Trashing natural selection as a special case.

I'd like to expand a little about the idea of Complex Specified Information (CSI). Typically we think of CSI as the information contained in protein-coding DNA. However try not to think of that as a literal sequence of amino acids in the associated protein, but think about it as information about how to build a complicated 3-dimensional molecule with some specific function. This is very much like a sentence - we rarely think of it as a sequence of symbols, but more as what the sentence means. For example:

John's best friend was a cat called fluffy.

If you apply too high a voltage to a resistor, it will burn and be destroyed.

I would like to know what happens after we die.

OK, now we need to think about the discarnate entities that devised the whole process of life. I say discarnate entities, because they obviously had to start work before life appeared, and they had to have the properties of a mind. We really cannot waffle over this point. The mind(s) had to come up with highly intricate devices consisting of many molecular components that all must work nicely together. If you want to see the scale of this, look up the bacterial flagellum and find an expanded view of all the parts. Some entity had to conceive of the thing, tinker around with it in his head, then specify it as a mass of DNA/RNA in order to make the corresponding proteins, etc, etc. I know @sbu Sbu disagrees with my idea that we are dealing with discarnate entities, so I guess it is up to him to come up with some worked out alternative.

Bearing in mind that the cell contains a number of complicated molecular machines that perform the process of converting the DNA/RNA into proteins, other machines that unravel the DNA into single strands, and yet other machines that duplicate the DNA/RNA, maybe the master designer had to hold all this in his mind while he devised a way to implement it.

Some low-level computer languages have compilers that are written in the same language! Without digressing into that, this is entirely doable - so maybe that makes it more plausible that a discarnate mind could devise something vaguely similar.

Note that there is nothing in all of the above that requires God - we just have to recognise that intelligence is at the bottom of the phenomenon of life.

David

I'd like to expand a little about the idea of Complex Specified Information (CSI). Typically we think of CSI as the information contained in protein-coding DNA. However try not to think of that as a literal sequence of amino acids in the associated protein, but think about it as information about how to build a complicated 3-dimensional molecule with some specific function. This is very much like a sentence - we rarely think of it as a sequence of symbols, but more as what the sentence means. For example:

John's best friend was a cat called fluffy.

If you apply too high a voltage to a resistor, it will burn and be destroyed.

I would like to know what happens after we die.

OK, now we need to think about the discarnate entities that devised the whole process of life. I say discarnate entities, because they obviously had to start work before life appeared, and they had to have the properties of a mind. We really cannot waffle over this point. The mind(s) had to come up with highly intricate devices consisting of many molecular components that all must work nicely together. If you want to see the scale of this, look up the bacterial flagellum and find an expanded view of all the parts. Some entity had to conceive of the thing, tinker around with it in his head, then specify it as a mass of DNA/RNA in order to make the corresponding proteins, etc, etc. I know @sbu Sbu disagrees with my idea that we are dealing with discarnate entities, so I guess it is up to him to come up with some worked out alternative.

Bearing in mind that the cell contains a number of complicated molecular machines that perform the process of converting the DNA/RNA into proteins, other machines that unravel the DNA into single strands, and yet other machines that duplicate the DNA/RNA,  maybe the master designer had to hold all this in his mind while he devised a way to implement it.

Some low-level computer languages have compilers that are written in the same language! Without digressing into that, this is entirely doable - so maybe that makes it more plausible that a discarnate mind could devise something vaguely similar.

Note that there is nothing in all of the above that requires God - we just have to recognise that intelligence is at the bottom of the phenomenon of life.

David

I agree completely. Well put - you spell it out clearly just what all the evidence shows, as indigestable as it is to materialist Darwinists. I think some scenario like this is incontrovertible. And no waffling around with some sort of "third way" compromise retaining some version of RM + NS Darwinism.

OK, now we need to think about the discarnate entities that devised the whole process of life. I say discarnate entities, because they obviously had to start work before life appeared, and they had to have the properties of a mind. We really cannot waffle over this point. The mind(s) had to come up with highly intricate devices consisting of many molecular components that all must work nicely together.

You and @nbtruthman  are far too certain of your own opinions.  Explain to me exactly how these entities came about.  May I suggest exercising some healthy agnosticism instead of writing as though those of us who disagree with you must be stupid.

I agree completely. Well put - you spell it out clearly just what all the evidence shows, as indigestable as it is to materialist Darwinists. I think some scenario like this is incontrovertible. And no waffling around with some sort of "third way" compromise retaining some version of RM + NS Darwinism.

Anybody who disagrees with you is waffling?  You speculate on "discarnate entities," something that nobody has any proof of and then you claim that everybody who disagrees with you is waffling?  The onus is on you to show us a discarnate entity so that we can start to take your presumptions seriously.  By all means speculate; discussion and debate are what the forum is about, but please stop implying that there is no opinion other than yours that is intelligent and workable.  Doing so is utterly arrogant!

Anybody who disagrees with you is waffling?  You speculate on "discarnate entities," something that nobody has any proof of and then you claim that everybody who disagrees with you is waffling?  The onus is on you to show us a discarnate entity so that we can start to take your presumptions seriously.  By all means speculate; discussion and debate are what the forum is about, but please stop implying that there is no opinion other than yours that is intelligent and workable.  Doing so is utterly arrogant!

I would just like to ask you to establish your credibility by furnishing some sort of plausible alternative to the conclusion by a process of elimination that the origin of the large amounts of functional complex specified information (fsci) embodied in living organisms must be design by some sort of discarnate intelligence. Examples of this sort of information abound and would include the machine like structure of cellular organelles like the bacterial flagellum. Remember that this sort of highly complicated machine like organization is irreducibly complex and simply can't be achieved by some form of undirected slow accumulation of random minute changes each of which has to be either advantageous or neutral. Especially considering that the vast majority of random changes will inevitably be damaging to survivability.

