https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-01-scientists-key-function-molecule-cells.html

"Now, UNC School of Medicine scientists led by Jenny Ting, Ph.D., the William Kenan Distinguished Professor of Genetics, and Yisong Wan, Ph.D., professor of microbiology and immunology, discovered that AIM2 is important for the proper function of regulatory T cells, or Treg cells, and plays a key role in mitigating autoimmune disease. Treg cells are a seminal population of adaptive immune cells that prevents an overzealous immune response, such as those that occurs in autoimmune diseases.

"Published in Nature, the research shows that AIM2 is actually expressed at a much higher level in Treg cells of the adaptive immune system than in innate immune cells.

***

"Normal immune responses are carried out by both innate immunity and adaptive immunity to fight pathogens and maintain biological stability. But these responses need to be regulated so they do not escalate and cause a whole host of different health problems aside from what the pathogen originally caused. Distinct cell types and molecules play discrete roles in the down-regulation of innate immunity and adaptive immunity. This work shows that AIM2, in Treg cells, is one of them. Treg cells dampen over-exuberant immune responses, and so they are critical for the check-and-balance of the immunity system.

"Impaired function of Treg cells often perturbs immune system stability and can trigger autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

"In lab experiments led by first author Wei-Chun Chou, Ph.D., research associate in the Ting Lab, the UNC scientists found that AIM2 was expressed at a much higher level in Treg cells than in innate immune cells, in both mice and humans.

"'This suggests a big role for AIM2 in Treg cells," Chou said. "We found that AIM2 is important to maintain the normal function of Treg cells, which could not effectively protect mice from developing autoimmune encephalomyelitis and inflammatory colitis without AIM2."

***

"'We conducted further molecular and biochemical analysis to reveal a new, cellular signaling pathway of protein molecules in Treg cells—called the AIM2-RACK1-PP2A-AKT pathway—which regulates the metabolism and function of Treg cells to mitigate autoimmune disease.'"

Comment: All processes in living biology have tight controls, many feedback loops. Only design can do this.

Information as the source of life’s creativity
Egnor: Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, defined living things as things that strive for their own perfection. That was what distinguished living things from non-living things. A rock doesn’t wake up in the morning and try to be a better rock. Whereas living things, to greater or lesser degrees of success, try to make themselves better at what they do. They eat, they rest, they interact with nature. They do things to make themselves even better examples of what they are. And it would seem, to me, that that might relate to the difference between information in non-living and in living things. The information in living things is directed to ends; it’s directed to purposes that you don’t see in non-living things in the same way.
"Robert J. Marks: In other words, the entity has to have creativity.

dhw: In my view, the heading is totally misleading. Information does not create anything. It takes intelligence to extrapolate it from whatever exists, and then to use it creatively. But with one tiny change, I can only applaud Aquinas, which is why I’ve left the quote in full. “Try to make themselves better at what they do” leaves out what most of them do: namely, to survive. There we have evolution in a nutshell: life forms try to survive, and their creative interaction with an ever changing nature is what either demands or allows for their “improvements”. The exception is humans, who have continued the quest for survival, but have also branched out into other forms of improvement (knowledge, art, comfort etc.) which makes them unique. And Marks’ comment is spot on: information is not the “source” of creativity! There is information present in all things, but only living things (intelligent entities) can USE it creatively. Intelligence is therefore the source of life's creativity.

You are correct. The intelligent use of information describes how life works, but it is secondary. It must use the available information it has been given in the genome codes. Without both parts, no life.

Xxx
Information theory proves design

QUOTE: Additionally, I found Dembski’s key indicator of intelligent design, “complex specified information (CSI)”, to be a more refined form of the information theory concept of “mutual information,” with the additional constraint that the random variable for specification is independent of the described event. This additional constraint results in the second keystone of intelligent design theory: the conservation of information.

dhw: Maybe I'm too simplistic in my thinking, but for the life of me I can't see the attractions of “information” as the answer to so many of our problems. In my perhaps jaundiced view, it is a great way of creating loads of waffle to cloak the simplest of arguments: in this case, the sheer complexity of life “proves” design. But of course what it doesn’t prove – and many ID-ers scrupulously avoid such a conclusion – is that the design was created by an unknown, sourceless, eternal being which some people call God. That is a different puzzle. I really can’t understand why people can’t accept the logic of the design argument, but I totally understand why they are reluctant to solve the mystery of how the design came about by creating another mystery of such gigantic proportions. I see no point in even mentioning the term "information".

That is why you remain agnostic. Doesn't design require a designer? A designing mind? One must exist.

