On Sun, 28 Jul 1996 21:16:48, Glenn Morton wrote:
>Stephen Jones quoted Dean Kenyon:
>
SJ>"INFORMATION NEVER ARISES FROM PHYSICAL OR CHEMICAL
>CAUSES ALONE." (Davis P. & Kenyon D.H., "Of Pandas and People: The
>Central Question of Biological Origins", Foundation for Thought and
>Ethics: Richardson TX, Second Edition, 1993, pp55 My emphasis).
GM>This statement is absolutely wrong, wrong, wrong.
Nothing like a bit of absolutism. One is reminded of the old
preacher's sermon notes: "Argument weak here - shout"! :-)
Here is another statement by Kenyon that information never arises
from physical or chemical causes alone.":
"Finally, in this brief summary of the reasons for my growing doubts
that life on earth could have begun spontaneously by purely chemical
and physical means, there is the problem of the origin of genetic,
i.e., biologically relevant, information in biopolymers. No
experimental system yet devised has provided the slightest clue as to
how biologically meaningful sequences of subunits might have
originated in prebiotic polynucleotides or polypeptides. Evidence
for some degree of spontaneous sequence ordering has been published,
but there is no indication whatsoever that the non-randomness is
biologically significant. Until such evidence is forthcoming one
certainly cannot claim that the possibility of a naturalistic origin
of life has been demonstrated." (Thaxton C.B., Bradley W.L. & Olsen
R.L., "The Mystery of Life's Origin: Reassessing Current Theories,
Lewis & Stanley: Dallas TX, 1992, p.vii)
GM>INFORMATION STORAGE IS PHYSICAL
>As far as we can observe, information in our universe IS a physical
>phenomenon. It ONLY exists in and only arises from physical or chemical
>systems. Take the earliest writing. The word for writing in nearly all
>languages means to scratch or engrave This is information stored in the
>surface of a rock-a physical surface.(Senner 1989)
[...]
Agreed. The question was whether "information...ARISES from physical
or chemical causes ALONE", not how it is stored. Clearly information
can be stored on a clay tablet, a book, on a disk, and a computer's
memory.
GM>UNDERSTANDING INFORMATION IS PHYSICAL
>When we listen to a language, when we read a language we use the physical
>mechanisms of our brains to interpret the meaning. The meaning of a
>sound, for instance, is something we learn at an early age and store in
>our brains in the form of neuronal connections (physical storage- see
>Mishkin and Appenzeller, 1987). The act of interpreting the sound
>requires computation inside of our brains, a mathematical correlation,
>comparing the sound with our memory circuits.
[...]
No one denies that "we use the physical mechanisms of our brains to
interpret the meaning". The question is whether "we use the physical
mechanisms of our brains" *ALONE* to interpret the meaning". What is
"meaning" if it *ONLY* a physical mechanism:
"Thus a strict materialism refutes itself for the reason given long
ago by Professor Haldane: "If my mental processes are determined
wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to
suppose that my beliefs are true . . . and hence I have no reason for
supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." (Possible Worlds, p.
209.)" (Lewis C.S., "Miracles: A Preliminary Study", Fontana:
London, 1963 reprint, p19)
GM>HOW IS MEANING DETERMINED?
[...]
GM>The same meaning is given to different sounds in various
>languages. Farmer is 'nong ming' in Mandarin, 'agricola' in Latin,
>and 'fermier' in French. Thus meaning does not fundamentally reside
>in the sound. Meaning resides in the dictionary in the brain --
>which is physical!
The "brain" is indeed "physical" but the "meaning" of words does not
"reside in the dictionary in the brain" any more than the meaning of
words in the Oxford English Dictionary resides in that dictionary. I
"reside" in my house but I am not the house, nor am I a part of my
house. Meaning (and information) rides on the physical systems of
the brain, but it is not part of the brain. Proof of this is that
the same message can be made to ride on other mediums, eg. smoke
signals, books, computers, etc.
GM>INFORMATION IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS
>
>Consider the equation Z(i)=Z(i-1)^2+C. This deceptively simple equation
>contains more information and is more complex than nearly any other
>mathematical equation. This is the Mandelbrot equation. This equation is
>quite simple until it is iterated time and time again over the complex
>plane. The new number Z(i) becomes Z(i-1) in the next iteration. The act
>of iteration produces an object that has many logarithmic spirals in it
>and yet the equation of a logarithmic spiral is not contained in the
>Mandelbrot equation. (A logarithmic spiral is R=Kln(alpha) where R is the
>radius, K a constant and alpha the angle). Where is the information
>stored for the logarithmic spiral? In the iteration of the equation and
>the properties of complex numbers!
I think you are confusing complexity with information. The
information content of biological proteins has a complexity that is
almost random:
"Modern proteins dating after the origin of the first genetic code,
not necessarily the modern one, have a high information content and
no detectable intersymbol statistical structure. The information
content of modern proteins reflects a complexity nearly that of a
random sequence (Yockey, 1977b). Since complexity and order are
opposite concepts there very little order in true proteins..."
(Yockey H.P., "Self Organization Origin of Life Scenarios and
Information Theory", Journal of Theoretical Biology, 91, 1981, p26)
Yockey gives a humorous example of the difference between algorithmic
order and language in his account of a project once underway in the
Grand Academy of Lagado:
"One of the savants in that great institution of research and higher
learning had constructed a simple frame which recorded all words in
the language of that country in their several moods, tenses, and
declensions. These words were arranged and rearranged in random
order by students turning cranks and if sentences or fragments thereof
appeared this was duly noted. This machine was crude and slow by
modern standards so that in spite of a good deal of effort little was
accomplished...The lack of further results can be ascribed to the
primitive character of this machine which was such that it could take
into account only word frequencies in the statistical structure of
the language. The idea was ahead of its time but it may be presumed
that with the very large memories and tremendous speed of present day
computers this project could be brought to fruition. The programming
can now he much more sophisticated and can include all that is known
about the statistical structure of the language. A large number of
nonsense sequences will be generated, of course, but, surely the
computer program proposed above can be instructed to print out only
the "ordered" and therefore significant sequences of paragraph length
or longer for examination by human operators. Because the sequence
hypothesis applies both to written language and to informational
biomolecules the self organizationists should be willing and eager to
put their scenario to the test. The advantages to human culture are
beyond imagination. Properly programmed, the fast and large
computers now available could write books on philosophy, poetry,
polities, law, theology, and even on the origin of life. Since the
idea has already had some success surely a sufficiently eminent
projector (as they were called in Lagado) at a sufficiently
prestigious institution should be able to get such a program
funded." (Yockey H.P., "Self Organization Origin of Life Scenarios
and Information Theory", Journal of Theoretical Biology, 91, 1981,
p25)
[...]
GM>LIFE:AN ITERATIVE SYSTEM
>What does all this have to do with evolution? God used an iterative
>system- a reproductive DNA system-- to bring out the hidden
>complexity in the form of living systems....Thus the information
>for the construction of life is in the iterative process and the
>properties of the DNA system. All God had to do was start the
>process. Iteration would do the rest.
Leaving aside secondary issues whether it was "evolution" or by an
"iterative process", Glenn by stating that "God had to...start the
process" has conceded my main point, namely: "INFORMATION NEVER
ARISES FROM PHYSICAL OR CHEMICAL CAUSES ALONE"! :-)
It seems that my "statement" was therefore "absolutely" right, right,
right! :-)
God bless.
Steve
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