Maybe other readers will be able to follow her logic better than I can.--I think the logic can be summed up quite neat by one simple fact:-We are able to distinguish the signal from the noise.-Signal within the noise implies purpose, the stronger the signal, the stronger the purpose. The signal, (read informational organization) within life and the universe, is immensely strong. So strong, in fact, that there are incontrovertible laws, rules, and organized structures. Strong, clear, immaterial patterns that can be easily distinguished from the noise. -What's more, those signals had to be in place from the earliest beginnings. That purpose had to exist before anything else, because if it did not, nothing else would have worked. The very fact that we can look back to the 'Big Bang' and model events is evidence of this. If my assertion were not true, then the further back in time we went the weaker the signal would would be until it dissolved into utter chaos. But that is not what happens. The rules hold all the way to the first milliseconds of the beginnings of the universe, where our understanding of them breaks down.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.