ID commentary on animal minds (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, January 16, 2016, 18:18 (3020 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You keep resisting the issue of information like it is poison. 
dhw: No, no, no, no, no, no. How often do I have to repeat that my issue is with the misleading and confusing use of the term, as if somehow it provides an explanation...
 DAVID: Again, you have discussed all around the issue without coming to terms with the concept of 'information'. Does it exist as a background in DNA codes and modifiers? What do you think is its importance in our attempting to analyze the appearance of life and evolution?-The issue I raised in response to the Vedral video which you recommended was that “everything is information” is yet another example of the misleading and confusing use of the word, and even you agreed that his answers were evasive. I have no problem accepting the concept of ‘information', and I would say information exists in any code, material or subject that I can think of. In attempting to analyse the appearance of life and evolution, we are confronted with all kinds of information; our problem is to understand how that information arose, what used it, and how it was used. See below.
 
DAVID: If you will note in my entry on Free Will , Top Down or Bottom Up, George Ellis demonstrates that Top down is a valid concept. I've always found my thinking consistent with his.
dhw: That does not mean information is everything, or information is the source of life.
DAVID: Have you read Ellis' essay? What is the function of DNA, if not to carry information? -I'm afraid the essay is far too long and technical for me. I have read your extracts, have already expressed my ambivalent views (with reasons) concerning free will, don't know what this has to do the misuse of the term “information” (or with animal minds!), and have no difficulty accepting that top down may in some cases be as valid as bottom up, but don't expect me to go into details about its application to physics etc. Nor do I have any problem accepting that DNA carries information. My problem is with such misleading and confusing claims as “everything is information”, “information as the source of life”, “information runs life” etc.
 
dhw: Everyone will agree that information exists, but on its own it achieves and creates nothing. The crucial issues are what uses it, how it is used and, ultimately, where it comes from.
DAVID: Your statement is correct in part. The information exists. It is not 'crucial to discuss what uses it'. That is obviously all the cells which respond to their instructions in their DNA. Where it comes from is what I am trying to propose, which for me is top-down mental planning.-I am fully aware of your conviction that God (the top-down planner) planned everything. This means that it is God's computer programme or himself in person (dabbling) that both provides and uses the information, since the cells automatically obey his instructions. Many scientists and philosophers would disagree that your God has provided the instructions. And so what provides and uses the information and how it is used then becomes crucial. Indeed, that is the subject we have been discussing for eight years.