and having an intelligent sender and receiver.
When the DNA of an amoeba replicates, who or what is the intelligent receiver?
Posts by A Ha
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113I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...
by ILoveTTATT2 inso... i live in mexico and i am helping with an esl class (english as a second language).
actually, i am helping with two classes.
i get two days a week in which i just stand there and have a debate with the class, encouraging as many as possible to just talk... in english.. anyways, i like talking about subjects that generate debate.
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A Ha
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113
I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...
by ILoveTTATT2 inso... i live in mexico and i am helping with an esl class (english as a second language).
actually, i am helping with two classes.
i get two days a week in which i just stand there and have a debate with the class, encouraging as many as possible to just talk... in english.. anyways, i like talking about subjects that generate debate.
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A Ha
Intelligent in the sense that it does the work required.
You are changing definitions again. Earlier you argued that DNA required a volitional intelligence behind it, therefore, God. You argued that "in the sense that it does the work required" was not good enough, but you're trying to drop it when challenged about volitional intelligence on the receiving end. If you are adopting this non-volitional definition again, then a volitional intelligence is not necessary on either the sending or receiving end, and your argument for the necessity of a God in the case of DNA dies.
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113
I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...
by ILoveTTATT2 inso... i live in mexico and i am helping with an esl class (english as a second language).
actually, i am helping with two classes.
i get two days a week in which i just stand there and have a debate with the class, encouraging as many as possible to just talk... in english.. anyways, i like talking about subjects that generate debate.
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A Ha
Vidqun - "An evolutionist/atheist is indeed a rather nasty piece of work. No accountability, no morality, no ethics."
Well, f**k you very much.
Yeah, that's some pretty regressive, 1950s-type rhetoric. Only a small segment of the theist population even tries to make that argument anymore.
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113
I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...
by ILoveTTATT2 inso... i live in mexico and i am helping with an esl class (english as a second language).
actually, i am helping with two classes.
i get two days a week in which i just stand there and have a debate with the class, encouraging as many as possible to just talk... in english.. anyways, i like talking about subjects that generate debate.
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A Ha
A ha: Sender, DNA. Reciever, ribosome. Instruction: Assembly of protein. You as the living organism would be receiving the benefit of protein assembly. In the end you would be the receiver.
According to your definitions, the recipient must be intelligent. A strand of DNA, RNA, mRNA, etc.. are not able to understand the code.
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113
I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...
by ILoveTTATT2 inso... i live in mexico and i am helping with an esl class (english as a second language).
actually, i am helping with two classes.
i get two days a week in which i just stand there and have a debate with the class, encouraging as many as possible to just talk... in english.. anyways, i like talking about subjects that generate debate.
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A Ha
Here are the various problems with your claims. Even granting your made-up notion of UI:
c) If information is to be understood, the particular code must be known to both sender and recipient. (your words)
Cosyntics (code + syntax): Code employed and code understood. (your words)
Symantics: Communicated ideas and understood meaning. (your words)
Summary
There can be no UI without a code.
There can be no UI without a sender. -- [and an intelligent receiver]
Any given chain of UI points to a mental source. -- [and a mental destination]
There can be no UI without volition (will). -- [volition of both sender and receiver.]By your own definition, DNA does not qualify as UI.
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113
I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...
by ILoveTTATT2 inso... i live in mexico and i am helping with an esl class (english as a second language).
actually, i am helping with two classes.
i get two days a week in which i just stand there and have a debate with the class, encouraging as many as possible to just talk... in english.. anyways, i like talking about subjects that generate debate.
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A Ha
What did A ha say, there's no causality, it's all just random.
I repeatedly corrected this error. You can have randomness and non-randomness in a world with or without causality. Causality and randomness are not the same thing.
I suppose it's easy for you to claim you "have not encountered much refutation," when you just ignore anything you don't like.
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113
I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...
by ILoveTTATT2 inso... i live in mexico and i am helping with an esl class (english as a second language).
actually, i am helping with two classes.
i get two days a week in which i just stand there and have a debate with the class, encouraging as many as possible to just talk... in english.. anyways, i like talking about subjects that generate debate.