In my view, the heading is totally misleading. Information does not create anything. It takes intelligence to extrapolate it from whatever exists, and then to use it creatively. But with one tiny change, I can only applaud Aquinas, which is why I’ve left the quote in full. “Try to make themselves better at what they do” leaves out what most of them do: namely, to survive. There we have evolution in a nutshell: life forms try to survive, and their creative interaction with an ever changing nature is what either demands or allows for their “improvements”. The exception is humans, who have continued the quest for survival, but have also branched out into other forms of improvement (knowledge, art, comfort etc.) which makes them unique. And Marks’ comment is spot on: information is not the “source” of creativity! There is information present in all things, but only living things (intelligent entities) can USE it creatively. Intelligence is therefore the source of life's creativity.

Xxx
Information theory proves design

QUOTE: Additionally, I found Dembski’s key indicator of intelligent design, “complex specified information (CSI)”, to be a more refined form of the information theory concept of “mutual information,” with the additional constraint that the random variable for specification is independent of the described event. This additional constraint results in the second keystone of intelligent design theory: the conservation of information.

Maybe I'm too simplistic in my thinking, but for the life of me I can't see the attractions of “information” as the answer to so many of our problems. In my perhaps jaundiced view, it is a great way of creating loads of waffle to cloak the simplest of arguments: in this case, the sheer complexity of life “proves” design. But of course what it doesn’t prove – and many ID-ers scrupulously avoid such a conclusion – is that the design was created by an unknown, sourceless, eternal being which some people call God. That is a different puzzle. I really can’t understand why people can’t accept the logic of the design argument, but I totally understand why they are reluctant to solve the mystery of how the design came about by creating another mystery of such gigantic proportions. I see no point in even mentioning the term "information".

https://mindmatters.ai/2020/12/information-is-the-currency-of-life-but-what-is-it/

"Egnor: What about information as meaning?

Robert J. Marks: The three models of information that I have just shared with you don’t really measure meaning. The fourth model is specified complexity. The purpose of specified complexity, and specifically the mathematics of algorithmic specified complexity, is to measure the meaning in the bits of an object…

"Note: Specified complexity: “A long sequence of random letters is complex without being specified [it is hard to duplicate but it also doesn’t mean anything]. A short sequence of letters like “the,” “so,” or “a” is specified without being complex. [It means something but what it means is not very significant by itself]. A Shakespearean sonnet is both complex and specified.” [It is both complex and hard to duplicate and it means a lot in a few words]

"Egnor: How does biological information differ from information in non-living things?

"Robert J. Marks: We can talk about creativity. Creativity is the creation of information. And that is outside of naturalistic or information processes.

"Egnor: Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, defined living things as things that strive for their own perfection. That was what distinguished living things from non-living things. A rock doesn’t wake up in the morning and try to be a better rock. Whereas living things, to greater or lesser degrees of success, try to make themselves better at what they do. They eat, they rest, they interact with nature. They do things to make themselves even better examples of what they are. And it would seem, to me, that that might relate to the difference between information in non-living and in living things. The information in living things is directed to ends; it’s directed to purposes that you don’t see in non-living things in the same way.

"Robert J. Marks: In other words, the entity has to have creativity.

Comment: taken from a podcast. Specified complexity is how ID folks identify design.

I’ve edited the quotes and our responses, since you had only one comment to make.

QUOTE: I, for one, find a universe that naturally gives rise to purposive and creative organisms more plausible, and more reassuring, than one that is completely purposeless.

dhw: Ambiguous. What does he mean by “naturally”? The organisms (not just humans) are purposive and creative. It’s only if you think there is a God who designed them that you can talk of “teleology”, i.e. a purpose behind the existence of purposive, creative organisms. […]

dhw: it requires just as great a leap of faith to believe in a sourceless supreme intelligence that simply exists and designs as the leap of faith that the source of our existence and intelligence is “blind chance”.

DAVID: Blind chance cannot design the intricacies of living organisms. Logic dictates a designer!!!

dhw: An excellent argument for design, which explains your own leap of faith. But this whole article deals with teleology

DAVID: Your same blinkered view. There is no logical way around the existence of a designer.

dhw: [...] in your two brilliant books, you have made the strongest possible case for design. But this article faffs around with the subject of PURPOSE, and in my view is so muddled that it defeats its OWN purpose!

