Friday, May 16, 2008

Why DNA is Information

One strong argument that non-Darwinists have against Darwinism is the simple fact of DNA. Darwinism requires evolution to occur due to random mutations coupled with Natural Selection. DNA, on the other hand, requires some very specific sequences in order for some very specific organisms to exist. As a result, non-Darwinists (be they Creationists, theistic evolutionists, or believers in panspermia) find DNA to be a convincing counter to gradualistic Darwinist claims regarding the origin of life. The basic argument can be summarized thus:

A) DNA is information.
B) Information cannot arise from a random, non-directed process.
C) Darwinism requires DNA to have arisen from a random, non-directed process.
D) Therefore, Darwinism cannot explain DNA.

Since C) is a given under Darwinism, the only thing that a Darwinist can do to reject this proof is to deny either A) or B). In a coming post, I will seek to demonstrate the truth of B). For this post, I will seek to demonstrate the truth of A).

Information is something that is most commonly associated with language. But what separates information theory from linguistics is that information theory moves beyond mere language and incorporates many other things. Information theory really began only recently, after it was discovered language could be transmitted via mechanical devices. Even before it was a science, telegraph operators would have to engage in information theory to distinguish between the pulses of Morse code on the line and random noise (caused, say, by a tree swaying in a breeze with a branch striking the telegraph wire and interrupting the electrical signal). This became more pronounced with radio signals. The need to differentiate between information—the message being sent—and noise—radio interference, random fluctuations, etc.—required the spawning of information theory.

To discuss this, we need a working definition of information. As you can see from the above examples of the genesis of information theory, one way would be to say: Information is non-random.

This, however, is not sufficient. After all, if a telegraph operator received only a constant signal of dot-dash (for A) that would convey no information either. Linguistic meaning is not conveyed in that manner.

So we can start with: Information is non-random and non-repeating.

But non-random and non-repeating…what? If we’re looking at text being written on the page, it’s obvious: non-random and non-repeating letters. Thus, we know that

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
is information, whereas

lasdkfjuyqwensd
and

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
are not information.

But if we’re dealing with telegraph signals, we’re not looking at letters on the page. We’re listening to electrical pulses being translated into sounds and visual representations created by the raising and lowering of a pen based on those electrical pulses. And with radio, we have to examine radio waves, using instruments to detect whether or not information is present (which, today, you can do by turning on your radio and listening to the radio pulses transformed to electrical impulses which drive a magnet that creates airwaves that bring sounds to your ears and differentiating it from static).

But why stop there? Why not examine the natural world as well? And it is when we do that that we discover the richness of information in living structures.

Consider rocks for instance. Sandstone is a great example. If you examine a piece of sandstone under the microscope, you will notice that the individual grains that make up that stone appear quite random. While there are certain elements that show up more often (due to their greater abundance on Earth), there is no foundational law governing which grain in the sandstone should be next to another grain in the sandstone. It’s random.

Now look at a diamond, one that has not been cut so as to avoid human interference. It’s crystallized carbon. The atoms of carbon are structured in a specific pattern, and there are no random variations from it (the only random variations in a diamond come from the inclusion of other elements that are not carbon, which will affect the diamond’s color, etc.).

Neither a rock nor a diamond carry information in their structure. However, someone can carve an inscription into a rock and someone can laser designate a diamond. Someone can take sandstone rocks and organize them in such a manner as to build a bungalow, and someone can put a diamond into a ring setting. So consider a bungalow. Is a bungalow information? Is a diamond ring information?

If we use the above starting definition, then they would be. A bungalow and a diamond ring are both non-repeating and non-random.

But this immediately brings to mind the next question. What if someone were to design a bungalow that was repeating. A bungalow on top of another bungalow? Story after story, until you have a repeating-structure: a sky scraper. Now the building would be repeating, and therefore not information.

But sky scrapers do not appear in nature. They have to be built, and that requires work beyond the foundational laws that govern matter. When a diamond is in a crystal shape, it takes no extra effort on the part of the carbon atoms to get there; in fact, that’s the simplest way that the carbon atoms can organize under those circumstances. Likewise, it takes no special effort for a grain of sand in sandstone to sit next to another random grain of sand. That’s the natural state.

Therefore, we can add our final requirement to what determines information. Information isn’t just non-repeating and non-random, but it must be something that is non-repeating and non-random and cannot be explained by only foundational forces. (Note: by “foundation forces” I mean the laws of the universe that materialists consider to be basic, such as the laws of magnetism and the way atoms will bond with each other. For the sake of argument, we will assume these are the basic laws and that they will happen by “default” without any divine guidance needed.)

So a sky scraper may be repetitive and it may mimic a crystallized structure. But sky scrapers are not created using foundational forces of nature. Indeed, the individual units that create the sky scraper themselves are composed of bungalows, and bungalows (in our example, anyway) are composed of sandstone. Sandstone does not form bungalows using foundational forces of nature. It requires something else to organize sandstone into a bungalow. Therefore, sky scrapers exist due to something beyond foundational forces of nature.

And that brings us to DNA. As we know, DNA functions as the blueprint for life. It’s called that because the DNA is used to form all the amino acids that are used for cellular life. And the cellular life must function in order for organs to function. And organs must function for organisms to function. DNA therefore determines many things about the organism, including the means by which that same DNA can be replicated.

Let us therefore ask our questions. Is DNA repetitive like a crystal? If it was, it would mean that Adenine had a proclivity for having Thymine next to it, so you’d have ATATATATATATATAT. Or perhaps Guanine and Thymine would be structured like that.

But the fact is that there is no real proclivity at all between the various bases. Thymine could just as easily follow a Cytosine as an Adenine, or even another Thymine (note that I am not talking about the base pair here, but only which base would be next to another base on the same strand).

Since there is no proclivity, then we would expect natural forces to create random structures of DNA. But is DNA random? Obviously not, because the higher organism depends on the structure of DNA creating the right amino acids to form the right cells to form the right tissues, etc. If the DNA is not exactly like it is, the organism does not exist. But since there is not only one organism, but in many cases there are billions of the same kind, then DNA must have structure; it is not random.

If it is not random, and it is not crystallized, and if it would be one or the other if left only to foundational forces, then DNA is information.

29 comments:

  1. I think you have to speak more about the nature of information, which is a bit difficult. For example, we can conceive of a case where a person knocks over a scrabble box and the letters
    I Love You comes out with that order. Or take the example of a person dreaming and he shouts out, "No Maggie!" That seems to be information. I don't know. It does seem to me that information can come out of a random process, although I think it is improbable.

