Information as the source of life; not by chance (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, January 07, 2020, 10:57 (1567 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: According to our author, random processes do not produce information, and there has to be a mind with an idea before anything comes into existence. I disagree and have given an example.

DAVID: Your understanding is totally backward. Random processes (whatever that means) do not produce intelligent instructions. The information present only describes the process itself. You are constantly describing descriptive information as information that creates action, which it cannot.

Instructions are intelligent USE of information! Of course random processes do not produce them! (See the Shapiro thread for the rest of the muddle and for the absolute need to define your terms.) But they do produce information (as in the example of the wind dislodging a stone)! I even bolded this: Information “ is present in everything but cannot produce anything. Of course random processes can produce information, but it needs an intelligent mind to extrapolate that information and to use it.” Why is this backward? You have simply ignored what I wrote and set up a straw man.

DAVID: The universe is not infinite in time, so the materials only got to a rocky planet after 3.8 byo when life with the onboard info and the interpretation systems appeared all together at the same time without any evidence of infinity. Dream on!!!

dhw: How the heck do you know that the universe is not infinite in time? What came before the big bang, if the big bang ever happened? You believe in some form of conscious energy that never had a beginning, so it must be infinite in time, but you can’t imagine unconscious energy (plus materials) being infinite in time. All this gobbledygook about information is irrelevant to the subject of "first cause", and as always you ignore the fact that I find BOTH "pipe-dreams" equally difficult to believe.

DAVID:Your argument has a huge hole. This iteration of a universe is ours and is 13.78 byo. The so-called intelligent information carried between iterations is my God. God is my infinity. What is yours?

You are assuming that the big bang happened, but even if it did, you still believe in eternal conscious energy that preceded this “iteration”, so why can’t you believe in eternal unconscious energy that preceded this “iteration”? What is intelligent information? Information does not have a mind of its own! You have agreed that information cannot create anything – it needs a mind to use it. The very idea that non-productive information is the “source of life” is plainly absurd. The source of life has to be whatever used existing information to provide the instructions. Back to “first cause”: eternal conscious energy (where did its intelligence come from?), or eternal unconscious energy producing infinite numbers of material combinations resulting eventually but – given eternity – some might say inevitably, in a great big stroke of luck. No, I don’t believe it. Nor do I believe in eternal consciousness that has no source. More fool me – one of these incredible hypotheses must be true, but which one? That is the agnostic’s dilemma, and in our ignorance the only way to believe in either is through the proverbial leap of faith.