DAVID: The organisms produced by evolution seem to operate at all times from purpose and with purpose. The final issue for both of us is whether God operated with the same purpose to produce humans by evolving them. And I continuously describe a purposeful God.

dhw: Yes, the organisms clearly have the purpose of surviving and reproducing, the former purpose sometimes involving adaptation and innovation. The final issue in the context of this article has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of God’s purpose being to create humans, since it doesn’t even mention God! The article is an attempt to show that the purposeful actions of animals and humans must mean there is an overall purpose, and for me this is a complete non sequitur. If chance was the origin of life, animals and humans will still have their purposes, but there can be no universal purpose. A universal purpose would mean there is a God. You and I have been discussing what that God’s purpose might be, if he exists, and of course he would have had a purpose in designing life. But that brings us back to your theory of evolution, which you admit you cannot understand (you don’t know why he would have chosen to design millions of extinct non-human life forms when all he wanted was one life form plus its food supply), and to my own alternatives, all of which you admit are logical.

Your summary is quite thorough and correct with the exception of the bold. In my acceptance of God, there is no requirement to understand His reasons for His actions. I do not try to understand what His reasons might be. I just see what He did and accept it. You sit on the outside of 'acceptance' and seem to demand logic for all His actions. My simple logic is at a level you refuse to accept. My view is God chose to evolve all of the bush of life on the way to a goal of human, an exact parallel to history. From Thursday's comment you did not answer:

DAVID: If God chose to evolve us of course He desired to create all the necessary stages as a part of the process. Answer one is your unreasonable version of my theory. We were His purposeful eventual outcome. […] It is patently obvious God wanted to create us.

dhw: But you have him specifically designing ALL species, so it must be patently obvious that he wanted to create ALL species throughout the last 3.8 billion years. Which can only mean that we weren’t the one and only species he wanted to create! Or can you tell us in what way the dodo and the dinosaur plus millions of other dead life forms were “necessary stages” before he could start designing us.

David: Your thinking finally understands my theory. Of course He wanted all of the evolutionary stages on the way to humans, which are His final goal. The lack of understanding all these years shows your basic bias from the beginning. Your statement that He only wanted humans was your rigid misinterpretation of my thoughts all along.

Do you understand my approach or not?

QUOTE: I, for one, find a universe that naturally gives rise to purposive and creative organisms more plausible, and more reassuring, than one that is completely purposeless.

dhw: Ambiguous. What does he mean by “naturally”? The organisms (not just humans) are purposive and creative. It’s only if you think there is a God who designed them that you can talk of “teleology”, i.e. a purpose behind the existence of purposive, creative organisms. […]

dhw: it requires just as great a leap of faith to believe in a sourceless supreme intelligence that simply exists and designs as the leap of faith that the source of our existence and intelligence is “blind chance”.

DAVID: Blind chance cannot design the intricacies of living organisms. Logic dictates a designer!!!

dhw: An excellent argument for design, which explains your own leap of faith. But this whole article deals with teleology

DAVID: Your same blinkered view. There is no logical way around the existence of a designer.

dhw: [...] in your two brilliant books, you have made the strongest possible case for design. But this article faffs around with the subject of PURPOSE, and in my view is so muddled that it defeats its OWN purpose!

DAVID: The organisms produced by evolution seem to operate at all times from purpose and with purpose. The final issue for both of us is whether God operated with the same purpose to produce humans by evolving them. And I continuously describe a purposeful God.

Yes, the organisms clearly have the purpose of surviving and reproducing, the former purpose sometimes involving adaptation and innovation. The final issue in the context of this article has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of God’s purpose being to create humans, since it doesn’t even mention God! The article is an attempt to show that the purposeful actions of animals and humans must mean there is an overall purpose, and for me this is a complete non sequitur. If chance was the origin of life, animals and humans will still have their purposes, but there can be no universal purpose. A universal purpose would mean there is a God. You and I have been discussing what that God’s purpose might be, if he exists, and of course he would have had a purpose in designing life. But that brings us back to your theory of evolution, which you admit you cannot understand (you don’t know why he would have chosen to design millions of extinct non-human life forms when all he wanted was one life form plus its food supply), and to my own alternatives, all of which you admit are logical.

QUOTE: This process must be high-level. The immune system as a whole must work out what will meet the new challenge. That cannot be done at the molecular level. The demons do not themselves know what they are doing.

dhw: The molecular system sometimes fails to obey the instructions of the decision-making compartment of the cell/cell community.

DAVID: The bold is strongly suggestive of automaticity in following instructional information.

dhw: That is what I have just said. And I propose that the instructions come from the decision-making compartment of the cell/cell community.

QUOTE: I, for one, find a universe that naturally gives rise to purposive and creative organisms more plausible, and more reassuring, than one that is completely purposeless.

dhw: Ambiguous. What does he mean by “naturally”? The organisms (not just humans) are purposive and creative. It’s only if you think there is a God who designed them that you can talk of “teleology”, i.e. a purpose behind the existence of purposive, creative organisms. What does reassurance have to do with it?

