Upright BiPed has been proposing what he has called a “semiotic” theory of Intelligent Design, for a while, which I have found confusing, to say the least. However, he is honing his case, and asks Nick Matzke…
…these three pertinent questions regarding the existence of information within a material universe:
- In this material universe, is it even conceivably possible to record transferable information without utilizing an arrangement of matter in order to represent that information? (by what other means could it be done?)
- If 1 is true, then is it even conceivably possible to transfer that information without a second arrangement of matter (a protocol) to establish the relationship between representation and what it represents? (how could such a relationship be established in any other way?)
- If 1 and 2 are true, then is it even conceivably possible to functionally transfer information without the irreducibly complex system of these two arrangements of matter (representations and protocols) in operation?
… which I think clarify things a little.
I think I can answer them, but would anyone else like to have a go? (I’m out all day today).
My answers:
1. No
2. No
3. I don’t see why such an arrangement should be “irreducibly complex”. it could be quite simple. For instance, lake varves record information about the passing years, and can become sedimentary rock. A crack in that rock could later receive an igneous intrusion.
Later still, that igneous intrusion becomes exposed and detached. A geologist finds it, and notes that reveals a moulding of the layering of the sediment that represents the passing years in the lake.
It’s not symbolic, but there information has been recorded (in the varves), transferred to the igneous rock, and thence to the geologist.
I’m sure there are better examples.
It could also be more complex, and even “semiotic”, I guess (if that’s how Upright BiPed wants to describe tRNA). But there’s no reason (that I can see) to assume that such a system is IC, or, more to the point, “unevolvable”.
It seems to me that Upright BiPed is aggressively mistaking his map for the territory. By speaking about vaguely defined “information” he avoids discussing what is really happening biochemically.
Even if he were to define his terms rigorously, arguing that his model shows that what we observe happening can’t happen merely shows that there is a problem with his model. What he seems to want to say is that the DNA transcription mechanism could not have evolved because it is irreducibly complex. If he wants to make that argument, he should do so based on chemistry not analogies.
I can’t tell if this tendency for intelligent design creationists to reify “information” is an attempt to confuse the underlying issue or if it represents a fundamental confusion on their part.
Well, oddly, UBP goes out of his way to stipulate that information is instantiated in matter, so that is a start.
I think, though I could be wrong, that his case is that a code can’t evolve because you need the code before you can have the evolution.
This is what that old challenge was about. I still think it would be cool to simulate the evolution of code from non-code.
It sounds like an argument about irreducible complexity at the Origin Of Life, but not an argument that has any traction against subsequent evolution.
Seems to me his 1) excludes, by definition, a non-material designer, which would certainly be represent and transfer information by non-material means.
It follows, unless one wants to entertain an ET designer (a possibility no one takes seriously because it solves nothing), that 1) defeats the implicit 4), the conclusion that IC is evidence of a non-material designer.
BTW, when a 78 rpm record is played back on a Victrola, is there a “protocol” in place that enables arbitrary mapping of representations? There is certainly information being transferred.
All that said, I don’t see much reason to engage Biped’s murky flapdoodle if he declines to discuss it in any venue outside UD.
Well, nor me, but I can’t go there, and he did show some interest in engaging, so perhaps he’ll drop by.
It’s like the unmoved mover argument that characterizes religion in general.
Everything requires a cause except my Big Guy. Because I say so.
Can’t argue with that logic.
Elizabeth,
With the caveat that I have never understood UBP’s argument, it strikes me that light (or any EM radiation) contains an enormous amount of information about its source, found in the overall distribution of wavelengths, the polarization, and the spectral lines. I guess you need an ‘arrangement of matter’ to receive the transmitted information, but it could be as simple as a pair of rocks of different colors.
The idea of evolving code from non-code is interesting, and reminds me of a lecture I heard many years ago regarding non-human communication:
The experimental set-up was a pool divided by an opaque divider, with a dolphin in each half. One one side either a red or green light would be illuminated, and if the dolphin on the other side hit the correct button, both dolphins were rewarded.
Dolphins can achieve high success rates, leading the researchers to conclude that they could communicate which light was lit, and that the ‘transmitting’ dolphin understood the nature of the task.