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A Ha
Vidqun, I apologize. I should not have attributed your sources. Still, I think my larger objections stand. You are invoking the PTB to claim that what he's saying is accepted by the scientific community at large, and this doesn't seem true at all. Specifically, you said, "They were actually formulated by the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt Braunschweig)," and I haven't seen any evidence of this, or of your newer claim that his writings were published "under the auspices" of the PTB. If he publishes papers containing "standard" ideas of information, and also writes books and articles using "non-standard" definitions and ideas, he doesn't get to co-opt his [former] position within PTB to give legitimacy to his non-scientific ideas, and neither do you.
Here is my point: Gitt uses made-up definitions for information, and then doesn't apply his new definition consistently.
In the video you linked, he claims "Ten Laws of Information," listing "Laws" which don't support his/your point regarding DNA--even when he had made up the definitions! For example:
6. all codes result from an intentional choice and agreement between sender and recipient.
This is actually more of an honest definition of information but then, under this "law," DNA wouldn't apply as information. You have tried to assert that the "sender" in DNA is God, which I've pointed out is assuming your conclusion, but in addition this law requires intelligence on the part of the recipient. The mRNA, DNA, and cell are not intelligent recipients.
7. the determination of meaning for and from a set of symbols is a mental process that requires intelligence [bold mine]
Same problem. DNA and cells are not intelligent, so DNA does not count as information under his "laws."
The creationist's answer to this is, as you have done, to sometimes apply it and sometimes not; to sometimes say an intelligent sender is good enough without an intelligent recipient, and hope nobody notices that your claim is that all of these laws must be obeyed for it to count as information.
After listing his ten inviolable laws of information, Gitt lists the conclusions which must be drawn from them.
C1. since the DNA code of all life forms is clearly within the definition domain of information, we conclude there must be a sender.
He hopes his audience will miss the fact that the DNA code violates his laws, since there is no intelligent recipient. He posts charts indicating that proteins and RNA do things like "Reading & Understanding," but in order for his idea of information to hold, this must be used in a literal sense. He wants to switch back and forth between literal and figurative uses of phrases as it suits him.
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113
I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...
by ILoveTTATT2 inso... i live in mexico and i am helping with an esl class (english as a second language).
actually, i am helping with two classes.
i get two days a week in which i just stand there and have a debate with the class, encouraging as many as possible to just talk... in english.. anyways, i like talking about subjects that generate debate.
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A Ha
You talk of "uncaused events." Would you be so kind as to name a few. As far as I know, there is no such thing.
Oh, I don't know.... perhaps virtual particles popping into existence uncaused? (On the other hand, popping back out of existence afterward seems to have a cause.) Or maybe radioactive decay?
But you're missing the larger point. If you think there can be nothing uncaused, then God cannot exist, since it would be uncaused. If you make an exception that God is allowed to be uncaused, then the beginning of the universe is also allowed to be uncaused. To say you get to name an exception but I can't is special pleading.
That said, you're missing the point. "Uncaused events" are postulated in the topic of cosmology and cosmogeny, not biology and evolution.
And is that not the problem with the theory of evolution? Its proponents reason that the origin of life was an accident. It all happened by chance. Not only did it get kickstarted by itself, it developed into a wide variety of magnificent life forms through the process of evolution.
No, it's not a problem because causation is not the same as randomness. They are not remotely the same thing. A bunch of atoms bumping into each other and reacting, forming molecules, and molecules reacting to form larger molecules... eventually forming organisms, is the result of randomness (random in the sense that we don't know which specific molecules will react, and we can't predict which genes will mutate as a result of radiation, copying errors, etc). Randomness is not non-causality.
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113
I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...
by ILoveTTATT2 inso... i live in mexico and i am helping with an esl class (english as a second language).
actually, i am helping with two classes.
i get two days a week in which i just stand there and have a debate with the class, encouraging as many as possible to just talk... in english.. anyways, i like talking about subjects that generate debate.
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A Ha
A ha, I am sorry to say, those are not my ideas, but those put forward by scientists of a new relatively new science, called Information Science. They were actually formulated by the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt Braunschweig).
No, this is incorrect. This made-up definition has been "formulated" by Werner Gitt, who is the former member (and later head of the IT department) of PTB. These definitions were not published by PTB, but by Creation.com and Answers in Genesis. It is also incorrect that these ideas are pushed by "scientists of... Information Science." They are pushed by one retired scientist writing as a young-earth creationist, and he speicifically does not use terms as defined by Information Scientists. In fact he misuses terms and dresses them up in scientific language inappropriately (he claims to be citing theorems that are not theorems, and even all this mumbo-jumbo about "Laws if information" are by definition not laws.)