DAVID: He always sneaks up toward God.

dhw: I guessed that. Seeking reassurance is no basis for a theory. Hence all this muddled thinking about purpose.

dhw: And we have devised countless purposes for ourselves, independently of the purpose of our genes and molecules (which enable us to live and reproduce until we die). But it requires just as great a leap of faith to believe in a sourceless supreme intelligence that simply exists and designs as the leap of faith that the source of our existence and intelligence is “blind chance”.

DAVID: Blind chance cannot design the intricacies of living organisms. Logic dictates a designer!!!

dhw: An excellent argument for design, which explains your own leap of faith. But this whole article deals with teleology – and the quote below sums up its lack of coherence.

QUOTE: We would then also have to live with an incoherent view of ourselves. We cannot, at one and the same time, deny that we have purpose and also write an article like this one […] Articles and books are necessarily written by purposive agents, not by random typewriting machines.

dhw: We make our own purposes! The author’s purpose was to write an article proclaiming that we have purpose. That does not mean that there is a universal purpose for his existence!

DAVID: Your same blinkered view. There is no logical way around the existence of a designer. And you have honestly admitted the evidence for design will not allow you to be an atheist. That same evidence has made me a theist. There is no other issue but design from which to make as decision!!! Things are obviously designed or they are not. That is why Talbott and Davies tiptoe in their commentaries. Both as obviously agnostic. You are keeping good company. I appreciate how you worked producing such clear commentary of a very important entry.

dhw: Thank you for your appreciation. I return it: on this forum and in your two brilliant books, you have made the strongest possible case for design. But this article faffs around with the subject of PURPOSE, and in my view is so muddled that it defeats its OWN purpose! I have tried to explain why, and your last comment suggests that you agree.

The organisms produced by evolution seem to operate at all times from purpose and with purpose. The final issue for both of us is whether God operated with the same purpose to produce humans by evolving them. And I continuously describe a purposeful God.

dhw: The molecular system sometimes fails to obey the instructions of the decision-making compartment of the cell/cell community.

DAVID: The bold is strongly suggestive of automaticity in following instructional information.

That is what I have just said. And I propose that the instructions come from the decision-making compartment of the cell/cell community.

QUOTE: I, for one, find a universe that naturally gives rise to purposive and creative organisms more plausible, and more reassuring, than one that is completely purposeless.

dhw: Ambiguous. What does he mean by “naturally”? The organisms (not just humans) are purposive and creative. It’s only if you think there is a God who designed them that you can talk of “teleology”, i.e. a purpose behind the existence of purposive, creative organisms. What does reassurance have to do with it?

DAVID: He always sneaks up toward God.

I guessed that. Seeking reassurance is no basis for a theory. Hence all this muddled thinking about purpose.

dhw: And we have devised countless purposes for ourselves, independently of the purpose of our genes and molecules (which enable us to live and reproduce until we die). But it requires just as great a leap of faith to believe in a sourceless supreme intelligence that simply exists and designs as the leap of faith that the source of our existence and intelligence is “blind chance”.

DAVID: Blind chance cannot design the intricacies of living organisms. Logic dictates a designer!!!

An excellent argument for design, which explains your own leap of faith. But this whole article deals with teleology – and the quote below sums up its lack of coherence.

QUOTE: We would then also have to live with an incoherent view of ourselves. We cannot, at one and the same time, deny that we have purpose and also write an article like this one […] Articles and books are necessarily written by purposive agents, not by random typewriting machines.

dhw: We make our own purposes! The author’s purpose was to write an article proclaiming that we have purpose. That does not mean that there is a universal purpose for his existence!

DAVID: Your same blinkered view. There is no logical way around the existence of a designer. And you have honestly admitted the evidence for design will not allow you to be an atheist. That same evidence has made me a theist. There is no other issue but design from which to make as decision!!! Things are obviously designed or they are not. That is why Talbott and Davies tiptoe in their commentaries. Both as obviously agnostic. You are keeping good company. I appreciate how you worked producing such clear commentary of a very important entry.

Thank you for your appreciation. I return it: on this forum and in your two brilliant books, you have made the strongest possible case for design. But this article faffs around with the subject of PURPOSE, and in my view is so muddled that it defeats its OWN purpose! I have tried to explain why, and your last comment suggests that you agree.

dhw: This paragraph contains many of the issues I’d like to comment on: 1) The influence of the “environment challenge” on evolution; 2) it is the organism (i.e. the community of cell communities) itself that decides how to respond; 3) the purpose of all this cellular activity is to enable organisms to live, reproduce, evolve into different species. The word “teleology” is used ambiguously here. No neo-Darwinist would deny that the cells themselves act purposefully. The question is how the cells themselves originated. The “arguments” may suggest or even imply that life and evolution are the products of a designer, in which case he/she/it must have had a purpose (e.g. enjoyment of the unfolding spectacle of evolution). Alternatively, the origin of the cells is an “unlikely occurrence” (chance), in which case the cells themselves still have their purpose, but there is no overall purpose in the universe.