The existence of very large amounts of meaningful, functional organisation manifesting specified complexity and associated information is what has to be explained at the root of the tree of life. Undirected chance and/or necessity are not credible causal factors for such. So what else than discarnate intelligence of some form do you claim is responsible?

Anybody who disagrees with you is waffling?  You speculate on "discarnate entities," something that nobody has any proof of and then you claim that everybody who disagrees with you is waffling?  The onus is on you to show us a discarnate entity so that we can start to take your presumptions seriously.  By all means speculate; discussion and debate are what the forum is about, but please stop implying that there is no opinion other than yours that is intelligent and workable.  Doing so is utterly arrogant!

The fundamental problem here is something that the Discovery Institute has been hammering on for years about. Life is based on a very, very elaborate chemical machine - even in single-celled organisms. If anything as complex as this had been found on the moon, it would have been recognised as something made by an intelligent entity. However, much of this was designed before there was life on Earth. I used the term 'waffle' because I think one way to deal with a logical clash like this is to somehow blur the issue.

I think the DI has a proof that the mechanisms that form the basis for life required a designer (the only problem is that the DI attribute that to Yaweh). Don't forget that before there was life you can't even appeal to RM+NS - the incredible mechanism that comprises life can't be explained by chance. There is of course the possibility that some alien race visited Earth and seeded the planet, although even that seems uncertain to me.Another problem with that idea, is that it seems to push the problem back a few more billion years - yho designed the designers? Why don't you come up with a serious alternative, and we can discuss it.

David

The fundamental problem here is something that the Discovery Institute has been hammering on for years about. Life is based on a very, very elaborate chemical machine - even in single-celled organisms. If anything as complex as this had been found on the moon, it would have been recognised as something made by an intelligent entity. However, much of this was designed before there was life on Earth. I used the term 'waffle' because I think one way to deal with a logical clash like this is to somehow blur the issue.

I think the DI has a proof that the mechanisms that form the basis for life required a designer (the only problem is that the DI attribute that to Yaweh). Don't forget that before there was life you can't even appeal to RM+NS - the incredible mechanism that comprises life can't be explained by chance. There is of course the possibility that some alien race visited Earth and seeded the planet, although even that seems uncertain to me.Another problem with that idea, is that it seems to push the problem back a few more billion years - yho designed the designers? Why don't you come up with a serious alternative, and we can discuss it.

David

You know that I completely disagree with the notion of 'proof' when using this argument. A proof is a logical argument that demonstrates that a proposition is true, based entirely on other true propositions and rules of inference.

But for clarification could you maybe explain if the proposed designer designed the universe or only the life in it?

Not suggested at all in the article - and just my personal claim - is the assertion that information science functionality is in a separate environment from physicality.  Information science actions do not exert force.  Physical events are not subject to individual importance. 

Curious - did you mean that Information Science doesn't exert "force" as used in physics, or that these Information...objects? entities?....have no causal power?

Curious - did you mean that Information Science doesn't exert "force" as used in physics, or that these Information...objects? entities?....have no causal power?

I do have my own ideas, but this model for thought was espoused by A. N. Whitehead in 1937-38 in Modes of Thought.

The qualities entertained as objects in conceptual activity are of the nature of catalytic agents, in the sense in which the phrase is used in chemistry.  They modify the aesthetic process by which the occasion constitutes itself out of the many streams of feeling received from the past.  It is not necessary to assume that conceptions introduce additional sources of measurable energy.  They may do so; for the doctrine of the conservation of energy is not based on exhaustive measurements.  But the operation of mentality is primarily to be conceived as a diversion of the flow of energy. 

I do dismiss that information coalescing from a wave state to a fixed manifest state (decoherence) has measurable energy.  However, intention and function are imbedded in physicality with a change of state.  I would add that besides the past - there may well be influence from the future.  Information at the time of decoherence does shape the state of an object or event, informing the meaning or function with probabilistic vectors that interconnect with the past and future.  When Whitehead says diversion of energy - my take is he is speaking to informational structures that are thermodynamic in nature.

The state of a physical object (or a informational object) in its interconnected environment are surely casual.  Power is a fixed physical calculation, so the phrase casual power is problematic.  Causality from information effecting states of affairs is surely well understood.
  

aesthetic process -- The processing of form and composition.

I'd like to expand a little about the idea of Complex Specified Information (CSI). Typically we think of CSI as the information contained in protein-coding DNA. However try not to think of that as a literal sequence of amino acids in the associated protein, but think about it as information about how to build a complicated 3-dimensional molecule with some specific function. This is very much like a sentence - we rarely think of it as a sequence of symbols, but more as what the sentence means. 

OK, now we need to think about the discarnate entities that devised the whole process of life. I say discarnate entities, because they obviously had to start work before life appeared, and they had to have the properties of a mind. 
David

From the article cited in the first post.

 The authors’ “Law of Increasing Functional Information” states that the system will evolve “if many different configurations of the system undergo selection for one or more functions.”

CSI as used by Dembski and Behe implies functionality.  Information Theory is about coded messages.  It works by purposefully ignoring meaning in or of the message.  Functional information is thermodynamic and puts the meaning back into the object.  Your first paragraph expresses this well.

I am not offended in the least by a claim of discarnate entities.  They may have no material grounding, but have an inner organization that can process information.  My background would see this inner organization evolve as mental capabilities and resulting in personal character.  Darwin believed in this as mental evolution in humans and animals.  They may be strong reasons to assume that this evolution continues as spiritual evolution.