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

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 13, 2020, 18:10 (1654 days ago) @ David Turell

The meaning of information from John Horgan:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/why-information-cant-be-the-basis-of-r...

"A growing number of scientists... are beginning to wonder whether information "may be primary: more fundamental than matter itself."

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"In the 1980s, Wheeler started pointing out deep resonances between quantum mechanics and information theory. An electron, Wheeler pointed out, behaves like a particle or a wave depending on how we interrogate it. Information theory, similarly, posits that all messages can be reduced to a sequence of "binary units," or bits, which are answers to yes or no questions.

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"In a paper that he delivered at the Santa Fe Institute in 1989, he postulated that "every it--every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself--derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely--even if in some contexts indirectly--from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits."

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"The concept of information makes no sense in the absence of something to be informed—that is, a conscious observer capable of choice, or free will (sorry, I can't help it, free will is an obsession). If all the humans in the world vanished tomorrow, all the information would vanish, too. Lacking minds to surprise and change, books and televisions and computers would be as dumb as stumps and stones. This fact may seem crushingly obvious, but it seems to be overlooked by many information enthusiasts.

"The idea that mind is as fundamental as matter—which Wheeler's "participatory universe" notion implies--also flies in the face of everyday experience. Matter can clearly exist without mind, but where do we see mind existing without matter? Shoot a man through the heart, and his mind vanishes while his matter persists. As far as we know, information—embodied in things like poetry, hiphop music and cell-phone images from Libya--only exists here on Earth and nowhere else in the universe. Did the big bang bang if there was no one there to hear it? Well, here we are, so I guess it did (and saying that God was listening is cheating)."

Comment: If DNA is a code, then it must be stated it carries information which only an existing mind can understand. But genes run living processes through many interlocking series of molecular actions. Molecules do not think, but we know folded protein molecules carry out functions to create the wanted results desired by DNA. The only answer is a mind designed all those molecules and their coordinated functions through instructions which are information. And for all these functions to work, they have to be automatic. Taking time for decision-making will slow down the system too much for it to work.