Information as the source of life (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, November 30, 2015, 15:12 (3280 days ago) @ dhw


> DAVID: In your reference to inanimate matter 'the information it is full of' is descriptive. It describes nothing else. Life is process, and requires specialized information to run that process, interpreted automatically or by active intellect.
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> dhw: Why do you have to distinguish between “descriptive” and “specialized” (not to mention “intelligent”, “functional”, “static”, “dynamic”, “informative” etc.) information? According to your philosophy, the information within inanimate matter required intelligence to create, select and combine it into a concoction that produced life. .... As I see it, all the arguments are far clearer if we simply distinguish between internal information (stored in the genome) and external (from the world outside the organism).-Your intent to simplify only confuses the issue. I assume God created the universe, That required physical processes outlined by our discoveries of the Standard Model, particle physics, etc. The universe and its inanimate objects contain inactive descriptive information we humans create. Animate matter, living organisms, contain an active form of information that contains the instructions for a continuous process interpreted by parts of the living organism that are programmed for just that purpose. If automatic, intelligence planned it. If evolved by chance, mind is not required. These distinctions are the nub of our debate. You are trying to gloss it over.