Evolution: as immaterial information (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, June 06, 2022, 11:02 (900 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: 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?

DAVID: You are fussing about their terminology. Their point is the only way life can work is that it must interpret the information that guides its processes. They are presenting it as it supports the theory you commment on below from ID.

Of course I’m fussing about their terminology! We have obviously not been reading the same article. Here is the section preceding their attempt to define life, which I took as my example of sheer muddle.

QUOTE: Despite fundamental disagreements the different views agree that natural selection happens through dissimilar perpetuation of inheritable information. Yet, neither the MS, nor the ESS dwell extensively on the nature of hereditary information. We do - and conclude that information in and of itself is immaterial.

Surprise, surprise, information is immaterial. If information doesn’t exist until it has a material form, but life is “information that propagates”, what – according to you (or the authors) - interprets what? “Information that propagates” (= life) interprets information? Where have you found mention of chance v. design? How does this conclusion support ID?

QUOTE: “We then argue that the quality upon which natural selection acts henceforth is also immaterial. Based on these notions, we arrive at the information-centric Information Continuum Model (ICM) of evolution. The ICM asserts that hereditary information is embedded in diverse physical forms (DNA, RNA, symbionts etc.) representing a continuum of evolutionary qualities, and that information may migrate between these physical forms. The ICM leaves theoretical exploration of evolution unrestricted by the limitations imposed by the individual physical forms wherein the hereditary information is embedded (e.g. genomes). ICM bestows us with a simple heuristic model that adds explanatory dimensions to be considered in the evolution of biological systems."

So now we have information migrating independently of (unrestricted by) the materials without which it can’t exist. So hey ho, evolution takes place independently of the genome, and this offers us “explanatory dimensions”. Again: where have you found the dismissal of chance and the inevitability of a designer?

QUOTE: "We contest that ICM also have countless philosophical implications and find that the most fundamental question the model rises [sic] is: what defines life?"

That is the example I discussed earlier. Their answer: “information that propagates is life.” Yet again: where have you found the impossibility of chance and support for ID?

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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: I think you find it muddling becasue you and I don't have the same background in information theory as presented by ID.

I can only discuss the article you have reproduced. It has nothing to do with ID. Please respond to the points I have raised instead of repeating your own beliefs and then attacking me for points I have never made (chance as the driving mechanism) – and in fact have constantly rejected since the very beginning of our discussions.