Information as the source of life (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, December 02, 2015, 02:51 (3062 days ago) @ dhw


> DAVID: The universe and its inanimate objects contain inactive descriptive information we humans create.
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> dhw:I'm afraid I already find this confusing. How do humans “create” the information? It is already there within the object (and I thought you thought your God created it).-Simple. The understandable info does not exist until we create it. The info does lie, inert in a rock waiting for discovery. We describe the structure of the rock and the info appears for all to see. We now have mentally useful info about the rock.-> dhw: We humans analyse the objects and invent words to describe what we find. The results of our analysis and translation into words are what we call information, i.e. data, facts, knowledge about what the objects consist of and do. Inventing words is not the same as inventing what they describe.-Of course we have to invent terminology. I don't understand your problem.
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> dhw: I find this confusing too. I do not see how information can be active.-The use of information that describes or runs functions is what I think of as active material. Granted there must be an interpretive mechanism using this info--> dhw: The distinction here is that inanimate matter - if we set aside panpsychism for the sake of this discussion - does not appear to contain an intelligent mechanism to interpret information, whereas living organisms do. It is their intelligence that actively uses information, and the continuous process both of living and of evolving is the result of interaction between the organism's intelligence and the information contained within and coming from outside the organism. -Agreed, BUT, not all organisms have intelligence, our usual sticking point. Many lesser organisms have mechanisms which can automatically act appropriately upon the instructions (information) they have.-> dhw: I described this process in the section of my post that you left out:
> “The formula then contained all the information required to “run” life, and evolution is the process whereby intelligence (automatic in your hypothesis, autonomous in mine) uses that information plus information from the environment to innovate, thereby creating new information.”-Fine, agreed. The new info allows them to respond to the environment perhaps epigenetically.
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> dhw: David's comment re “semiotics”: Obviously there must be an intelligently designed decoder, or onboard intelligence to follow the instructions. All we know now is the DNA instructions are used and followed appropriately or there would be no life.
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> I am happy with this comment, which seems to me no different from intelligence using internal information, allowing for that intelligence to be your God's preprogramming or my autonomous alternative.-The decoder may be automatic in my way of thinking.