Paul Davies: new comments on Information and life (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 08:45 (1712 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Thank you for acknowledging my clear definition, which I hope will put an end to your confusing efforts to make information use information.

DAVID: I've never said your words I bolded.

dhw: According to you, operational or instructional information uses passive and non-creative information, as below, now bolded:

DAVID: You have returned to the same confusion about information in life. Cells contain information that is passive and also contains other information that allows cells to use it actively in performing cell processes.

dhw: I objected to the term “operational information” (and I also object to “instructional information”) which is the “other” information that uses the passive information. This sort of terminology seems to me to cause unnecessary confusion in some of the articles you post. I have explained that the former (operational) is what I call intelligence – whether autonomous (cellular intelligence) or automatic (your God’s preprogramnmed instructions or direct dabblings). The third question – the one you say I always like to skip – is the origin of this intelligence. I have always agreed that this may be your God.

DAVID: I know you give lip service to a possible role by God. ID folks constantly use the concept of biological information embedded in living organisms as a strong proof of a designer.

I have just explained as clearly as possible why I object to terminology which has information using information, and you zoom off at a tangent. No, I do not pay lip service to a possible role. I am an agnostic, which means that all my arguments must allow for the possibility of God’s existence. And the discussion concerns your attempt to make information use information (though for some reason you have denied this). We had operational information using passive information, and now you lump them together as “biological information”! ID-ers use the complexity of biological processes as proof of a designer. The passive information is used by intelligence (you say automatic through instructions, Shapiro says autonomous through cellular intelligence), and nobody knows the source of the intelligence that uses the information, but it might be God. Why must we have information that uses information and now we have information as proof of a designer?