What makes life vital (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, March 06, 2015, 20:27 (3549 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I am much happier with this acknowledgement that it is a matter of opinion than I am with bald statements such as bacteria are automatons / are not conscious / do not think.
DAVID: I am happy you are happy, but remember, no one can tell and at this time no one can know which of the two decision/opinions are correct.-Which is a good reason for open-mindedness - and the same of course applies to theism v atheism.-DAVID: Information can not appear de novo for conceptual thought is not material. It is based on information to be analyzed and information to do the analysis.dhw: If you believe in the Big Bang, the essence of which is that the universe had a beginning, by definition this has to be information appearing de novo.-DAVID: Exactly. At issue is the source of that information. Information is not material. It is concepts and instructions.-Information is also data which may be contained within material but need not have been consciously created. It is analysis and use of data that requires some form of consciousness.
 
dhw: If the first cause is energy endlessly transmuting itself into matter, whether consciously (theistic) or unconsciously (atheistic), information will also constantly be appearing de novo.
DAVID: You are playing the something-from-nothing game. -No I'm not. I think you are confusing de novo with ex nihilo. I am following the process whereby every innovation (de novo) has a cause, and the first cause is eternal energy producing new matter. You subscribe to the same first cause, but insist that it is self-aware.-DAVID: I agree that there is a 'source' that is creating the information, but to expect such complex information to be generated from the amorphous energy plasma at the beginning of the Big Bang is very unreasonable if not totally impossible.-You might as well say that it is very unreasonable if not totally impossible for the amorphous energy you call God to have been possessed of all the complex information required to create the complex information resulting from the big bang (if it ever happened). There is no consistency in the argument that energy cannot produce information, and therefore energy must already have had all the information all the time.-dhw: Analysis, however, clearly requires some kind of consciousness (or, as you put it, the information to do the analysis), but when, how, and in what form that consciousness came into being, nobody knows. This last comment applies equally to your God and to living organisms.
DAVID: Intelligence had to come into being before anything else. From your viewpoint, it came from no where. I'll stick with cause and effect....-Another dogmatic statement that has no justification. From my viewpoint intelligence MIGHT have preceded the formation of our material universe (I am an agnostic), and it might have evolved from the interaction between mindless energy and matter. The latter constitutes cause and effect. Your conscious, know-all energy is what came from nowhere. My alternative consciousness came from somewhere. But I find both hypotheses difficult to believe. (I am still an agnostic!) 
 
DAVID: ...and IMHO your proposal requires an intelligent first cause. As for bacterial analytic capacity, studies in analytic chemistry show how they do it in being attracted to food from the chemicals given off. X-ray diffraction and biochemical studies show how energy is provided to run the rotors of the flagella. The bi-lipid membranes of the outer surface have fully delineated biochemical processes for engulfing food, and then digesting it. All implanted reactions run from the info in the genome.-As always you seize on the biological processes, which apply equally to ourselves. There are chemical processes at work when we are attracted to food, when we use energy to move, when we swallow and when we digest. But like ourselves, bacteria communicate, cooperate, take decisions. All these activities require chemical processes that are directed by mental processes, but when it comes to non-human organisms you focus exclusively on the chemicals.-Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-You have done the same with your latest post, which concludes with the quote: “...such processes are not controlled by magical powers but by the interaction of biochemistry and mechanical forces.” Materialists would say exactly the same about our own behaviour, and then you would be up in arms. Of course they may be right - as you have stated at the start of this post: “no one can tell and at this time no one can know which of the two decision/opinions are correct.” The article on the human brain also focuses exclusively on biological processes. The strange thing is that you are not a materialist, and yet you insist on accepting materialism for some organisms, reject it for humans, and hum and haw when it comes to some of our fellow animals.