QUOTE: Organisms steer their own evolutionary course, a process made possible by Davies’s molecular demons. As he makes clear, this is not a sufficient explanation. What enables organisms to control their genes and other molecular mechanisms? Not the demons themselves. […] A gap needs to be filled to connect high-level decisions with low-level molecular machinery.

dhw: This paragraph can be interpreted as support for the theory that the high level decisions are taken by the intelligent cell/cell communities themselves, and the molecular mechanisms carry out the decisions. But….
QUOTE: The modern synthesis gives too small a role to chance at the molecular level.

QUOTE: This process must be high-level. The immune system as a whole must work out what will meet the new challenge. That cannot be done at the molecular level. The demons do not themselves know what they are doing.

dhw: The molecular system sometimes fails to obey the instructions of the decision-making compartment of the cell/cell community. These are what David calls the “errors”. I myself do not believe these chance errors by non-intelligent molecules are responsible for evolution in the sense of speciation, though they are responsible for certain diseases. I would opt for the intelligent responses of cell communities to the demands and opportunities arising from “environmental challenges”, as in the first quote. Not just the immune system - the WHOLE system!

The bold is strongly suggestive of automaticity in following instructional information.

QUOTE: My view is consistent with Davies’s exposition of molecular demons and what they do in the human body—and with the conclusion that organisms are purposive.

dhw: I agree.

I agree also.

QUOTE: I, for one, find a universe that naturally gives rise to purposive and creative organisms more plausible, and more reassuring, than one that is completely purposeless.

dhw: Ambiguous. What does he mean by “naturally”? The organisms (not just humans) are purposive and creative. It’s only if you think there is a God who designed them that you can talk of “teleology”, i.e. a purpose behind the existence of purposive, creative organisms. What does reassurance have to do with it?

He always sneaks up toward God.

dhw: Suddenly we jump from organisms in general to humans. But yes, of course, our arrival is highly significant - to us! And we have devised countless purposes for ourselves, independently of the purpose of our genes and molecules (which enable us to live and reproduce until we die). But it requires just as great a leap of faith to believe in a sourceless supreme intelligence that simply exists and designs as the leap of faith that the source of our existence and intelligence is “blind chance”.

Blind chance cannot design the intricacies of living organisms. Logic dictates a designer!!!

QUOTE: We would then also have to live with an incoherent view of ourselves. We cannot, at one and the same time, deny that we have purpose and also write an article like this one […] Articles and books are necessarily written by purposive agents, not by random typewriting machines.

dhw: We make our own purposes! The author’s purpose was to write an article proclaiming that we have purpose. That does not mean that there is a universal purpose for his existence!

Your same blinkered view. There is no logical way around the existence of a designer. And you have honestly admitted the evidence for design will not allow you to be an atheist. That same evidence has made me a theist. There is no other issue but design from which to make as decision!!! Things are obviously designed or they are not. That is why Talbott and Davies tiptoe in their commentaries. Both as obviously agnostic. You are keeping good company. I appreciate how you worked producing such clear commentary of a very important entry.

This paragraph contains many of the issues I’d like to comment on: 1) The influence of the “environment challenge” on evolution; 2) it is the organism (i.e. the community of cell communities) itself that decides how to respond; 3) the purpose of all this cellular activity is to enable organisms to live, reproduce, evolve into different species. The word “teleology” is used ambiguously here. No neo-Darwinist would deny that the cells themselves act purposefully. The question is how the cells themselves originated. The “arguments” may suggest or even imply that life and evolution are the products of a designer, in which case he/she/it must have had a purpose (e.g. enjoyment of the unfolding spectacle of evolution). Alternatively, the origin of the cells is an “unlikely occurrence” (chance), in which case the cells themselves still have their purpose, but there is no overall purpose in the universe.

QUOTE: Organisms steer their own evolutionary course, a process made possible by Davies’s molecular demons. As he makes clear, this is not a sufficient explanation. What enables organisms to control their genes and other molecular mechanisms? Not the demons themselves. […] A gap needs to be filled to connect high-level decisions with low-level molecular machinery.

This paragraph can be interpreted as support for the theory that the high level decisions are taken by the intelligent cell/cell communities themselves, and the molecular mechanisms carry out the decisions. But….
QUOTE: The modern synthesis gives too small a role to chance at the molecular level.

