Let's study ID: DNA shows a mind is needed (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, December 11, 2022, 16:57 (502 days ago) @ David Turell

From Quora website:

https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-quora-is-it-possible-to-prove-beyond-...

"Here’s the question you should ask yourself: Is symbolic code something that blind, intelligence-free physical processes could create and use? Or is mind alone up to the task?

"The legendary John Von Neumann did important work on self-replicating systems. A towering giant in the history of mathematics and pioneer in computer science, he was interested in describing machine-like systems that could build faithful copies of themselves.

"Von Neumann soon recognized that it would require both hardware and software. Such a system had to work from a symbolic representation of itself. That is, it must have a kind of encoded picture of itself in some kind of memory.

"Crucially, this abstract picture had to include a precise description of the very mechanisms needed to read and execute the code. Makes sense, right? To copy itself it has to have a blueprint to follow. And this blueprint has to include instructions for building the systems needed to decode and implement the code.

"Here’s the remarkable thing: Life is a Von Neumann Replicator. Von Neumann was unwittingly describing the DNA based genetic system at the heart of life. And yet, he was doing so years before we knew about these systems.

"The implications of this are profound. Think about how remarkable this is. It’s like having the blueprints and operating system for a computer stored on a drive in digital code that can only be read by the device itself. It’s the ultimate chicken and egg scenario.

"How might something like this have come about? For a system to contain a symbolic representation of itself the actualization of precise mapping between two realms, the physical realm and an abstract symbolic realm.

"In view here is a kind of translation, mechanisms that can move between encoded descriptions and material things being described. This requires a system of established correlations between stuff out here and information instantiated in a domain of symbols.

"Here’s the crucial question: Is this something that can be achieved by chance, physical laws, or intelligence-free material processes? The answer is decidedly NO. What’s physical cannot work out the non-physical. Only a mind can create a true code. Only a mind can conceive of and manage abstract, symbolic realities. A symbolic system has to be invented. It cannot come about in any other way.

"If you think something like this – mutually interdependent physical hardware and encoded software – can arise through unguided, foresight-less material forces acting over time, think again. If I were to ask you to think of something, anything that absolutely requires intelligence to bring about, you’d be hard pressed to think of a better example. It’s not just that no one understands how it could be done, it’s that we have every reason to believe that it is impossible in principle. No intelligence-free material processes could ever give you something like this.

***

"The conclusion is clear: The unmistakable signature of mind is literally in every cell of every living thing on earth.

"Note that John von Neumann mathematically showed that the information content of the simplest self-replicating machine is about 1500 bits of information. This is a vast amount of information, since information bits are counted on a logarithmic scale, and it cannot be explained by any natural process, since it far exceeds the information content of the physical (non-living) universe. Therefore, since self-replicating organisms obviously exist on Earth, their origin must come from the only known source of this level of information – an intelligent mind of capability far beyond our mental ability – consistent with the biblical view of God."

Comment: this is pure ID. The complexity of intelligent life is beyond the ability of evolution by natural selection. Note the use of the concept of underling information. Where the information came from is the key point. Not from a material world.