Until another set of researchers duplicated the result with pidgeons, and explained their results in purely Skinnerian terms. Their point being that, in a system with feedback, any spurious correlation arising from random noise can be reinforced (“superstitious behaviour”) until it carries useful information. Code from non-code.
I think UPB’s argument is not entirely insane. He’s saying the code and interpreter have to evolve together and this is improbable. Koonin says the same thing.
There are at lest two problems with applying this to the history of biology. One problem is that the system exists, and the only alternative to a natural explanation is magic.
The other problem, already pointed out, is that the origin involves chemistry, and chemistry has its own rules that are not abstract, as in “information.” Without studying chemistry you cannot make pronouncements about what chemistry can do.
From an old UD thread:
#260 Upright BiPed – September 29, 2011 at 8:37 pm
Dr Rec. at 42.1.1.1 – Sorry for the delay. I think I understand your questions, which are valid. Allow me address them one at a time.
Is the cylindrical disk of a music box information?
I would say that it is not information itself, but like a book, it is a container of information. It is matter (a material medium) which has been arranged in order to contain information, in this case, the information required to reproduce a specific song.
But is it abstract or symbolic?
Yes, the information it contains is both, by necessity. The cylinder is an example of matter arranged to contain an abstract representation of a song. The individual and collective pins on the cylinder are iterative symbolic representations mapped to specific effects, in this case, the musical notes and melody of the original song as played in time. In a system with the appropriate protocols (tines which are spatially and tonally coordinated) for actualizing those representations, the song can indeed be reproduced. The input of information will constrain the output effect.
Can any music box anywhere play the song?
The representation contained in the cylinder is tied to specific protocols. A music box utilizing different protocols would not result in the same notes being played, as well as a possible change in tempo. On the other hand, if it were played in a music box of the same register but perhaps in a different octave, then the song would still be reproduced (albeit in a different octave).
Can a musician read the song off it, independent of the system that plays it?
I would think a craftsman familiar with such systems would likely do just that. Upon proper study, likely anyone could.
Does it possess “physical entailments which may be generalized”
Yes, I am certain it does, and that they can be demonstrated. I believe there is a list of four physical entailments of any such recorded information, and I believe that those entailments can be listed (as is scientifically appropriate) without reference to the source of the information. In other words, they can be listed without assuming any conclusions.
Entailment #1: The first of these physical entailments is the most obvious; that is the symbolic representations themselves. Information is recorded by the arrangement of matter or energy in order to convey these representations (such as the ink on paper, or the magnetic lines left on a recording tape, or the pins arranged on a music box cylinder). These are examples of matter arranged to contain these representations, but by themselves, they cannot convey information. Another physical object is required.
Entailment #2: The second physical entailment is what can easily be described as a protocol, and its inclusion on the list is easily understood. In order for one thing to represent another thing, it must be separate from it. As an example, an apple is an apple, but the word “apple” is a separate thing altogether. And if it is truly a separate thing, then there must be something to establish the relationship between the two, and that is what a protocol does. A protocol is a thing which establishes the relationship between a symbolic representation and the effect it represents. In the case of the word “apple”, we as humans have learned the protocols of our individual languages, and those protocols exist as neural patterns within our brains. These neural patterns are physical things, and they establish the relationship between the word “apple” and the fruit it represents. A bee dancing in a particular way during flight is a separate thing than having the other bees fly off in a particular direction, but the relationship between the two is established by a protocol which exists in the sensory systems of the bee. The function of the protocol is, therefore, to establish a rule that “this maps to that”, which is an immaterial relationship that otherwise wouldn’t exist.
Entailment #3: The third physical thing on the list is the effect of the information. Bear in mind this central observation of all recorded information; all forms of such information are explicitly tied to having an effect (even if they never have that effect). For instance, there is information about which side of the road to drive on, the obvious effect of that information is having far fewer collisions. The effect of the bee’s dance is that the other bees fly off in the right direction. In all cases, recorded information is tied to having an effect, and the variations of those effects are extraordinary.
