The great information debate

[MrBaggins]

Latest thread by Lincoln

Originally posted by Lincoln
So the spam man is back. I am not taking the bait. Sorry, you will have to satisfy yourself.

Original thread by Lincoln

Originally posted by Lincoln
*snip*
3. There is no reason to call each other names. We are all learning so let’s see where this leads.
*snip*

My response

Originally posted by MrBaggins
BTW... according to your rules...

3. There is no reason to call each other names. We are all learning so let’s see where this leads.

You should avoid calling me anything but MrBaggins.

Baggins is acceptable, but Mcbaggin is most certainly not. You don't need to edit your post, but you can use the correct nick from now on, or forfeit.

Lincolns response

Originally posted by Lincoln
MrBaggins,

Sorry for mispelling your name. It was not intentional.

You say that meaning only happens on the receipt of information. Received by who or what? If there is communication there must be a sender and receiver. How else is meaning determined?

You seem, sir, to be unable to keep a civil tongue on your shoulders.

I understand its frustrating to be proven wrong.

You should accept defeat gracefully, however, or answer the question.

In a debate, if you made the top reply... you would concede the point, since you make no attempt to rationally respond.

The question has an answer (even if that answer is... there is none)... and the web is a big place... if the answer really exists. I submit that it does not... and that you are incorrect in your assertion.

[Lincoln]

"A rose by any other name smells just as sweet". The important thing is what really is. This subject of information is riddled with confusion because of various definitions. I defined it on the 5 levels earlier. Those are the levels of language.

[Lincoln]

I guess you didn't read what I said. You can spam without my help. I am not getting into a "he said, she said" argument with you or anyone else. You have filled this thread with spam. Do what you want without me.

[MrBaggins]

and I'm disproving that.

If you are so sure of your belief structure... what is issue in answering with proof?

Questions regarding DNA are surely relevant.

The issue is, is that the answer is damaging to your stance.

I will take your silence, refusal or further discussion on the merits of why you don't have to answer as an admission that there is no chemical proof of DNA being both itself and, itself and a process This will in turn mean that you admit that DNA != DNA + a process is true, directly.

[Jack_www]

Come on guys, lets not get off the topic or get mean to each other. For the most part we have so far stayed on topic and been civil to each other, please lets us keep doing this.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Lincoln
I guess you didn't read what I said. You can spam without my help. I am not getting into a "he said, she said" argument with you or anyone else. You have filled this thread with spam. Do what you want without me.

LOLOL... spam is irrelevent posting. My postings are quite on topic. You are the one spamming with this...

"Not fair... I'm not playing" diatribe.

[Jack_www]

Originally posted by MrBaggins


I will take your silence, refusal or further discussion on the merits of why you don't have to answer as an admission that there is no chemical proof of DNA being both itself and, itself and a process This will in turn mean that you admit that DNA != DNA + a process is true, directly.

What are you trying to ask? DNA being itself and a process??? what????? Please clarify.

[MrBaggins]

Lincoln said in response to:

Is DNA != DNA + process? yes or no

"No"

A request for some sort of chemical proof, was my request to prove that allegation.

[Jack_www]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
Lincoln said in response to:

Is DNA != DNA + process? yes or no

"No"

A request for some sort of chemical proof, was my request to prove that allegation.

That was not what I am asking. I am confused by the statement DNA being itself and a process. What are you trying to ask??

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Lincoln
There does not need to be a sender and receiver to devise a language or code. There only needs to be convention between the parties that ultimately USE the coded language. The existence of the coded language complete with rules (of course) is evidence of a thought process that exists in an individual (at the least).

There needs to at least be an intended receiver in order to devise a language or code for the purposes of conveying information. For example, if I'm speaking Polish to somebody who doesn't understand a lick of Polish, then that person isn't able to glean any meaningful information out of what I'm saying. However, there was an intended intelligent receiver in the exchange, so Polish is still a viable means of communication even though my intended receiver failed to understand any Polish--we ought not to throw out the entire Polish language or anything. Similarly, (assuming for the sake of argument that DNA is a coded language), if I were to take a DNA strand and and feed its sequence into a computer (with no algorithm included to attempt to interpret the sequence, but instead with nothing but a blind input-acceptor that then discards the DNA data), then the computer's failure to intelligently act on the information given it wouldn't prove that DNA fails as a coded language, it would instead prove that DNA was given to the wrong receiver.

The problem is that DNA has no intended receiver that would allow DNA to be classified as information. The intended receiver of DNA is mRNA, which as we agreed is non-intelligent. However, non-intelligent entities cannot be the intended end receiver for information, since information requires intelligence to comprehend. The computer is different from mRNA in that the computer is not the intended receiver, it is merely a tool--the user is the intended receiver, and the user is intelligent. mRNA does not pass the data found in DNA on to an intelligent user, though. mRNA is, in fact, the intended receiver of the DNA code, which is why I argue that DNA fails to qualify as information. It isn't simply that DNA is being hijacked by a non-intelligent intermediary and being prevented from passing on to its intended intelligent receiver, and it isn't simply that mRNA is a processor that changes DNA into a form more easily read by DNA's intended intelligent receiver. Rather, mRNA is the intended non-intelligent receiver.

The only possible intended intelligent receiver for DNA is a supernatural entity, perhaps the same entity that created DNA in the first place. This would be equivalent to an entity deciding that it wants to make a bunch of turtles, so it makes an information code (DNA) and a tool (mRNA, along with a slew of other organic molecules) in order to make turtles. The entity now has turtles, and the information has reached its intended reciever (although it has been processed in the meantime, from DNA into turtles).