    On another note, Alex Pruss has some nice stuff on Dembski here

    http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2008/05/dembski-definition-of-specified.html#links

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's what my next post will be about: whether random processes can create information.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "I Love You comes out with that order."

    You have probably not read Dembski's works on laying out the argument. Dembski's argument is not that there is no conceivable way that information can be created by a random process. His argument is that the probability of information on the scale of DNA being created through a random process is so low that it would require far more probabalistic resources in the universe to make it *scientifically* (or mathematically) possible in this universe.

    All Probabalistic Resources = #atoms in the universe * #10^-11 tries/sec * # seconds since the Big Bang = 10^150 (or something like that)

    Thus, if the denominator of the probability is larger than the above number, then the probability would be considered *so* unlikely that it couldn't have possibly happened.

    So, your Scrabble example could happen since it is within the bounds of probabilistic resources (1/(26^8); not counting spaces). [Though, that long of a sentence is still very unlikely.]

    "Or take the example of a person dreaming and he shouts out, "No Maggie!" That seems to be information."

    Of course that's information. However, the language spoken in the dream comes from prior information. No Free Lunch.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Or take the example of a person dreaming and he shouts out, "No Maggie!" That seems to be information."

    Put another way, while the dream sequence is "random", the resources that the brain utilizes are not.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That should be 10^11 tries/sec or inversely 10^-11 sec/try.

    ReplyDelete
  6. saint,

    i am aware of Dembski's argument. the fact that you said that the scrabble scenario can happen shows that (2) is false. Peter's argument is different from Dembski's.

    ReplyDelete
  7. That's what my next post will be about: whether random processes can create information.

    You mean whether *undirected* processes can create information. At least we materialists and you Calvies can agree that the universe is deterministic.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Good post. David Berlinski compared this idea to the idea that all of literature has descended from a common source, Don Quixoti. Through random mutation to the letters in this story, all books that have ever been written (in every language) have evolved. Sounds kinda crazy, but I think its the same idea.

    ReplyDelete
  9. This is Berlinski's article, for those who are curious:

    ==============

    On the Derivation of Ulysses from Don Quixote

    I IMAGINE THIS story being told to me by Jorge Luis Borges one evening in a Buenos Aires cafe.

    His voice dry and infinitely ironic, the aging, nearly blind literary master observes that "the Ulysses," mistakenly attributed to the Irishman James Joyce, is in fact derived from "the Quixote."

    I raise my eyebrows.

    Borges pauses to sip discreetly at the bitter coffee our waiter has placed in front of him, guiding his hands to the saucer.

    "The details of the remarkable series of events in question may be found at the University of Leiden," he says. "They were conveyed to me by the Freemason Alejandro Ferri in Montevideo."

    Borges wipes his thin lips with a linen handkerchief that he has withdrawn from his breast pocket.

    "As you know," he continues, "the original handwritten text of the Quixote was given to an order of French Cistercians in the autumn of 1576."

    I hold up my hand to signify to our waiter that no further service is needed.

    "Curiously enough, for none of the brothers could read Spanish, the Order was charged by the Papal Nuncio, Hoyo dos Monterrey (a man of great refinement and implacable will), with the responsibility for copying the Quixote, the printing press having then gained no currency in the wilderness of what is now known as the department of Auvergne. Unable to speak or read Spanish, a language they not unreasonably detested, the brothers copied the Quixote over and over again, re-creating the text but, of course, compromising it as well, and so inadvertently discovering the true nature of authorship. Thus they created Fernando Lor's Los Hombres d'Estado in 1585 by means of a singular series of copying errors, and then in 1654 Juan Luis Samorza's remarkable epistolary novel Por Favor by the same means, and then in 1685, the errors having accumulated sufficiently to change Spanish into French, Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, their copying continuous and indefatigable, the work handed down from generation to generation as a sacred but secret trust, so that in time the brothers of the monastery, known only to members of the Bourbon house and, rumor has it, the Englishman and psychic Conan Doyle, copied into creation Stendhal's The Red and the Black and Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and then as a result of a particularly significant series of errors, in which French changed into Russian, Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Anna Karenina. Late in the last decade of the 19th century there suddenly emerged, in English, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, and then the brothers, their numbers reduced by an infectious disease of mysterious origin, finally copied the Ulysses into creation in 1902, the manuscript lying neglected for almost thirteen years and then mysteriously making its way to Paris in 1915, just months before the British attack on the Somme, a circumstance whose significance remains to be determined."

    I sit there, amazed at what Borges has recounted. "Is it your understanding, then," I ask, "that every novel in the West was created in this way?"

    "Of course," replies Borges imperturbably. Then he adds: "Although every novel is derived directly from another novel, there is really only one novel, the Quixote."

    ReplyDelete
  10. First, a pedantic point that makes me look like a jerk, sorry: DNA is a carrier of information, just like RNA, or the English language, or any of the other nearly infinite carriers of information. I don't think this changes the argument, but I would change A from "DNA is information" to "DNA conveys information."

    I accept A, as changed above. DNA certainly does convey information. We could probably stop here, call A an enthymeme and continue on to B. But I must strongly disagree with your following assertions.

    I think it is arguable whether there is information in any carrier of information. If I am a baseball coach signalling to a base-runner to steal second base, I have a pre-conceived "language" that we use. By rubbing the brim of my hat, patting my chest, tapping my knee, etc. I can easily communicate to the base-runner that I'd like him to steal second or to stay put on first. There is absolutely information embedded in my series of actions, but it is only understood by the members of my team who have learned the language. To the other team, it's random nonsense, even though they all have a hunch I'm not just scratching my nose because it itches.

    All sorts of other conveyors of information operate the same way. The English language means very little to a native Mandarin speaker just as most Mandarin symbols mean nothing to English speakers. In this case, English speakers could probably look at the symbol, however, and understand that there's information there; it just needs to be translated to a language he understands.