Entailment #4: This fourth physical item is not an object; it is the dynamic relationship which is observed to exist between the other three physical objects (the representations, the protocols, and the effects). This is one of the key physical observations which allow information to exist at all. The representations, the protocols, and their resulting effects are three entirely discrete (separate) things, and they remain discrete at all times, no matter what form the information is in (written in words, demonstrated in a bee’s dance, or the extracted from the pins on a music box cylinder). For instance, the most obvious example is human language. The word “apple” is entirely separate from the fruit apple, and the protocol in our brain is entirely separate from both of those. They are three completely independent physical realities which share an observable relationship, with the protocol establishing the relationship between the word and the fruit (while the word and the fruit remain separate). This exact same dynamic can be observed in the bee’s dance, with the dance itself being a separate thing from the response of the other bees, and the protocol in the bee’s sensory system (causing the bees response) being separate from both of those. At no time does the representation (or the protocol) ever become the effect.
So this list of four physical requirements (for recorded information) contains two physical objects (two discrete but coordinated arrangements of matter), a physical effect, and the dynamic relationship that exists between the other three. Each must be individually accounted for, and I think you’ll find their relationship in all forms of recorded information (in every example from human language, to computer and machine code, to a bee’s dance).
This same dynamic relationship exists in the genome as well. During protein synthesis a selected sequence of nucleotides from the DNA chain are copied, and the iterative representations contained within that copy are then fed into the ribosome, forming the input of information into the ribosome complex. The output of that ribosome is a chain of amino acids, which will then become the protein being prescribed by the input sequence. The input of information is therefore driving the output production, but as in all other forms of information, the input and the output never physically interact. The exchange of information (from the input sequence to the output constraint) is made possible by a set of very special physical objects – the protocols – tRNA and it’s entourage of synthetase. Acting together they facilitate the transfer of information from the input to the output, and they do so by allowing each to remain physically discrete.
It boils down to the chicken and egg question. It’s not a new or original question. It’s just the OOL question gussied up a bit. It’s not even a particularly interesting version of the question because it ignores the unique properties of chemistry.
Fond of conflating the origin of life with the origin of the genetic code, they are. All 20 acids in place in the Mark 1 version. And of course, because LUCA evidently used a 20-acid code, we have no opportunity for comparative study of the evolution of the code. But it is evolvable.
What is usually cited about the code is its hum-dinging error tolerance – as if [The Designer] knew that his ribosomes were going to be a bit shit, so he built an excellent code for just such an eventuality – misreads more likely to pull in a reasonable substitute, due to the arrangement of codons. Building excellent ribosomes was presumably beyond him! :0)
In fact, if you start with a fewer-than-20-acid code (and there is considerable evidence that there was such a precursor system), and it starts to generate a few useful proteins, that fact alone constrains expansion in a manner that looks – after the fact – designed. Dividing a broad codon group into fewer has to take into account the fact that those codons cannot be universally substituted by just anything – the least disruptive addition, for reasons of stereochemistry in the aminoacyl tRNA synthetases AND usage in proteins themselves, will be a similar acid to that which originally took the whole codon group. So the redundancy of the genetic code has actually been going down, with each additional amino acid.
The initial ‘information’ is likely to have been a simple ribosome whose function was to create polypeptides from one or two amino acids, using an RNA ‘tape’ to provide repeatable specification. Binding energies with the RNA ‘template’ favoured a triplet reading frame over singlet, doublet or quadruplet, giving a 64-codon set but only a few acids to code for – much greater redundancy than today. The function of these proteins may not initially have been enzymatic. Once enzyme function was ‘discovered’, the system could be extended, in a least-disruptive manner, to give the familiar ‘fault-tolerant’ 20-acid set, which was frozen pre-LUCA.
This schema does not eliminate the ‘semiotic’ issue entirely, but reduces the initial spec to something very simple. We could envisage something similar with language – is that irreducibly complex? Or did a simple system of ‘Ug’ and ‘Blurgh’ become steadily refined into the rich language we know, love and sophistically mangle today?
Although I am admittedly the world’s worst chemist, I think we should also note that similar amino acids would not simply be best ones to use for part of a newly-subdivided codon group. They would be the ones chemically most-available to play that role. Having the codon subgroup now code for a very different amino acid would presumably be somewhat harder.
Yes – the constraint favouring conservative substitution has a number of targets – synthesised proteins themselves, the aa binding site in an aminoacyl tRNA synthetase, and the metabolic pathways that produce the acids (assuming they are manufactured ‘on-site’). In all cases, a minor retooling is more achievable than a major one (actually, I prefer less ‘adaptationist’ language – minor amendment is less visible to selection than major).
