More "miscellany" PART TWO (General)

by dhw, Thursday, June 01, 2023, 12:29 (126 days ago) @ dhw

INFORMATION IS THE BASIS OF LIVING BIOLOGY

dhw: Wouldn’t you say that the basis of living biology is the chemical “composition, properties and reactions” of living organisms ? And when will you solve the mystery of how dormant information can bring to life the cells which can only use it once they are alive? Is that what you meant by a “miracle”?

DAVID: You forgetting life started and all we see is life producing more life. The miracle is needed and God produced it.

Well, at least now there’s no more nonsense about dormant information being used by dormant cells to enable dormant cells to come to life and use dormant information in order to come to life. It’s your God’s miraculous bypassing of all the information nonsense that is the basis of living biology.

dhw:[…] (Of course once the cell is alive, it will create and use all kinds of information – that’s what living things do. But then it would be the ability to create and use information that is the basis of living biology. Without that ability, information would be the basis of nothing at all.) All this kerfuffle because your use of the word “information” demands one attempt after another to explain what it means and what it does or doesn’t do. And we haven’t even mentioned those forms of information that arise de novo and are not created by a living mind.

DAVID: All you have proven is there is no way life can appear naturally. And the cells of life run their processes using DNA coded information.

I am not trying to prove anything. I object to the pointless, misleading and confusing use of the word “information”, as in “information is the basis of living biology”. Now you are simply repeating what I wrote above in parentheses – as bolded. Yes, living cells create and use dormant information. But dormant information does not give them life, so how can it be the basis of their lives? Well apparently you agree. Your God's miracle-working is now the basis of living biology. This whole muddled discussion amply justifies my objection.

Madagascar

DAVID: Bushes for life back then are the same as bushes for life now. Stop slicing up evolution.

dhw: So did you enjoy the baked brontosaurus and the trilobite trifle? Stop pretending that every extinct organism and ecosystem was geared to the creation of us and our food bush.

DAVID: Over eight billion with food shortages currently answer your objection.

My objection is to the claim that all the extinct food bushes of the past served to feed humans now. They didn’t. Stop dodging.

Innovation and speciation: Whale changes

dhw: I agree with you completely that these anatomical changes would not have been by chance. The intelligent cell – perhaps designed by your God – provides a far more convincing explanation. What we disagree on is your insistence that every new species was specially designed by a God whose sole purpose from the very beginning was to create us and our food. Would we really not have existed or starved to death if the whale didn’t have a blowhole?

DAVID: Japanese eat/ate whale. I've had it. All part of ecosystems that feed us..

dhw: But (a) not part of the millions of extinct ecosystems that did not feed us, and (b) you have not answered my question. We can eat whatever is present. If there had been no whales but only pre-whales without blowholes, we would have eaten them, so why do you think your God specially designed the blowholes etc.

DAVID: Without them whales would drown.

So we could not have existed and would have starved to death if your God had not designed whales and their blowholes, and the 99% of extinct organisms that had no connection with us or our current food bush.

Extreme extremophiles: survivors on glaciers.

DAVID: as usual extremophiles prove life can be anywhere it wants to be.

dhw: Amazing! Looks to me like one huge free-for-all.

DAVID: At the end of evolution.

dhw: So when do you reckon your God gave organisms their free-for-all autonomy to do their own speciating?

DAVID: Never.

So why did you say “at the end of evolution”?

Neanderthal experimentation

QUOTE:"According to the authors, "This degree of complexity is unlikely to have been invented spontaneously." Suggesting that the technique would have started with simpler methods and been developed into the more complex process by experimentation.”

DAVID: more evidence that the Neanderthals were pretty bright fellows.

dhw: Apparently if God starts with simpler organisms and develops them through experimentation, it’s a sign that he’s “losing mental ability”. But when Neanderthals learn from their experiments, it’s evidence that they gain in mental ability. If your God was all-knowing from the start and only wanted to design us and our food, he would not have needed to start simple and develop complex. The fact that he did start simple etc. fits in perfectly with the theory that he was experimenting, and provides a logical explanation for his use of evolution rather than direct creation. What’s wrong with that?

DAVID: Only humanized Gods experiment.

You agree that your God would have “humanized” patterns of thought and emotions. If it’s a good thing for Neanderthals to learn and improve their designs through experimentation, why is is it bad for a God?