    The previous two examples are of information that cannot easily be extracted from the medium, but is still understood to be there. If we intercept an encrypted message, we know there's information there even if we accept we'll never interpret it. Can we say that the message carries information without the key? Or is it just random gibberish until we combine it with the key, however small? Another example of information is from the sandstone you mentioned. An understanding of how sandstone is laid down can allow us to find information in that medium. On any given day, pieces of sand and grit will be laid down essentially randomly on the riverbottoms. But, over time, things happen upstream that change the composition of the sandstone. We end up with layers of sediment from different eras. If a volcano erupts, the ash falls into the environment and causes ash to be deposited into a layer of the sandstone. This ends up being a time-ruler for us to compare the ages of different events. Where once people saw pretty stripes, people now see incredible amounts of information. See the Burgess Shale for more on this phenomenon. We could go further and discuss fossils embedded in the sandstone, or carbon-date organic matter in the sandstone, but that would open up whole pages of debate. So, lets stop there. The point is made that information exists whether anyone can interpret it or not.

    I take this concept to its extreme, you may or may not, that there is a tremendous amount of information all over the place if people just are willing to find it. Look at any crime scene investigation. The signatures of the fabrics (just random noise at the textile mill) end up discriminating one mill from another. The blood spatter can tell us all about angles and trajectories of the blood, the trauma, etc. There are numerous clues about how long ago these things took place. There is information everywhere, we just need to determine whether we care enough or are able enough to extract it.

    The fact that a particular piece of information is repeating or non-repeating carries information by itself. I can describe your sequence of V's by saying that it's "repeating." That is a characteristic of the sequence. If I need to convey the number 28 without using numerals, I could type 28 V's and pass the information that way.

    I can look at a diamond ring and pull information from it. I know just by being told that it is a diamond that it formed under great pressure. Carbon does not simply fall into the lattice that is diamond. It is not its lowest energy state. It requires great pressure to cause the carbon atoms to form that perfect symmetry. Information is there, but its content depends on what you are looking for.

    You go on to add to your definition of information that it must not have arisen from purely foundational forces. With this, you've asserted your B argument already. You have defined information as something that cannot arise from random, non-directed processes. If that's your definition of choice, how can anyone disagree?

    As to DNA, it is highly repetitive in telomeres. In fact, telomeres are defined by their repetition of a small chunk of DNA. If the end of a chromosome is not repetitive, it has no telomere. Bad news. But not only is much of DNA highly repetitive (breaking your information definition) but much much more is purely random (as far as anyone can tell today.) In Nature (vol 409, pg 860-921) Francis Collins writes "coding sequences comprise less than 5% of the genome whereas repeat sequences account for at least 50% and probably much more." 80 to 90 percent of human dna has been classified as "junk." This is essentially random mutation in our genome in places where it doesn't hurt. These random mutations are the basis for DNA fingerprinting that is accepted in courts of law in developed nations. Just like the signature of a particular textile can link its production to a particular mill, the random non-directed mutations in our DNA can result in a signature, information, identifying you or me out of a group of people.

    I don't mean any disrespect. But I think your logic is circular and based upon flawed assumptions. The reality is that Darwinism cannot tell us about the origin of life because his ideas deal with evolution of life once started. He tells us about the origin of species, particularly, the separation of similar organisms into distinct organisms. Darwin certainly was curious about the origin of life itself, but never pretended to have any defensible ideas about it. The origin of life is an interesting topic and is being explored at a frantic pace. See Stanley Miller and Harold Urey for some older experiments. See Discover Magazine's recent article for some interesting new ideas inspired by Stanley Miller's samples.

    As one last point, there seems to be a huge misunderstanding about what evolution is. Evolution cannot create anything complex overnight. Complexity is no more than a whole bunch of simple things. Random chance builds one very simple thing at a time, the bearers of those simple things either live and reproduce, live and don't reproduce, or die. Complexity can only exist after eons of simple changes ebbing back and forth, organisms dying of genetic diseases, and once in a while something really great happening, still on a simple small scale. Bacteria don't pop up overnight, but when we take on the role of nature and kill most of them with an antibiotic, the ones that are left had randomly evolved something that allowed them to survive the poison. Their offspring can all survive the poison, and we have antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Evolution is slow and gradual. Fred Hoyle's 747 argument, similar to several in these comments, holds no water because it ignores the slow nature of real evolution (as opposed to straw-man evolution). I apologize for bringing in one more topic to argue, just trying to address a few of the comments.

    I hope I've added to the discussion and caused some curiosity and further exploration.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Where once people saw pretty stripes, people now see incredible amounts of information. See the Burgess Shale for more on this phenomenon. We could go further and discuss fossils embedded in the sandstone, or carbon-date organic matter in the sandstone, but that would open up whole pages of debate. So, lets stop there. The point is made that information exists whether anyone can interpret it or not.

    I take this concept to its extreme, you may or may not, that there is a tremendous amount of information all over the place if people just are willing to find it. Look at any crime scene investigation. The signatures of the fabrics (just random noise at the textile mill) end up discriminating one mill from another. The blood spatter can tell us all about angles and trajectories of the blood, the trauma, etc. There are numerous clues about how long ago these things took place. There is information everywhere, we just need to determine whether we care enough or are able enough to extract it.


    Thanks, mightypile. I tried to make a similar point to PP in his post on teleology .


    As one last point, there seems to be a huge misunderstanding about what evolution is. Evolution cannot create anything complex overnight. Complexity is no more than a whole bunch of simple things. Random chance builds one very simple thing at a time, the bearers of those simple things either live and reproduce, live and don't reproduce, or die. Complexity can only exist after eons of simple changes ebbing back and forth, organisms dying of genetic diseases, and once in a while something really great happening, still on a simple small scale ... Evolution is slow and gradual. Fred Hoyle's 747 argument

    I also tried to get him to see reason on that point as well.

    Let's see if he'll address them now...

    ReplyDelete
  12. mightypile,

    Most of your counter-arguments have been dealt with by creationists and IDists for decades now. Trying to trot out the Miller-Urey experiment is simply bad. See Ross and Rana’s “Origins of Life” for a refutation of Miller-Urey, RNA-world, and all modern theories. For a brief refutation of the common ‘icons of evolution,’ see here:

    http://www.theapologiaproject.org/media/icons_of_evolution.ram

    As for Junk-DNA:

    http://www.junkdna.com/

    Moving along…

    “As one last point, there seems to be a huge misunderstanding about what evolution is. Evolution cannot create anything complex overnight.”

    Wow! I know that you weren’t *trying* to talk down to us, but, I’m sorry, you must take us for complete morons.

    “Complexity is no more than a whole bunch of simple things. Random chance builds one very simple thing at a time, the bearers of those simple things either live and reproduce, live and don't reproduce, or die.”

