Information Complication (General)

by dhw, Monday, November 02, 2015, 08:54 (3307 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: We are currently exploring the genome and its modifying layers of control. That endeavor is defining a stupendous degree of complexity. And there is no question the genome uses information to run life.-I have not questioned that. I have questioned your claim that “information runs life”. You agree that the information has to be processed and used, and my point is that the mechanism which processes and uses it runs life.-dhw: As I keep saying, information tells us what matter is, does and can be used for.
DAVID: Shortsighted definition. Information runs all biological forms, when it is interpreted by the genome mechanisms.-You are simply trying to twist my statement around. It is not the information that runs life, but the “genome mechanisms” that process and use the information. You are merely adding “genome” and changing processing to interpreting. Information on its own serves no purpose until it is used!-dhw: Evolution entails changes in materials. If we agree that those changes do not come about by chance, we have THREE elements: 1) materials, 2) the information contained in those materials, and 3) the something that collects, processes and uses that information.
DAVID: '3' is the genome reading the coded information and the modifications of that information taken from the material code DNA that carries the information.-We have had this discussion before, and I am quite happy to place the “intelligence” of the cell within the genome. You would no doubt place your divine 3.8-billion-year programme there as well. -DAVID: I guess I am not clear or a presume too much in discussion: The information at the start of life is what you refer to as the 3.8 byo program. What is so unclear to you about life having to start with an operational program?-If evolution is to happen, of course life has to start with a mechanism that produces life itself, reproduction, and the ability to change. That is not the issue between us. You are asking us to believe that the “information at the start of life” included the whole preprogrammed history of evolution, with the following exceptionAVID: If God guided evolution, then He may have modified it along the way. -“Guided” is another of your weasel words. He could only “guide” it by programming all the innovations etc. in advance (which is total control, not guidance), or - as you say - modifying/dabbling as he went along.-DAVID: If God made the universe then He is capable of a start program lasting 3.8 billion years. Life runs on instructional information. Speciation must also have an operational program.-Once again, your “start program” covers the whole of evolution, and you claim that God built the instructions for every step into the first cells. Why must you call the instructions “instructional information”? (You have also called them intelligent, planning and dynamic information.) You agree with me that it is “(genome) mechanisms” that interpret and use information in order to “run life”, so why this continued obfuscation with different types of “information”? Your next comment is a prime example of the utter confusion caused by your terminology: -DAVID: I've brought you kicking and screaming to recognizing the importance of information to the functioning of life. Functional dynamic information runs life and how life interprets and uses that information is now under discovery. -I have never questioned the importance of information to the functioning of life; what makes me kick and scream is statements like the above. Please reread what you have written. Suddenly we have functional dynamic information (which used to be the processing or interpreting mechanism, also known as intelligent, planning, dynamic or instructional information) running life, while “life” is the mechanism that interprets and uses the information that runs life! You are tying yourself and us in knots. Why not stick to plain English? Once more, I'll try to summarize the whole argument, including all the details you are trying so hard to gloss over under cover of “information”:-Life functions by means of a mechanism that processes and uses information. In your evolutionary hypothesis, the mechanism is a programme which your God devised 3.8 billion years ago to be passed down through countless organisms and environmental changes. This programme automatically processes and uses the information available at different times and in different organisms to create every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder from bacteria to humans (apart from when God dabbles). In my evolutionary hypothesis the mechanism (perhaps invented by your God) is organisms' autonomous intelligence, which processes and uses the available information for the same purposes.-Feel free to pop in “genome” if you want to, and please let me know your objections.