QUOTE: This process must be high-level. The immune system as a whole must work out what will meet the new challenge. That cannot be done at the molecular level. The demons do not themselves know what they are doing.

The molecular system sometimes fails to obey the instructions of the decision-making compartment of the cell/cell community. These are what David calls the “errors”. I myself do not believe these chance errors by non-intelligent molecules are responsible for evolution in the sense of speciation, though they are responsible for certain diseases. I would opt for the intelligent responses of cell communities to the demands and opportunities arising from “environmental challenges”, as in the first quote. Not just the immune system - the WHOLE system!

QUOTE: My view is consistent with Davies’s exposition of molecular demons and what they do in the human body—and with the conclusion that organisms are purposive.

I agree.

QUOTE: I, for one, find a universe that naturally gives rise to purposive and creative organisms more plausible, and more reassuring, than one that is completely purposeless.

Ambiguous. What does he mean by “naturally”? The organisms (not just humans) are purposive and creative. It’s only if you think there is a God who designed them that you can talk of “teleology”, i.e. a purpose behind the existence of purposive, creative organisms. What does reassurance have to do with it?

QUOTE: The view that the universe is ruled by just blind chance, flies in the face of all that we experience as sentient, creative, and intentional beings. To believe this, we have to swallow the view that evolution, in creating the human nervous system, endowed it with an extraordinarily powerful illusion that forces us to act as though we have purpose, while really we only reflect the blind determination of our genes and other molecules. (David’s bold)

DAVID: The bold is exactly my point. Our arrival is highly significant.[…] Information must be used but how so is still hidden from us. Where did all that definitive and necessary information come from? Smells of God for me but they carefully try to stay away.

Suddenly we jump from organisms in general to humans. But yes, of course, our arrival is highly significant - to us! And we have devised countless purposes for ourselves, independently of the purpose of our genes and molecules (which enable us to live and reproduce until we die). But it requires just as great a leap of faith to believe in a sourceless supreme intelligence that simply exists and designs as the leap of faith that the source of our existence and intelligence is “blind chance”.

QUOTE: We would then also have to live with an incoherent view of ourselves. We cannot, at one and the same time, deny that we have purpose and also write an article like this one […] Articles and books are necessarily written by purposive agents, not by random typewriting machines.

We make our own purposes! The author’s purpose was to write an article proclaiming that we have purpose. That does not mean that there is a universal purpose for his existence!

https://inference-review.com/article/evolution-in-revolution

"If the connection between What Is Life? and the central dogma is direct because it is historical, the central dogma is now known to be incorrect. Much of the evidence in favor of the demotion of the central dogma is brilliantly expounded by Paul Davies in The Demon in the Machine. Schrödinger brought crystallography to bear on the puzzles of stability and heredity; Davies brings information theory to bear on the same puzzles. In doing so, he joins the distinguished company of physical scientists who have contributed to fundamental biology.

***

"In discussing cell division, he points out that the genome is entirely passive. It is the cell that does the dividing. DNA is as much acted upon as acting. If so, the conventional framework of biological theory is misleading. “What is still a mystery,” Davies writes,
is the biological equivalent of the supervisory unit that determines when instructions need to switch to become passive data. There is no obvious component in a cell, no special organelle that serves as “the strategic planner” to tell the cell how to regard DNA (as software or hardware) moment by moment. The decision to replicate … is not localized in one place.

"The book’s frequent references to top-down causation are welcome. In 2011, George Ellis organized an important meeting that brought this topic to the fore. At the meeting, I argued that there is no privileged level of causation in biology. This has been clearly shown in the mathematical modeling of biological networks. I have been arguing for this principle ever since. Davies, it is satisfactory to recount, expresses the same idea, but by a different metaphor.

***

"Maxwell’s demon appeared to reverse the laws of thermodynamics.

"Davies shows that organisms have such molecular demons working away throughout the body. They can do this, of course, because they are open systems, continually exchanging matter and energy with their environment. Any energy used by the molecular demons comes from the environment with which living systems are in communion. Darwin saw this very clearly as well. “In my opinion,” he wrote in 1876, “the greatest error which I have committed, has not been allowing sufficient weight to the direct action of the environment, i.e. food, climate, etc., independently of natural selection.”

***

"Cells can detect serious danger and effectively change the arrangement or composition of their DNA. These processes are in some way guided because without such guidance, they could not produce the desired result.