    This is debatable, and in fact, I believe that the creationists and IDists have won the scientific and philosophical debate as to that assertion. Biological organisms are not simply the sum of their parts. They’re integrated wholes.

    Have you even read some of the refutations of Dawkins’ “Climbing Mount Improbable”?

    “Bacteria don't pop up overnight, but when we take on the role of nature and kill most of them with an antibiotic, the ones that are left had randomly evolved something that allowed them to survive the poison.”

    That’s another one that’s been refuted. The bacteria that become immune only do so at a loss of genetic information. Furthermore, they have less phenotypic fitness as a result.

    Second, they ‘evolve’ because they had signals transmitted to them from other bacteria. Thus, they ‘evolve’ due to pre-existent information. So, not only is it a weakening evolution (in one sense), it is a non-Darwinian form of evolution. In fact, it is a form of ‘intelligent’ evolution that requires pre-existent design.


    If my reply came across as a bit harsh, it is only because we are a bit tired of evolutionists

    a.) assuming that all creationists are stupid and ignorant and
    b.) not reading any critiques of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory and evolutionary arguments.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The authors on this blog have written reviews of popular Darwinian apologetic works:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/06/pining-for-darwin.html

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/07/in-search-of-evolution.html

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/07/evidence-for-evolution.html

    ReplyDelete
  14. To the T-bloggers:

    If you haven't already, you should add this blog to the list on the right hand side of the page:

    http://www.baraminology.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thnuh said:
    ---
    You mean whether *undirected* processes can create information.
    ---

    I meant exactly what I said.

    Mightypile said:
    ---
    I think it is arguable whether there is information in any carrier of information.
    ---

    That you are using language to convey this to me sort of defeats your premise. I'll elaborate on it further when I get to your specific examples.

    MP said:
    ---
    If I am a baseball coach signalling to a base-runner to steal second base, I have a pre-conceived "language" that we use. By rubbing the brim of my hat, patting my chest, tapping my knee, etc. I can easily communicate to the base-runner that I'd like him to steal second or to stay put on first. There is absolutely information embedded in my series of actions, but it is only understood by the members of my team who have learned the language. To the other team, it's random nonsense, even though they all have a hunch I'm not just scratching my nose because it itches.
    ---

    Actually, it's not random nonsense. It may appear to be random nonsense, but information is mathematically different from "random nonsense." Since you bring up language next, I'll explain it after your next comment:

    You said:
    ---
    The English language means very little to a native Mandarin speaker just as most Mandarin symbols mean nothing to English speakers. In this case, English speakers could probably look at the symbol, however, and understand that there's information there; it just needs to be translated to a language he understands.
    ---

    Indeed. The information is there. And we can tell it is there because it is possible for an English speaker to learn Manderin, and vise versa. It's not as if we cannot learn to unpack the information that is there.

    However, it is impossible to ever come to an understanding of "random nonsense." One cannot learn to understand something that is random.

    Let us look for a bit at some of the traits of language. Since I enjoy cryptology, I happen to know a bit about the nature of several languages. In English, for instance, the most common letters are e and a. In Arabic, it's the a and the l because of the common "al" article. If you take the average text of English that contains more than fifty or so characters, you can do a statistical analysis on the text and find that it corresponds generally to what you will get if you did a statistical analysis on the entirety of the works of Stephen King. English has certain hallmarks to it.

    That's why a monosubstitution, such as a Caesar's shift, at first step makes the text look unintelligeble, but which anyone with a high school education and knowledge of the statistical occurances of letters in English can crack.

    Because English is not random--because it not only conveys, but actually is information--you can compare it to random text and see the two are not the same. A purely random text should have all letters occuring at the same rate. But English does not.

    And, as I've shown here (read the section I quote David Kahn in), if we have two texts that appear to be random because of the use of a Vigenère encipherment (but which both use the same running key-word), you can find which alignment of the text is correct by matching up the incidences of "coincidences" amongst the letters. Even though both texts appear random, they hide within themselves proof that they are not random.

    Random texts cannot do that. Only information can do that.

    Thus when you ask:
    ---
    Can we say that the message carries information without the key? Or is it just random gibberish until we combine it with the key, however small?
    ---

    The answer is "Yes" it is information and "No" it is not random gibberish. It is mathematically different from "random gibberish."

    That you may not understand the content does not alter whether it is information or not. You are assuming information must be the complete reconstruction and understanding of what is sent; but that's not what information is. Again, as I defined it in my post, information is something that is non-repetitive and non-random and is created by non-foundational forces. That definition does not require you to comprehend the information at all.

    You said:
    ---
    You go on to add to your definition of information that it must not have arisen from purely foundational forces. With this, you've asserted your B argument already. You have defined information as something that cannot arise from random, non-directed processes. If that's your definition of choice, how can anyone disagree?
    ---

    A) That is one of the things I was going to point out. B) Darwinists still find a way to disagree.

    By the way, you can feel free to come up with a different definition of "information" if you'd like. Remember that your definition of information must be able to exclude random influences, and must also exclude repetitions.

    You said:
    ---
    As to DNA, it is highly repetitive in telomeres.
    ---

    Anything that has only 4 bases and 3 billion pairings is going to have sections of repetitions. For that matter, any alphabet of 26 letters is going to have many repetitions throughout any significant amount of text. Indeed, repetitions of the double "ll" or the double "tt" help cryptographers. But the existence of those repetitions do not fall in a repetitious order, nor do they occur at the same rate that purely random processes would generate. Again, there is a fundamental difference between what is random and what is information.

    You said:
    ---
    80 to 90 percent of human dna has been classified as "junk."
    ---

    A number that is continually changed, however. Furthermore, you're arguing of "junk of the gaps" here. You're saying, "If I don't know what this is in there fore, it must not have a purpose for being there." Very scientific, I might add....

    You said:
    ---
    I don't mean any disrespect. But I think your logic is circular and based upon flawed assumptions.
    ---

    Since I don't find your objections convicing, why should I take disrespect from them? On the other hand, I think you're assuming a definition of "information" that is not found in my post and then you are criticizing me for being inconsistent with that definition.

    By the way, the only thing you've claimed I've done "circularly" here so far is with regards to the B argument; but this post has only been in reference to my A argument, so it's not like I've presented a B argument yet. As I said, that's in an upcoming post.

    Where else have I engaged in circularity then? Establish it.

    If you disagree with my definition of information, provide a better one.

