Theoretical origin of life;England's physics theory (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, July 29, 2017, 08:37 (2674 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I was pointing out that your statement “life requires information to begin” missed out the all-important point that even you had put in bold: namely, the ability to process information. We both know one another’s proposals, and I still await your definition of intelligence.-

DAVID: I'm sure it is close to yours. Intelligence is the ability to learn information and have experiences from which to learn and use that information in daily life and to formulate new thoughts and ideas. It is also to learn about others as in military intelligence. It is also to interpret information and place it in action.

DAVID's comment: (under "Information: applied to matter creates life") Information which can be used by the proteins of life somehow creates active life. Since Schrodinger's book there is still no answer as to how this happens. The proteins are material but the mechanism of life itself is an immaterial process.

dhw: Information is present in everything but creates nothing. It is a particular USE of information that creates things.

David: Yes, intelligent use.

Thank you. We are indeed in agreement, and so we should avoid concepts such as “intelligent information” (information has no ability of its own), and we should always distinguish between information and the use of information. There are two statements here which illustrate the point.
“Life requires information to begin”. Everything living and non-living contains information, so why single out life? I think what you really mean is that life requires the intelligent processing of information to begin. “Information which can be used by the proteins of life somehow creates active life” is misleading, as it implies that information itself is creative. It isn’t. You might rephrase it: “The proteins of life somehow use information in such a way that life is created.” I am not putting forward a particular argument here, but simply trying to avoid future distortions of meaning which we have sometimes come across in your own posts and in articles you have quoted. From your own theistic standpoint, I’d have thought the distinction was essential, since some authors like to suggest that information itself is an active force.You would surely argue that it’s not information that creates life, but intelligent use of information.