Tell the truth, Vidqun, you got this information from creation.com, not from PTB.
Edit to link to the article Vidqun is using.
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113
I am deeply ashamed that I didn't accept evolution until a few years ago...
by ILoveTTATT2 inso... i live in mexico and i am helping with an esl class (english as a second language).
actually, i am helping with two classes.
i get two days a week in which i just stand there and have a debate with the class, encouraging as many as possible to just talk... in english.. anyways, i like talking about subjects that generate debate.
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A Ha
Think of water boiling in a kettle. Will you be concentrating the molecules around the element or dispersing them? It doesn’t matter whether its an open or closed system. Where you have red hot lava boiling sea water, what will happen to the molecules in the sea water?
First, as water evaporates, whatever minerals are dissolved in it would condense, so I don't think your example makes the point you want it to make. But more importantly, oceans are not a boiling kettle. Colder water circulates down into rock, minerals dissolve into it, and it circulates back up as it is heated, carrying minerals with it. As the water cools, it cannot dissolve minerals as easily, and they will condense out of the water. This is basic chemistry that 2nd-graders do as science projects in school, making salt crystals and rock candy from sugar.
As for what happens to these minerals, you can see with your own eyes. There are giant vents reaching up from the ocean floor. What do you think these vents are made of if you think minerals magically disperse perfectly into the entire ocean? Tell me what those vents are made of, how do they grow, and how they last for thousands of years. Here's a hint: If water carries minerals up from oceanic rock faster than it can dissolve into ocean water, what do you think happens to the excess minerals? Please be as specific as you can in your answer.
You say to cofty, "hydrothermal vents would be the last place on earth where life would originate... As I said before, it probably one of the most inhospitable places on the planet." Why are hydrothermal vents inhospitable? According to you, minerals and heat instantaneously disperse over the entire volume of the world's oceans, so why would there be a harmful concentration? Think about what you're saying. You yourself have admitted that things concentrate around these vents.
You don't see a problem with cause and effect, I do. What was the first cause?
The correct questions is, "Why should we think there was a first cause?" You don't get to just assume a first cause when it is not required by our current understanding of physics. Causes require effects, and effects require causes. This is trivially true because of how the words are defined. But that doesn't mean that everything that happens is either a cause or an effect. There can also be "uncaused events." So before I can tell you what was the first cause, you need to demonstrate there was a first cause, then we can begin to investigate it.
[Edit: I'm going to save us a little time and warn that if you say you get to proclaim an exception to your "law" of C&E, then I get to have an exception, as well.]
Remember I said there are five prerequisites of UI. 1) Sender/receiver, emphasis on an intelligent sender. 2) Cosyntics (code + syntax). 3) Semantics; 4) Pragmatics; 5) Apobetics. If one is missing, it doesn’t qualify as UI.
Yes, and remember I said you're making this up, so it's not important if something qualifies under a made-up definition. If you need to make up new terms, then keep changing your definition as the discussion progresses, this should be a huge signal to you that your argument is failing.
Recall the four variations of information flow in terms of sender -> recipient: (I) volitional -> volitional. (II) volitional -> non-volitional. (III) non-volitional -> volitional. (IV) non-volitional -> non-volitional.
Your initial definition indicated that (I), (II), and (III) qualified as UI. Now you've changed your definition to only (I) or (II). Very well. DNA and other cell mechanisms still do not meet your new definition because there is no volitional sender of the information. If you can demonstrate--or even provide the slightest hint of--volition in cell functions, you will be rich and famous beyond your wildest dreams, and your name will forevermore be the most famous name in fundamentalist religious circles behind only Jesus and Muhammed. Just as tree rings do not count as UI under your definition, cell functions do not count, either.
Finally, this was addressed to cofty, but I can't help myself. You say, "complex living things come only from other living things... This is summarized in the phrase Omne vivum ex vivo, Latin for 'all life [is] from life.'" Congratulations, you've just proved that God is not alive. I take back what I said earlier. Your name is not going to go down in history exalted only behind Jesus and Muhammed, your name is going to be vilified only behind Satan and Shaitan. You've, by your own unassailable logic, proven that God cannot exist.