    If you do so, then maybe your objections can be meaningful.

    You said:
    ---
    The reality is that Darwinism cannot tell us about the origin of life because his ideas deal with evolution of life once started.
    ---

    That's true, but irrelevant to my post on information. In fact, given your admission then you shouldn't have any objections to anything I've written at all. If I say that DNA cannot be explained by Darwinians processes, then you can simply respond: "Of course not. It assumes DNA already exists." Which is fine by me if you want to go there.

    But since most Darwinists don't go there, it's incumbent upon me to present my argument.

    You said:
    ---
    Complexity is no more than a whole bunch of simple things.
    ---

    And intelligence is nothing more than a whole bunch of stupid things.

    That is the error of composition in case you didn't know it.

    You said:
    ---
    Random chance builds one very simple thing at a time...
    ---

    Now you're reifying "Random chance." "Random chance" isn't an object. It's not a thing that can act. RC has no power. It has no existence. It cannot build anything.

    You said:
    ---
    Complexity can only exist after eons of simple changes ebbing back and forth
    ---

    Or it can be introduced immediately by an intelligent being.

    You said:
    ---
    Evolution is slow and gradual.
    ---

    Which is why it's demonstrated in the fossil record. Except that it's not. Which is why we have to come up with P.E. and the like....

    ReplyDelete
  16. "As to DNA, it is highly repetitive in telomeres."

    To Peter's examples, I'd like to add those 1's and 0's that make up the software we're using. Just because computer language only uses 1's and 0's doesn't mean that it's random. In fact, it's quite calculated.

    Can you imagine what the computer industry would be like if Darwinist software engineers used mightypile's logic? "Oh hey, this is simple! All I have to do to create a computer program is to mash down on the 1 and 0 keys a lot!"

    ReplyDelete
  17. Welcome to mightypile's first in a series. "One Point at a Time." Call this, "Point A."

    To Saint and Sinner's 5/17 4:46 post:

    I was very careful to maintain the respect due anyone making an honest point and never used the word "moron." I agree wholeheartedly that evolutionists and IDers have been arguing the same points since before Creationism was renamed Intelligent Design, just in different terms. I have interpreted the debates differently, however. From my perspective, it seems that the scientists have dispatched the IDers handily. We certainly both enter the arena with our own biases and preconceived notions. Perhaps an honest and respectful discussion will help to highlight the sticking points and educate both of us further in the process.

    I will postpone the first point until I've taken a look at your references.

    Immediately, I will respond to a few things, though. You quoted me as saying, “As one last point, there seems to be a huge misunderstanding about what evolution is. Evolution cannot create anything complex overnight.” then accuse me of treating you as morons without saying why. I made this point because I found the "I love you" in Scrabble example to demonstrate this exact misunderstanding. "I love you" is very unlikely to fall out onto the table in a nice, neat line all at once. But, if you empty the tiles onto the table, keeping those few that "work" each time, over an over for millions of years, you will end up with much more profound text than "I love you." This is why I made the point, and also why I referenced Hoyle's 747. I saw the Scrabble example as a different flavor of the same old argument about the improbability of complexity popping up all at once. I completely agree that complexity very rarely simply happens all at once. It is the step-wise nature of mutation and evolution that allows complexity to build up slowly.

    Upon re-reading the Scrabble posts, I see that apolonio was not using Scrabble as a counter-argument to evolution (I think) but as an example of "information" coming from a random and non-directed source. Sort of the same, but from a different angle.

    To summarize this specific point, I believe we can all agree that long strings of text in scrabble, entire works of literature, the DNA of an entire organism, and 747s are all complex enough that they would probably never pop up randomly. I just wanted to make the point that evolutionary theory has never argued against us on this point.

    More to come...

    ReplyDelete
  18. Mighty Pile said:
    ---
    I agree wholeheartedly that evolutionists and IDers have been arguing the same points since before Creationism was renamed Intelligent Design, just in different terms.
    ---

    This is still a fallacy. While all Creationists are IDers, not all IDers are Creationists. It's like saying, "All dogs are mammals, therefore all mammals are dogs."

    (I've had a dream that one day there will be an Evolutionist who will realize this. Please help me realize my dream....)

    You said:
    ---
    "I love you" is very unlikely to fall out onto the table in a nice, neat line all at once. But, if you empty the tiles onto the table, keeping those few that "work" each time, over an over for millions of years, you will end up with much more profound text than "I love you."
    ---

    Since this is a metaphor, I don't want to spend too much time critiquing the analogy. But how does one sequence "work" in the above illustration? Since you're employing this as a Darwinian metaphor, then we're to assume that those that "work" are those that survive; which would correlate, possibly, to "those tiles that fit closest to the English language are 'selected for' and the others discarded."

    Yet English is not simply a few words that happen to fit into a dictionary. It's context and syntax too. Despite the fact that all the following are words in the English langauge and are even put together with a subject/verb structure, the following sentence is unintellibible: "Hairy welts found a sad hypnosis."

    Again, I don't want to spend too much on your analogy, but it is worthwhile to critique it because the same errors are found in Darwinistic claims regarding DNA.

    You said:
    ---
    I saw the Scrabble example as a different flavor of the same old argument about the improbability of complexity popping up all at once. I completely agree that complexity very rarely simply happens all at once. It is the step-wise nature of mutation and evolution that allows complexity to build up slowly.
    ---

    But that can only occur if Darwinist is teleologically oriented. If there is no teleological direction, then mutation and evolution have no chance of building up complexity slowly. If there is no teleology, then you are left with the fact that flipping 100 coins simultaneously and having them all end heads up and flipping one coin 100 times and having it land heads up each time are equivalent. Breaking it into steps doesn't help you at all unless you can "reflip" those that land on tails and keep those that land on heads.

    So the only way for your claim that complexity can arise through Darwinistic means is if Darwinism is teleological. It must have a goal. It must have a destination.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Peter, you make some good points, and force me to agree on some, clarify some, and disagree on some.

    I would like to help you fulfill your dream. :-) As an evolutionist (we may have to debate the definition of that word, too, before we're done) I will concede that there may be individuals who consider themselves IDers, but not Creationists. But, I don't see the difference. I'm being sincere. I'll lay out my understanding and ask you to show me where I've missed something.

    I understand Creationists to basically believe that humanity (or everything?) exists because a Creator created it.

    I understand Intelligent Design to be a philosophy that asserts that humanity (or everything?) exists because it was designed by an intelligent designer.

