Information as the source of life; not by chance (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, January 09, 2020, 00:33 (1576 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: There is nothing backward in the argument that random processes do produce information, information is non-active, random processes do not produce instructions, and instructions can only be produced by intelligent use of information.

In answer, I'd like to restate my view of information and life and the issue of random processes. Life is created by information in a code. That code provides life with a way to decode the information code and use the materials it produces in a coordinated way to actually make life emerge. The information in all the many layers of DNA must therefore contain instructions. All information is inactive until interpreted. That view makes the origin of life a miracle, since all of that must be in place at the same instant of time. Only a mind can form this type of information in DNA. Random processes can be totally inert but are filled with information which can be found/described by an intelligent mind. Agree or not?

DAVID: I agree with you, use of existing information is the source of life, but the information has to be supplied first!

dhw: Thank you for finally agreeing that the first part of the heading of this thread is absurd. And I agree with you too, but the agnostic’s dilemma is not knowing the origin of everything that contains information. Perhaps it is your God, perhaps it is an infinite, eternal, ever changing material universe. I drew attention to your new definition of God as bolded above: “intelligent information […] is my God” and expressed surprise that apparently information has a conscious mind.

DAVID: My God supplied/supplies "intelligent information" my shorthand for intelligently formed information.

dhw: So now you are saying that “intelligently formed information” is your God. More confusion.

The bold above is not your weird interpretation. God SUPPLIES the needed info, no more.

dhw: Evidence for the big bang is irrelevant to the subject of conscious versus unconscious energy.

DAVID: 'Eternal' universes are a series of bangs and then crunches, but each new universe has to start over from scratch to create each new reality! Your use of eternity is very flawed. Of course there is an original 'first cause' at the beginning of the series, which can be deist or theist, or your preference, amorphous energy.

dhw: What beginning? Are you now telling us that your God had a beginning? Of course you’re not. And so once more: If your conscious God had no beginning, then the unconscious, ever changing universe might also have had no beginning, and that = eternity. Where is the flaw?

Eternity only exists for ALL universes, not each one which has a finite beginning and therefore not eternal. Out goes your fervent wish that enough random combinations will produce anything in a single universe. As for God He is eternal first cause.