Evolution: as immaterial information (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, June 05, 2022, 10:53 (901 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: To clarify my belief: the information that makes life emerge through functional biochemistry comes from a designing mind, given the name God in Western religions.

dhw: You didn’t need to clarify that. What needs clarifying is the muddle created by this article and others, which arises from placing “information” (undefined and undifferentiated) at the heart of still unsolved mysteries such as the origin of life and the means whereby organisms can change their structure in order to adapt and innovate, and so create new organs and new species. Among other questions, I asked: red“How does immaterial information create (let alone diversify) life by “propagating” if it doesn’t exist until the material form already exists?”red The authors offer no explanation. They simply conclude: “information that propagates is life”. Can you follow this argument? As far as you are concerned, your God creates the material form and somehow makes it live. Nobody knows how. The information contained in DNA is still present when the material form is dead. Similarly, nobody knows how bodies change into new bodies. But apparently it’s all done by information “propagating”. If you understand this, please tell me what it means. If you can’t, then please stop defending arguments you don’t understand.

DAVID: The muddle is yours, since your questions are easily answered if you accept a designer in charge of putting evertything together. The question in red shows the impossibility of chance natural events. The next comment: "information that propagates is life" can be understood by recognizing that life obviously propogates using its onboard information/instructions.

You have completely missed the point. I am attacking the vagueness of the article, and you are providing your own theory (which I already mentioned – now in bold) to make up for the muddle. Once more: If information doesn’t exist until it has a material form, how can it create life by “propagating”? The word means reproduce or spread, so information that reproduces and spreads itself is life, although it doesn’t exist until it has a material form. Why not cells or even materials that reproduce and spread themselves are life? The authors don’t explain anything. At least ID, like yourself, offers us a clear theory: living forms are so complex that they cannot be the product of chance, and therefore must be the product of an intelligent designer. You don’t even need to mess about with "information" and “propagating”. The terms need defining, and I cannot see how they explain the source of life or the mechanisms of evolution.

DAVID: I fully and logically recognize the need for a controlling operative mind, which you refuse to understand as you revert to natural chance as the driving mechnaism. Pure plea from Darwinism. No wonder you are muddled. God does it and doesn't tell us how, so we research to reach as much understanding as we can.

Nowhere have I reverted to “natural chance”, and nowhere do the authors mention chance or design or God. I have not offered any theory at all. I have simply criticized the article because I find it muddling.

Transferred from “More miscellany”:

dhw: As a matter of interest, do all your information theorists believe in your God as the provider of all information?

DAVID: All ID folks who use information theory do believe in a designer.

dhw: All ID folks believe in a designer. I asked you if all information theorists believe in a designer!

DAVID: I don't know.

dhw: Then there is no point in assuming that information theory favours theism.

DAVID: I have no idea if Claude Shannon was a believer, but all ID folks use his theories, and all of them are theists. Your weird point is?

That information theory as presented in this article and every other article you have reproduced on the subject leads to confusion and not clarification in its approach to the issues it is supposed to be explaining.