    To me, "Creator" and "Intelligent Designer" are interchangable. I appreciate that "Creator" may have picked up some cultural meanings over the years that "Intelligent Designer" has not. When I read "Creationist," I can't help but read "Christian" at the same time and think of the Genesis-based creation story. I still see this as a semantic argument, not an argument over anything meaningful.

    Perhaps the difference is that "Intelligent Design" came about as a direct response to Darwinian evolution while "Creationism" was around prior to the mid-19th century. But, I see this as irrelevant if the both boil down to the same claim. Both assert that our world must have been created/designed and could not have evolved. That, to me, containss the root meaning of both terms.

    I enjoyed watching the Nova on PBS about the Dover, PA court case. This is almost certainly not the same issue about "information" but was enlightening to me about these two terms. It's two hours long for anyone who would like to watch free online at pbs.org. I'm still waiting for the 52 min real audio file from the first post against me to download.

    Can I believe in an intelligent designer without also believing in a Creator? Is there more to this than the semantics?

    ReplyDelete
  20. Mighty Pile said:
    ---
    I understand Creationists to basically believe that humanity (or everything?) exists because a Creator created it.
    ---

    If you're using it in that manner, then all IDers would be creationists (I use a small c to differentiate).

    But then, under that definitional, all Darwinists would be creationists too. (Who's to stipulate that the Creator must be a personal being instead of an impersonal force? Unless you believe in the eternal Earth, there had to be some kind of creation even if it was only via the Big Bang or whatever.)

    In any case, Creationism (with the capital C) is most commonly viewed as God being the Creator. In fact, I can't think of any time Creationism has been used without this concept attached to it in any of the literature. It's only been used that way by people seeking to make a semantic point, but not by anyone in the legal, scientific, of theological community involved in the debate.

    Not all IDers believe in God. As a result, ID is not equivalent to Creationism, even if all IDers end up being creationists (again, small c). Nor do those who believe in God necessarily believe in the same God either. The ID movement is not monolithic.

    Finally, Creationism is also most often linked to Young Earth Creationism (YEC). This isn't always the case, thankfully, so we don't yet have to discard the word as being completely bastardized out of meaning.

    By the way, thanks for the Nova link. I'll look at it after I get home. (I always enjoyed watching Nova as a kid.)

    ReplyDelete
  21. Your point about selection is right on the money. Random variation is meaningless without something to cull out the variations that are unfit.

    The Scrabble example (and the 747 example, and the literature example) require a human (in this case) to "judge" whether one string of characters is better than another. Someone has to choose which tiles to return to the bag to reshake and rethrow onto the table. The same applies to your coin-flip analogy. In order to get 100 head in a row, you would need an absurdly immense amount of time or someone keeping the heads and returning the tails. If we decide before-hand that 100 heads are what we're looking for, we've created the teleology. I think we agree that random chance alone will most probably (but not certainly) make anything very complex. It certainly won't make enough complex things to explain away the world we see today.

    Where I think we diverge, and I'll hesitantly speak for you here, is that I imagine that you would argue an intelligent entity must be there to do the selecting. I would argue that intelligence is still unnecessary to explain that selection.

    We can go on about the evolution of life as thousands of others have, and it's a legitimate discussion to have. I'll try a different approach. If a volcano erupts in Hawaii and emits several different types of rocks to the seashore, the solid, connected lava flow will remain for years if not eons. The volcanic dust will float away in the wind. The lighter-weight rocks will be washed into the sea over time. When we walk that beach, we see the hard black ground and nothing else. Even though it's not alive, and has no DNA, it is more fit for that environment. It is the fittest and it survived. No intelligence decided that to have a rock on the beach required higher mass or density. There was no decision at any level to put the rock down. No guidance is necessary. The hard rock is simply there because it stayed there.

    While life is more complex and has more dynamic selectors than the crashing waves, the concept is the same. Environments select for and against traits in nature. One generation, the selection pressures may be different from the next. But there is no pre-ordained direction. There is no teleology other than existence. In a dry season, small finches outcompete large ones. In a wet season, large finches outcompete small ones. There's no overriding goal, just short-term fluctuations in pressures from one day/year/generation to the next. Again, the only teleology is existence and survival. This isn't because any entity decided that, but simply because if it didn't survive, it's not here to discuss. The precise strategies that lead to survival will be different in every environment.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Perhaps it would be more productive and more on-topic to state the following (from my perspective):

    A) agree) DNA carries information
    B) disagree) Information absolutely does arise from random non-directed processes. Information is ubiquitous and everywhere. We can pull information from nearly anything.
    C) mixed) Darwinism relates to the evolution of existing entities. The origin of those entities is an offshoot of Darwinism and is being explored on Darwinian terms. While I don't believe this, it would be possible to assert that God created some original species and that they've been evolving on Darwinian terms since that point. Many of my religious friends and family hold to that after being convinced of the undeniable fact of micro-evolution. They refute the macro-evolution that would extrapolate micro-evolution back to origins of life itself.
    D) agree) Darwinism cannot (by my understanding) reasonably make an assertion about the origin of DNA. But the Darwinian mindset and tools can absolutely inform the process of discovery relating to that origin. Science, more generally, has tools to get ever closer to an understanding of how the origin of DNA and RNA took place.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Mighty Pile said:
    ---
    Where I think we diverge, and I'll hesitantly speak for you here, is that I imagine that you would argue an intelligent entity must be there to do the selecting. I would argue that intelligence is still unnecessary to explain that selection.
    ---

    I would only diverge there if we want to play semantic games with the word "selection." (After all, the basic meaning of the word requires intelligence; but I am fully aware of the Darwinian nuances.)

    By the way, I should point out that I have no problem with Natural Selection at all. It is true. But it's trivial. That is, N.S. is true even under most Creationist claims. (After all, just going to the ark, most Creationists would argue that there was only one pair of dogs on the ark and that all subsequent breeds of dogs are variations from that base pair.) That there is variety within species is not equivalent to common descent with modification.

    In any case, your example of the waves washing away certain rocks actually dovetails with my point. The action of water on materials of different density can be viewed as a foundational force. Whenever you have any lighter rock, it will wash away before the heavier rock.

    But that isn't the case with Natural Selection. In fact, since you brought up the Burgess Shale, then you may well have read Gould's Wonderful Life. In that book, Gould points out that if we were to "rerun" life's tape, it would be impossible to predict which organisms from the Burgess time would have lived and which would have gone extinct. There is no foundational law saying "X factor is an advantage."