"A word is needed for this. Fortunately, one is on hand, which has been in use since the time of Aristotle. It is teleology. The process is rather like shuffling a pack of cards. By chance, many different new arrangements will occur. The operative unit—whether a multicellular organism or a single-cell organism—then selects the arrangement best suited to cope with the environmental challenge...These arguments serve to weaken the common neo-Darwinian assumption that evolution is completely blind, and they suggest, if they do not imply, that life is not simply an unlikely occurrence in a universe without purpose.

***

"The actual error rate when DNA is being copied is around 1 in 104 bases—a figure a million times higher than previously assumed. Davies describes a process in which proofreading demons come in to diligently compare one strand of copied DNA with the other to discover where the errors occur, and then to correct them. Imagine a proofreader receiving a book draft with so many errors. It would amount to an error on almost every page. At 100 pages per book, the demons would clean up all the errors in 10,000 such books. No human proofreader could be that accurate. Imagine now that the organism can selectively vary the error-correction rate.

"Davies: "While it is the case that biological information is instantiated in matter, it is not inherent in matter. Bits of information chart their own course inside living things. In so doing, they don’t violate the laws of physics, but nor are they encapsulated by those laws: it is impossible to derive the laws of information from the known laws of physics."

***

"Like the rest of the book, Davies’s epilogue touches on deep questions about ourselves and the universe. One of these is whether life was inevitable.

***

"The view that the universe is ruled by just blind chance, flies in the face of all that we experience as sentient, creative, and intentional beings. To believe this, we have to swallow the view that evolution, in creating the human nervous system, endowed it with an extraordinarily powerful illusion that forces us to act as though we have purpose, while really we only reflect the blind determination of our genes and other molecules."(my bold)

Comment: The bold is exactly my point. Our arrival is highly significant. This discussion mirrors the comments of Stephen Talbott. Information must be used but how so is still hidden from us. Where did all that definitive and necessary information come from? Smells of God for me but they carefully try to stay away.

dhw: I was tempted to ignore this, as we have covered it over and over again. The whole discussion is pointless unless the writer defines what he means by information. Information to me means the facts about a given subject or object or event or person etc. etc. The sun must contain millions of facts. It takes a mind to observe or record them, but that does not mean that the facts are not there without being observed. This is solipsism gone mad!

DAVID: The info is there with or without humans, but is unrecognized without minds being present to understand it.

Thank you. That is all that needs to be said in answer to the article. If anyone is interested in other aspects of the subject, I suggest they read the discussion that took place in January this year on this thread.

QUOTES: "The concept of information makes no sense in the absence of something to be informed—that is, a conscious observer capable of choice, or free will (sorry, I can't help it, free will is an obsession). If all the humans in the world vanished tomorrow, all the information would vanish, too."

dhw: I was tempted to ignore this, as we have covered it over and over again. The whole discussion is pointless unless the writer defines what he means by information. Information to me means the facts about a given subject or object or event or person etc. etc. The sun must contain millions of facts. It takes a mind to observe or record them, but that does not mean that the facts are not there without being observed. This is solipsism gone mad!

The info is there with or without humans, but is unrecognized without minds being present to understand it. Information can also exist if it is instructional information as to how to run processes that create life, but they must come from a mind because minds and information are always tied together. You never have production of coded instructive information without mind/minds to create it. But it is also perfectly reasonable that the mind that creates the code can also give what is produced the ability to interpret and follow the coded instructions automatically.

I was tempted to ignore this, as we have covered it over and over again. The whole discussion is pointless unless the writer defines what he means by information. Information to me means the facts about a given subject or object or event or person etc. etc. The sun must contain millions of facts. It takes a mind to observe or record them, but that does not mean that the facts are not there without being observed. This is solipsism gone mad!

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/why-information-cant-be-the-basis-of-r...

"A growing number of scientists... are beginning to wonder whether information "may be primary: more fundamental than matter itself."

***

"In the 1980s, Wheeler started pointing out deep resonances between quantum mechanics and information theory. An electron, Wheeler pointed out, behaves like a particle or a wave depending on how we interrogate it. Information theory, similarly, posits that all messages can be reduced to a sequence of "binary units," or bits, which are answers to yes or no questions.

***

"In a paper that he delivered at the Santa Fe Institute in 1989, he postulated that "every it--every particle, every field of force, even the spacetime continuum itself--derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely--even if in some contexts indirectly--from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits."

***

"The concept of information makes no sense in the absence of something to be informed—that is, a conscious observer capable of choice, or free will (sorry, I can't help it, free will is an obsession). If all the humans in the world vanished tomorrow, all the information would vanish, too. Lacking minds to surprise and change, books and televisions and computers would be as dumb as stumps and stones. This fact may seem crushingly obvious, but it seems to be overlooked by many information enthusiasts.

