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

by David Turell , Tuesday, January 21, 2020, 16:18 (1767 days ago) @ dhw

QUOTES: "Stephen Meyer [major ID scientist] has often said that if we trace information back to its source, we always come to a mind, not a material process.
"My main postulate is that information is strictly tied to an idea, a product, or a message. I cannot see how it is possible to have information prior to the idea, product, or message because information is an abstract representation of those things. How can an abstract representation exist prior to the phenomenon which it represents?

DAVID: a carefully thought-out explanation of the information in DNA, what it stands for in the product and processes related, and the need for a creating mind to form it. dhw has always had trouble in accepting that the information found in life needs a mind to explain its origin.

dhw:n Your last remark is a total misrepresentation. I reject your claim that information needs an intelligent mind to form it. It does need an intelligent mind to find it, process it and use it. We covered all this before, and now you want to go over it all again! I thought we had agreed that information is present in all things, it is totally passive, and it exists independently of any observers. Again: It takes an intelligent mind to extract information from all things and to use it. In answer to the question: How can you have an abstract representation of something that doesn’t exist? You can’t. But information is not an abstract representation. Order of procedure: 1) the thing exists and contains all the information – i.e. the facts, details, characteristics, properties etc. - about itself; the mind comes along and examines the thing and creates words for the facts, details etc. as an abstract representation of what it has found. Of course an intelligent mind can also create information, and once it is created, intelligent minds can use it, but information itself cannot create or use anything, and so how can it possibly be the source of life as proclaimed in the heading of this thread?

The first bold is wrong as creating DNA information requires a mind. The second bold is all we have agreed to. What is really the issue is the genome, containing information. DNA as the inanimate molecule fits our agreement. What is the problem is presented by the author. DNA is a code that contains useful information that creates life, when translated. The issue you constantly sidestep is that in human experience, only mental activity can originate the information in the DNA code and probably designed the DNA code-ability molecule itself. Chance cannot be an issue. Therefore that mind exists. Agreed, information in and of itself is inert. It requires creation and interpretation or translation. In my view, a mind that could create such a magnificent code is also capable of providing the automatic translation machinery. Establishing the true inertness of information itself does not help your view of the origin of the information, the real point of the article.