    In fact, so varied are the ways that one can be killed that I would argue it is virtually impossible to say that any one specific factor conveys any advantage on an organism (although one mutation may certainly kill an organism). After all, suppose one antelope can run 30 mph and another can run 31 mph. The second has an advantage of speed; but the cheetah that runs 60 mph can still catch either of them and which one survives may be due more to the location it was at when the cheetah began the hunt than to the relative speeds. While this is a contrived example, I think you'll understand the point.

    As a result, I disagree that environments ever select for or against specific traits. They may select for or against a certain combination of traits, but not for individual traits.

    The reason that this becomes problematic is because scientists tend to be reductionistic, as if an understanding of the foundational forces was equivalent to understanding the organism as a whole. Living systems are too complex to understand in one sitting, so you have to isolate factors. But as soon as you isolate them, you've stripped them of their context.

    One final thing I need to correct is when you said:

    ---
    Information absolutely does arise from random non-directed processes. Information is ubiquitous and everywhere. We can pull information from nearly anything.
    ---

    That we can know things about everything is not equivalent to everything being information. To give a simple example, you can study ink and you can study paper. But your studies of ink and paper will not help you at all to understand what is printed on a page in a book. Nor can the electromagnetic properties of ink and paper help you understand whether a page is language or if someone's pen broke and randomly sprinkled the page.

    A written page is information; random ink stains are not. You can know things about both, but that doesn't make both information.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Peter, Thanks for your clarifications. I have very little to disagree about. I agree with most of what you have discussed. I still have a few points to clarify, however.

    As denser rocks are "selected" by foundational forces, so are traits of living beings. If "selection" implies intelligence, I'll use a different word. Some organisms simply exist because the traits they inherited/mutated resulted in their continued existence and propagation in the context of numerous foundational forces. I think it's clear at this point that we both understand the theories and accept microevolution and the reality of breeding. I think it's reasonable to stretch that out and infer long-term macro-evolution from the same evidence. I think that DNA studies concerning numbers of chromosomes and the banding they exhibit, RFLPs, genetic fingerprinting, etc. support that inference. It is certainly possible that evolution happens within species, but does not cause speciation, but I think that's stretching the word "possible" about as far as anyone would want to. A basic understanding of cell biology (as I'm sure you have by the intelligence of your posts) combined with the evidence linked above, I think is enough to convince a reasonable person that speciation occurs through these well-understood natural (foundational?) forces.

    I think Gould's point (to borrow your well-used word) dovetails with mine about teleology. There is no overriding direction for evolution. If some trait happened to survive, well, there it is. This is not to say that there's no difference between evolving the beginnings of an eye (which has happened independently many times in different ways) and not evolving that beginning. Some traits DO confer an advantage to a particular organism and its progeny. While fit individuals certainly do die sometimes and unfit individuals certainly do live sometimes, the fit organisms would outcompete the unfit ones in large numbers. One antelope's chance vs another antelope's chance may be a 49%-51% split. But in a whole herd, the one that gets eaten will almost always be of the slower variety, or of the sick or injured variety. This is, of course, supposition based on logic. I don't know how I'd prove it right now; it seems obvious in any context I can come up with for it. The difference between fit and unfit would probably be very small most times, setting up a sort of tipping point situation. I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you, right?

    Lastly, we may simply define information differently. Layers of sandstone convey information even though nobody "wrote" them. Random ink splatters convey information about the pen, the ink, the paper, the event that caused the splatters, etc. Ice cores drilled in the arctic contain huge amounts of information about the climactic conditions present during snowfall ages ago. An air sample from the room you're in right now can carry information about whether you're in a city or rural environment. The whole universe is a book; we're just trying to figure out how to read it. I don't think any of it was ever "written," (excepting, of course, obviously written texts) but it is out there. A hundred years ago, who could have imagined the methods we use today to extract information stored in everything around us? Things that were perceived as random in past generations are now giving up secrets about their origins. This information is all due to "foundational causes." This is why I mentioned circularity earlier. If you define "information" as data that was not produced by foundational causes, then you claim to have made your point that information is not produced by foundational causes, It's simply an assertion, not a proof. Are we just defining "information" differently? I do think it's relevant that we can pull information about prehistoric conditions out of the Burgess shale even though nobody consciously put that information there. To me, this is more than a semantic argument, it's core to your point about DNA. As a naturalist, I strive to explain everything possible in natural terms without resorting to supernatural explanations. With that mindset, taken to its logical extreme, everything is foundational by extension. It is my goal to explain everything foundationally. Even human consciousness ought to be traced back to the biochemistry of the brain and the foundational laws of physics. We'll certainly never get there in my lifetime, but that is the philosophy that makes the most sense to me. But I'm open-minded enough to absorb all the evidence I can and change my mind if the evidence merits that change. To me, quantum physics is compelling and challenges things I believe to be obvious. Intelligent Design does not.

    Lastly, thanks for engaging in an intelligent debate. These topics so often devolve into both sides calling each other morons and using condescending language. I appreciate your intelligence, your ability to communicate, and your openness to honest discussion.

    ReplyDelete
  25. A couple of quick notes (I'll be writing more later).

    1) I don't have a problem with microevolution (as it's normally defined). However, microevolution does not imply macroevolution. And indeed I think part of the biggest proof against macroevolution is that when we try to intelligently breed a new species, we cannot do so. (Caveat: of course it depends on who defines what a species is anyway, which is another can of worms.) Microevolution works within the genome that is present; it cannot create new information. If something is not already present somewhere in the gene pool, you will not get it by microevolution. That requires mutations (and these go beyond what one sees in microevolution). As a result, what we've observed does not prove what we hypothesize. At best we can say it is consistent; but as I pointed out, it is also consistent with most Creationists viewpoints too.

    2) If we redefine information the way that you are, where information is apparently facts that someone can draw from the existence of objects, then it is impossible to differentiate between the written page and random inkspots on a piece of paper. The fact that we can tell the difference between random characters and intelligable language shows that there is an objective difference between random objects and what is called information.

    Again, information theory began with trying to differentiate between the message of a radio signal and the noise generated in it. The whole theory is based on being able to differentiate between information and non-information. Sure, we can pull facts from the noise of a radio signal; but if we call the noise "information" and we call the signal sent by a person "information" then the term "information" looses all relevant meaning.