In the aaRS there are two binding sites to consider – the codon end and the amino-acid end. The acid is constrained to be chemically ‘similar’ but the codon end, too, is more readily retooled in an apparently ‘optimal’ way. A base-blind site (accepting any A, T, C or G) can be turned into a purine/pyrimidine distinctive site, because the purines (A, G) have a whacking great ring on the side. It’s much easier to achieve that coarse distinction than the fine distinction of the bits that hang off these rings. And this ring on the side is exactly why in translation you are more likely to mistake an A for a G than mistaking either for T/C – transition/transversion bias. The code seems more tolerant to the commoner type of translation mistake ‘by design’, when it is simply the same factor in action – the ring-bearing bases resemble each other more than they do the ring-lacking ones, and vice versa, in both enzyme binding sites and ribosomes. Purine-pyrimidine distinction via the ring in the aaRS subdivides a codon group in a way that renders the commoner misread error ‘silent’.
I find UB’s language nearly impenetrable, in part due to his poor grasp of his own vocabulary. Example: above, he uses “entailments” in a peculiar way. “Entailment” is misplaced in a sentence such as “There are four ‘entailments’ of any such recorded information.” What he is stating, awkwardly, is that recorded information, as he defines it, has four characteristics. Characteristics =/= entailment. Characteristics may be simply asserted, and that all UB has done: made definitional assertions. Entailments do more work, because they necessarily or logically follow from a set of statements or theoretical framework, and hence may generate empirical predictions that test the generating theory. There is no set of statements or theory from which Biped’s assertions necessarily flow, and the above are not “entailments” with predicted empirical consequences. Just assertions, or perhaps proposed descriptions. So while Biped thinks he has demonstrated something empirical about the exchange of information, he has not.
So its all fingernails on chalkboard for me. As Mencken famously said of Harding:
The concept has potential. It would entail determining at least one set of minimal characteristics required for such behavior to emerge. Just how that set overlaps with what we observe about chemistry and physics would be most interesting.
Reciprocating Bill,
I can’t help it. Every time I see “Semiotic theory of ID” I read it as “Semi-idiotic theory of ID”.
My thought is that if programs like Avida have no relevance to biology, then the information metaphor has no relevance to biology.
There is an impenetrable barrier to analogy, and that barrier is chemistry. We cannot model chemistry with sufficient precision to predict emergent properties. That also presents a barrier to design. My thought is that GAs can model the probability argument, but cannot model the connectability of sequence space. They can only tell us that if sequences are connectable, we can expect evolution to work.
My problem is that 2LoT reads as “two-slot.” Which sounds slightly risque’.
For fans of old foreign movies, we could argue that evolution is Mr 2LoT’s Holiday
Points for recognizing the reference..
I’ll take a stab: “Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot” ??
I must confess that I’m not even in the ballpark on UBP’s argument. The use of “semiotics” seems intended more to fog the issue rather than provide clarity and/or understanding. And like RB above, UBP’s use of language (and writing) leaves me dazed.
Here’s the main problem I have with UBP’s argument as such (from Lizzie’s first comment above):
In fact, in trying to parse through his argument, I can’t find anywhere that he even addresses the conceptual differentiation of symbols (matter in some (presumably) specfied arrangement) and what that arrangement supposedly represents (the information) and, more importantly, how he knows it’s representative. Taking a cue from some of the other examples above, we can – by analogy (ho ho ho) – think of a lake and the hole or depression it occupies. Certainly the whole system (lake, hole, gravity, etc) contains some information, but is it symbolic? I would argue it isn’t, simply because I can’t for the life of me come up with that system being either representative of something (a symbol) other than the lake system or it being some structure for the translation of some representative information (the protocol).
I’m not sure whether UBP is confusing the land for the map as Patrick noted above – I can’t parse his words enough to conclude that, but it’s clear his argument relies upon an assumption of purpose (teleology) as a premise without actually substantiating that there is some purpose. Thus for me his argument appears (like so many ID arguments) to be begging the question.
It’s not hard to see why IDers are so quick to posit purpose and agency behind the biochemistry of life. Our explanations of life are rife with the metaphors of agency. I just looked up “genetic code” on Wikipedia. Check out the very first sentence:
The genetic code is the set of rules by which information encoded in genetic material (DNA or mRNA sequences) is translated into proteins (amino acid sequences) by living cells.