"The idea that mind is as fundamental as matter—which Wheeler's "participatory universe" notion implies--also flies in the face of everyday experience. Matter can clearly exist without mind, but where do we see mind existing without matter? Shoot a man through the heart, and his mind vanishes while his matter persists. As far as we know, information—embodied in things like poetry, hiphop music and cell-phone images from Libya--only exists here on Earth and nowhere else in the universe. Did the big bang bang if there was no one there to hear it? Well, here we are, so I guess it did (and saying that God was listening is cheating)."

Comment: If DNA is a code, then it must be stated it carries information which only an existing mind can understand. But genes run living processes through many interlocking series of molecular actions. Molecules do not think, but we know folded protein molecules carry out functions to create the wanted results desired by DNA. The only answer is a mind designed all those molecules and their coordinated functions through instructions which are information. And for all these functions to work, they have to be automatic. Taking time for decision-making will slow down the system too much for it to work.

dhw: There is no information argument for God. The argument for God is quite simply that living organisms are too complex to have come into existence by chance, i.e. they must have been designed, i.e. there must be a designer. The very fact that the “information” argument causes such confusion and so many obfuscations in its attempts to present this same case should be enough to put you off trying to use it.

DAVID: The confusion is yours. The argument is simple. Instructional information underlying the complex processes, and designed to create life, implies a mind must have created it. This is a prime ID tenet.

dhw: We dealt with this. Why do you have to call it “instructional information”, thereby necessitating the definition of different kinds of information? What is the difference between instructional information and instructions? Instructions CONTAIN information, so to avoid all the confusion, why don’t you just say that the instructions contained in DNA are too complex to have come about by chance and therefore they must have been designed, and therefore there must be a designer. Why do you try to defend the ridiculous heading of this thread when you have already agreed that information is not the source of life. According to you the source of life is the creator of the instructions. Too simple for you?

I'm sorry the word 'information' as ID uses it bothers you. From this statement you obviously understand the reasoning, but do not like the way it is stated. All beside the point. The information exists and we have debated the source.

DAVID: The confusion is yours. The argument is simple. Instructional information underlying the complex processes, and designed to create life, implies a mind must have created it. This is a prime ID tenet.

We dealt with this. Why do you have to call it “instructional information”, thereby necessitating the definition of different kinds of information? What is the difference between instructional information and instructions? Instructions CONTAIN information, so to avoid all the confusion, why don’t you just say that the instructions contained in DNA are too complex to have come about by chance and therefore they must have been designed, and therefore there must be a designer. Why do you try to defend the ridiculous heading of this thread when you have already agreed that information is not the source of life. According to you the source of life is the creator of the instructions. Too simple for you?

DAVID: This is simply one of the argumentative points of view, but in your clear-thinking mind it is not necessary.

dhw: Not only is it not necessary, but it leads to confused thinking as exemplified by the absurd generalizations and statements such as those I dealt with earlier (including “information as the source of life”).

DAVID: A good summary of your views.

dhw: I note that you do not present any arguments against my views, so I hope there will be no more posts on the subject.

DAVID: The use of the information argument for God has always troubled you, but I can't promise to leave it alone.

dhw: There is no information argument for God. The argument for God is quite simply that living organisms are too complex to have come into existence by chance, i.e. they must have been designed, i.e. there must be a designer. The very fact that the “information” argument causes such confusion and so many obfuscations in its attempts to present this same case should be enough to put you off trying to use it.[/i]

The confusion is yours. The argument is simple. Instructional information underlying the complex processes, and designed to create life, implies a mind must have created it. This is a prime ID tenet.

dhw: Not only is it not necessary, but it leads to confused thinking as exemplified by the absurd generalizations and statements such as those I dealt with earlier (including “information as the source of life”).

DAVID: A good summary of your views.

dhw: I note that you do not present any arguments against my views, so I hope there will be no more posts on the subject.

DAVID: The use of the information argument for God has always troubled you, but I can't promise to leave it alone.

There is no information argument for God. The argument for God is quite simply that living organisms are too complex to have come into existence by chance, i.e. they must have been designed, i.e. there must be a designer. The very fact that the “information” argument causes such confusion and so many obfuscations in its attempts to present this same case should be enough to put you off trying to use it.[/i]

DAVID: This is simply one of the argumentative points of view, but in your clear-thinking mind it is not necessary.

dhw: Not only is it not necessary, but it leads to confused thinking as exemplified by the absurd generalizations and statements such as those I dealt with earlier (including “information as the source of life”).

DAVID: A good summary of your views.

dhw: I note that you do not present any arguments against my views, so I hope there will be no more posts on the subject.

The use of the information argument for God has always troubled you, but I can't promise to leave it alone.