    I do understand why you use the word "information" the way you do. It's the natural, every day use of the term. Normally, we use it subjectively: I gain information about something. But in information theory, it is used objectively. The signal is either information, noise, or a mixture of both (the latter being the most common, which necessitates our being able to filter out the noise).

    To help you with some of the concepts, you can also look at the way that Zip files compress information (without loosing anything) and compare it to the way that mp3 files compress information (from digital sounds) while losing information. An mp3 compression of a sound file will not sound as "realistic" as the original sound file. Information has been lost. On the other hand, zipping a document and then unzipping it yields the same information because nothing is lost in the transfer.

    This is the kind of "information" that I am referring to, not the facts that are pulled from objects.

    Again, I will write more later but hope that clarifies a bit.

    ReplyDelete
  26. And in case I forget later, Mighty Pile said:
    ---
    One antelope's chance vs another antelope's chance may be a 49%-51% split.
    ---

    This falls prey (no pun intended) to The Gambler's Ruin. I'll explain it more indepth later (the Wiki article doesn't go into as much detail as it could), but quickly:

    Suppose that you had 51% chance of winning $1,000,000,000 but a 49% chance of losing everything you own forever. Would you want to take that bet?

    In nature, suppose you only have a 1% advantage over other animals. Is that sufficient to get you to survive while they die? In other words, is 1% a good bet between leaving offspring and dying out completely? Pay in mind the fact that your specific mutational advantage that you randomly got is already a rare occurance. Also keep in mind the fact that in order for your mutation to express itself in the population, those without the mutation must die out. It's an all-or-nothing situation.

    So is 1% really that much of an advantage over the longrun?

    ReplyDelete
  27. I see your point on information. My beef is just that (to me) the word information is already clearly defined to laypeople. I will not tell you to use or not use the word; I'm not that arrogant. As soon as you brought up signal to noise, everything clicked for me. If "information" is used in this way in information theory, I'll acknowledge my ignorance and leave it at that. I, personally and ignorantly, would get much more out of the writing if words like "signal" and "noise" were used. That way, I could still maintain my existing definition of information, which is a pretty commonly used word in the non-information-theory world.

    Thanks for allowing me my two cents worth.

    I see a significant difference in the gambler's ruin from our antelope example. Sticking with the 51/49 numbers I pulled out of my hat, 51 would mean something more like a 1% positive deviation from the mean. And evolutionarily, as a few more "49s" die and a few more "51s" live in each generation, the mean would rise. This is the difference in the gambler's ruin example. The DNA has/is a sort of memory. If each gambler that won the 51% bet had to do it again and again, many would lose. But if each time, half the gamblers formerly at 51 moved up to 52, and then 53, soon you'd have gamblers making pretty good odds. The gambling analogy is quickly breaking down at this point, though. The antelopes are forced to make the bet whether they like it or not. And some will be ill-equipped to bet successfully; some will be well-equipped. The predator (along with the diseases, the injuries, the coloration, etc) will essentially breed the antelopes generation after generation. If we know that, say, 5% of the herd will be eaten each year, it's easier to say that being in the top half, even barely, makes it pretty likely you'll live a long life. Being in the bottom 10% makes it a pretty iffy proposition each and every day.

    I don't know why I've gone on again. I'm just describing micro-evolution again, which we've established already as something on which we agree.

    The gambler's ruin reminds me of a couple of topics that are interesting to me, though. I'll be brief. I'm reminded first of the scam emails where 1024 stock tips are sent out, 512 say stock X will go up, 512 that it will go down. The next week, 512 are sent only to the people who received the correct pick last week. It goes on until six weeks later, there are 32 people who have seen this miracle worker pick the stock correctly for six straight weeks. Of course, the scammer now asks for a large investment based on his proven track record. Even at 50/50, some lucky organism is going to come out a big winner. And the big winner is the only one we'll ever see or hear about. I see the antelope similarly. A small advantage not only has a chance of tipping the scales in his favor in a big way if a small percentage of the herd dies each season, but could also multiply that small advantage over the long haul as the odds are played out again and again. In a balanced ecosystem, the offspring would fill the niche and replace whichever antelope were eaten the previous generation. The population would stay the same size. But culling the slightly weaker, replaced by the slightly stronger would add up in overall herd fitness over time. I do believe that a small difference can be significant.

    The other thing I'm reminded of is the difference between what's best for an individual and what's best for a group. The first time I realized that there was a real difference was while reading about wildlife management in Yellowstone. After decades of mismanagement and ignorance, the managers of the park allowed some natural systems that had been halted to go on again. Wolves (and paid employees) killed unfit elk where they had been previously protected. Obviously, this was not good for the individual elk being killed, but over a few years, the herd was much healthier, on average, and so was the entire ecosystem. Part of this "healthier" result is just the mathematical reality of culling out low numbers from the sample before averaging them, but part of it ensures that limited resources are not being wasted on the unfit. Again, this logic only makes sense when discussing an entire group as a single entity, not as individuals.

    This is not a recommendation or a moral or ethical statement, obviously, but an observation of reality.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Finally, I was watching a Richard Dawkins (OK, boo, hiss) video and he did a much better job of citing actual examples, referencing researchers and authors concerning miniscule selective advantages and their affects. He also discussed the rate of mutations contributing to variation in the gene pool and the affect of sex on allowing for the variation. When you're done with the 2 hour Nova above, ;-) I invite you to watch the 70 minute lecture here, too. And I'll leave it at that. I've asked enough of your time. Thanks for the conversation. I've learned a few things and I hope I've contributed as well.

    I look forward to reading about whether random events can create signal rather than just noise. Also, how that relates to DNA.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Forgive me if this was mentioned in the arguments above.

    Information also requires a frame of reference according to its purpose. Two people speaking to one another can communicate because they have a common frame of reference. This is because the purpose for the information contained in language is communication. The information in DNA is not for the purpose of communication, but rather is meta-morphological. It requires a certain consistency of physical principles in order to carry out its purpose. But that's not all. The means for interpreting the information practically in the physical world is also encoded in the information. Therefore, DNA provides it's own frame of reference. One can argue that a computer does the same because it can function on a stand-alone basis, but it's purpose is to process languages and present information that we can understand it. So the frame of reference was established prior to the construction of a computer. As such, we find this self-referencing in no man-made use of information. Therefore, not only do we find information in DNA, but this information is circularly referenced and functional as such.

    ReplyDelete