“The set of rules”, “information encoded”, “translated … by living cells”
This is all pure metaphor. There are no rules except as we interpret them; Information is not “encoded”; cells don’t “translate” anything.
Think about a snowflake forming. Would we say that the information encoded in the water molecules are translated by the snow flake to form ice crystals?
Life is only different by degree, not by kind.
Ummm, me too, I’m afraid.
Of course, this weakness of metaphor remains a necessity. If you can’t describe a system metaphorically, then you must describe it mathematically — which is also a symbolic communication system. And that kind of description communicates little or nothing to most of the world’s population.
IDists take advantage of that ambiguity — but at the same time, they are trapped within it.
But so are most other people.
Metaphors and analogies require “friendly” interpretation, because they always fall apart at the edges. The strength of science lies in mathematics, which doesn’t lend itself to idiosyncratic interpretation.
“Information” looks mathematical, but applied to genomes, it is a metaphor.
I have similar issues with UBP’s terminology as everyone else here, but I think it may be worthwhile to highlight one specific logical somersault that UBP attempts in his argumentation. I suspect that the key to his claim that some sort of designer is needed for arrangements that he calls *recorded information transfer* is this *immaterial relationship* (bolded by me in the excerpt above) he claims to exist between a bee dancing and other bees reacting to the dance with a specific behaviour. Absurdly, he first claims (and correctly so, IMO) that all aspects of the *information transfer* (i.e. the thing to be represented, the protocol, and the representation or effect) are all quite material. Consequently, there is nothing immaterial required or even logically involvable in the relationship between a bee dancing in a particular way, and the bees that watched that dance subsequently flying off in a particular direction. The thing connecting the two in a causal relationship is the very material process in the sensory system of the watching bees. So, his sudden, unwarranted leap to claiming some immaterial relationship seems to serve nothing but the transparent purpose of introducing *immaterial agency*.
It’s called reification. It’s a word I never thought about until I started posting on UD.
It’s mother’s milk to them.
madbat089,
Exactly. This is where we always foundered. I’d think I’d got it straight, and prepare to start programming, then suddenly he’d reword and we were back with this immaterial layer again.
At one point we were cool with “is not changed by the transfer” or something similar. But I could never pin it down enough that it was worth spending weeks programming something without the assurance that he’d be happy with the results if I succeeded.
(oops not very clear, but I’m dead beat – off to bed….)
And a very useful one. One of my favorites 🙂
Yes, exactly: He would never let you pin his argument down enough to make it actually testable – that would mean to commit to the result of the test. His unwillingness to do that tells you all you need to know about the motivation behind the argument and its intellectual merit.
RE: reification
Biological Information, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP)
8. Information and evolution
Information has also become a focus of general discussion of evolutionary processes, especially as they relate to the mechanisms of inheritance. As John Maynard Smith, Eors Szathmary, and Richard Dawkins have emphasized in different ways, inheritance mechanisms that give rise to significant evolutionary outcomes must satisfy some rather special conditions. Maynard Smith and Szathmary claim, for example, that the inheritance system must be unlimited or “indefinite” in its capacity to produce new combinations, but must also maintain high fidelity of transmission. They argue that many of the crucial steps in the last four billion years of evolution involve the creation of new ways of transmitting information across generations — more reliable, more fine-grained, and more powerful ways of making possible the reliable re-creation of form across events of biological reproduction. The transition to a DNA-based inheritance system (probably from a system based on RNA) is one central example (Maynard Smith and Szathmary 1995). The evolutionarily crucial features of inheritance mechanisms are often now discussed in informational terms, and the combinatorial structure seen in both language and DNA provides a powerful basis for analogical reasoning.
In some writers, however, the idea that evolution is an informational process can be taken too far. For example, Williams (1992) argues that, via reflection on the role of genes in evolution, we can infer that there is an informational “domain” that exists alongside the physical domain of matter and energy. This is an extreme version of a more common idea, that there exists such things as “informational genes” that should be understood as distinct from the “material genes” that are made of DNA and localized in space and time. We think that the reification of “the informational gene” is problematic; it is a mistake to suppose that there is both a physical entity — a string of bases — and an informational entity, a message. It is true that for evolutionary (and many other) purposes genes are often best thought of in terms of their base sequence (the sequence of C, A, T and G), not in terms of their full set of material properties. This way of thinking is essentially a piece of abstraction (Griesemer 2005). We rightly ignore some properties of DNA and focus on others. But it is a mistake of reification to treat this abstraction as an extra entity, with mysterious relations to the physical domain. The result is to obscure the ontological side of evolutionary theory, which can and should remain straightforwardly materialistic.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-biological/
Having read through this thread, I have noticed that not a single person has been able to demonstrate even a single falsity in the material observations presented in the argument, nor has anyone uncovered a single logical fallacy or internal contradiction within the rationale. What I see here is contrived confusion about the material facts, obligatory name-calling, condescension, and repeated assertions which couldn’t hold up in the light of day.
