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

by dhw, Thursday, January 09, 2020, 10:50 (1779 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: There is nothing backward in the argument that random processes do produce information, information is non-active, random processes do not produce instructions, and instructions can only be produced by intelligent use of information.

What a shame that you refuse to explain why the above argument is backward. Instead you embark on a muddled account of the origin of life. I will comment in brackets.

DAVID: In answer, I'd like to restate my view of information and life and the issue of random processes. Life is created by information in a code. That code provides life with a way to decode the information code and use the materials it produces in a coordinated way to actually make life emerge. (This makes no sense. How can life decode the information in a code that created it and use its materials in order to make itself emerge? You've got life existing before it emerges!) The information in all the many layers of DNA must therefore contain instructions. (Agreed, but without the “therefore”, since you are referring back to non-sense, but see my comment on the origin of life.) All information is inactive until interpreted. (Thank you for agreeing with me.) That view makes the origin of life a miracle, since all of that must be in place at the same instant of time. Only a mind can form this type of information in DNA. (I agree that the origin of life is a miracle and that all the information and instructions in DNA require intelligence, but now you are blurring the borderline between the origin of life and evolution. The former remains unexplained. The latter, in which information and instructions are constantly changing, may be the product of the intelligence [a form of "mind"] originally present in the first living cells and possibly designed by your God.) Random processes can be totally inert but are filled with information which can be found/described by an intelligent mind. (Thank you for agreeing with me again.) Agree or not? (As specified above. Do you agree with my statement at the head of this post, and if so, why do you think it is backward?)

DAVID: I agree with you, use of existing information is the source of life, but the information has to be supplied first!

dhw: Thank you for finally agreeing that the first part of the heading of this thread is absurd. And I agree with you too, but the agnostic’s dilemma is not knowing the origin of everything that contains information. Perhaps it is your God, perhaps it is an infinite, eternal, ever changing material universe. I drew attention to your new definition of God as bolded above: “intelligent information […] is my God” and expressed surprise that apparently information has a conscious mind.

DAVID: My God supplied/supplies "intelligent information" my shorthand for intelligently formed information.

dhw: So now you are saying that “intelligently formed information” is your God. More confusion.

DAVID: The bold above is not your weird interpretation. God SUPPLIES the needed info, no more.

Then please withdraw your statement that “intelligent information [...] is my God”.

dhw: Evidence for the big bang is irrelevant to the subject of conscious versus unconscious energy.

DAVID: 'Eternal' universes are a series of bangs and then crunches, but each new universe has to start over from scratch to create each new reality! Your use of eternity is very flawed. Of course there is an original 'first cause' at the beginning of the series, which can be deist or theist, or your preference, amorphous energy.

dhw: What beginning? Are you now telling us that your God had a beginning? Of course you’re not. And so once more: If your conscious God had no beginning, then the unconscious, ever changing universe might also have had no beginning, and that = eternity. Where is the flaw?

DAVID: Eternity only exists for ALL universes, not each one which has a finite beginning and therefore not eternal. Out goes your fervent wish that enough random combinations will produce anything in a single universe. As for God He is eternal first cause.

We have no idea if there have been lots of new universes, but it makes no difference to the argument. If the conscious energy you call God can be eternal and can produce a zillion universes, then so can unconscious energy, and a zillion universes may eventually produce one with the requisite combination. This is not my wish, and I don’t believe it, any more than I believe in eternal conscious energy. That is why I am an agnostic. Remember?