So it isn't a certainty that DNA is not information. However, arguing that DNA is information does not constitute a proof of Creationism, since such an argument concludes the existence of a source entity by postulating the existence of the same (or a similar) receiver entity (the fellow who wants the turtles). So, at the same time, it is impossible to argue that DNA is not information without somehow proving that there is no source-receiver entity--and since it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God, this effectively stalls out the debate.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by Jack_www

That was not what I am asking. I am confused by the statement DNA being itself and a process. What are you trying to ask??

DNA is DNA.

DNA is dumb data.

It sits waiting to be used to grow cells or to be examined for patterns. Without a data-processing element, it is... useless.

DNA on its own does nothing, therefore has no pragmatic quality, therefore, by Lincolns definition is not information. Only through analysis or growth does DNA have use and meaning.

[Jack the Bodiless]

Lincoln:

You are still using words such as "proof".

The cell is the result of a code that was set up by an intelligent being. The proof is in the code and the translation and the result of that translation.

However, if we can produce any hypothetical naturalistic scenario, that is sufficient to downgrade your "proof" to "speculation". To return to my fire analogy: no matter how many fires are started by humans, if I can point out that a forest fire might have been started by lightning hitting a tree, then you cannot claim "proof" that a human arsonist did it.

When WE speculate, it's "just speculation". When YOU speculate, it's "proof": double standard. However, the naturalistic creation of the "information" in DNA is NOT speculation: the process is ongoing and can be observed. You keep flip-flopping between discussion of the origin of DNA "information" and discussion of the origin of the triplet code which stores it. The latter is speculation, whereas the former is entirely explicable by the known, verified process of evolution.

But what is "intelligence" anyhow? Basically, it's problem-solving ability: the ability to evaluate data and choose a course of action which leads to a desirable result. Evolution is also a problem-solving mechanism which "evaluates" random mutations and selects those which lead to the "desirable result" of survival and reproduction. Evolution closely parallels intelligence: the products of evolution should strongly resemble those of intelligence, they are similar processes.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Lincoln
Intelligence is inferred when a true code is found.

Why is that? But before I ask that question, can you decribe what does it mean by "a true code," as opposed to, perhaps, "untrue code?"

Originally posted by Lincoln
It would be very easy even with no knowledge of the English language to find evidence of intelligence in the radio transmission just as it would be simple to study the 1's and 0's on this forum and find evidence of intelligence.

Again, that is begging the question. Anybody who is in a civilised society knows that what comes out of a radio is intelligent communication - for most of the time anway - because said person has prior knowledge of radio.

Shall we attempt the African Bushman test to see if it holds true for all humans?

Originally posted by Lincoln
The genetic code is evidence of intelligence. If it was only random or not translated or endless repeats of the same letter then it would be evidence of simply the laws of physics without an intelligent inferrence.

Again, does the number pi indicative of intelligence? If so, what intelligence?

What about snowflakes? Are they evidence of intelligence? If so, what intelligence?

If the genetic code is evidence of intelligence why is there so much nonsense (meaningless nucleic acid sequences) in the chromosomes?

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Lincoln
That is a statement of belief.

Nothing of the kind. Evolution is well established. DNA can and does change. It can make large and small changes(large changes are inherent in chromosome doubling which is known to occur). The rest is not a belief but a probable answer based on what we do know.

[QUOTE]The question is the source of the code and the information contained in it. And "labeling" is only for our benefit. [QUOTE]

Exactly. You are insisting on labeling data as information based on a dubious information hypothesis so you can than claim via an even more dubious assertion about information theory that information need inteligence on both ends. Labeling is the entire point of your stonewalling on calling DNA data.

The information is there regardless of human labels.

The data is there I will give you. Not your peculiar definition of information. If you want to drop that nonsense people will, for the sake of arguement, call it information. Till then you must:


Prove that that the theory you are using to claim DNA is information is a valid theory not a hypothesis manufactured to prove god.

Then you must prove that information must have a sender.

Then you must prove that the sender must be inteligent.

Then you will have something. At the moment you are only argueing semantics.

Which is getting exceedingly tiresome.

We discovered the process, the code and the translation.

And we labeled them that. The code does not require a designer as far as anyone can tell. Its a simple code with little complexity. Just four letters and 64 condons with around half of them redundent.

Any other discovery of that magnitude would have immediately inferred intelligent life.

Nonsense. Its too simple for that.

The only reason it does not to an atheist is because he measures all things from his belief system and thinks it is supported by the theist Charles Darwin and his theory.

Darwin was not a theist. Evolution is not a belief system and calling it one will not make it so. Its like calling General Relativity a belief system.

The theory of evolution has never been shown to produce the ORIGIN of life, let alone a code etc.. How does natural selection select a code beofre the translation process is known?

Evolution has nothing to do with the origin of life except that it can't begin till after the origin.

The translation process came first. There need only be a chemical affinity. I went over this before. That it can't be proved does not mean it did not occur. The time involved is considerable and it is unlikely that an experiment can be devised anytime soon to test it. We don't exactly have a million years and a whole ocean to work with at present. Maybe if we discover another planet suitable for the experiment.

The evidence clearly points to intelligent design, not evolution as the source of true information that exists on the levels under discussion. Data is not information. Information is proved by testing. DNA passes all of the tests.

Nonsense as usual. The evidence points to evolution. What little there is of it. Data is information before we process in our minds. Human DNA is 95 percent garbage. That alone shows there was no inteligence inolved. Unless god is an idiot with hardly any intelect but infinite power to just blunder through things.

So the best you can do is prove god a very bad chemical engineer. You haven't even managed that.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Lincoln
I guess you didn't read what I said. You can spam without my help. I am not getting into a "he said, she said" argument with you or anyone else. You have filled this thread with spam. Do what you want without me.

What did I say? A creationist will not answer direct questions. If he is unable to evade, he will just make up any excuses to leave the scene.

You have Exhibit A here.