Here is the argument given to Larry Moran, Elizabeth Liddle, Nick Matzke, Robert Saunders, Robert Collins, etc, etc:
If someone here has a comment about the actual content of the argument, I will respond.
Dr Liddle,
You have now agreed that it is inconceivable to record and transfer information without the use of representations and protocols. A representation is an abstraction of something, instantiated in a material medium to cause an effect within a system. The relationship that exists between the representation (ie. the arrangement) and its effect (within the system) is not reducible to the medium itself, it is arbitrary, and requires a mechanism to bring it into being. A protocol must physically establish the arbitrary relationship between the representation and its effect within the system. You argued with me for six months over these very obvious facts. You are now left to argue whether or not a system of representations and protocols is an irreducibly complex system.
Firstly, what utility is a representation without a protocol to actualize it into an effect? What use is a protocol without a representation to apply it to? By your own admission in the above questions (1 and 2), representations and protocols are an irreducibly complex arrangement – required for recorded information transfer.
Having admitted to what has already been demonstrated; you now want to then inject the human gathering of information from our environment as a means to question the validity of the observations. This resembles all your other anthropocentric attempts to derail the argument. Like those before it, this one fails as well. I have maintained throughout my conversations with you that the “state of an object is no more than the state of an object. If it is to become information, it requires something to bring it into being”. When your geologist observes the varves, he is doing just that. There is no information in the rock itself. You have to remove yourself from the sample.
Elizabeth,
Here is your position: It is inconceivable to record information without using an arrangement of matter to act as a representation of an effect within a system. It is inconceivable to transfer that arrangement of matter without a second arrangement of matter coordinated to establish the relationship between the representation and its effect within that system. But I see no reason why both these two arrangements of matter are required to record and transfer information.
Good Luck with that.
Patrick,
Your problem, Patrick, is that my treatment of information is too well defined by its material properties.
Firstly, I treat information by its physical properties alone. Information is recorded by an arrangement of matter to represent an effect within a system. The system contains a second arrangement of matter to establish the arbitrary relationship between the physical representation and its physical effect. If you can demonstrate a flaw in that physical description, and relate it to an actual instance of recorded information transfer, then I would be happy to respond.
Secondly, the semiotic argument does not “avoid discussing what is really happening biochemically”. The direct opposite is true, it accounts for nothing other than the physicality of the transfer. Have you been involved in any recent discussions of information transfer that more strictly describe the transfer from a purely material standpoint? If so, please provide a link.
Thirdly, my argument does not even begin to suggest what we see happening within the system “can’t happen” within the system. To the complete contrary, it obligates the observer to acknowledge what is being fully demonstrated by that system.
That makes three assertions you made in the course of one single sentence; each of them not just wrong, but entirely opposite of the actual argument being made.
Hardly an attempt to reify information, the semiotic argument deals only with the material properties associated with information transfer. If you can produce a fault in the material observations being made, then by all means voice it.
Joe Felstien,
The argument I presented is not specifically about irreducible complexity. The fact that the system of representations and protocols is IC is secondary to the observation that the system is semiotic. Also, it is not an attack on existence of evolution, although it must be acknowledged that Darwinian evolution requires recorded information to exist in order to operate. One requires the other in order to exist.
Reciprocating Bill,
If that is what #1 says to you, be my guest. The point, of course, is that there is no method to record and transfer information without using matter to serve as a representation of an effect within a system. That arrangement requires a mechanism capable of creating it – it being an arbitrarily instantiated representation of something the representation has no physical relationship with. The relationship between the two must therefore be established by a second coordinated arrangement of matter.
Entertain ET if you wish, the only conclusion of the argument I presented is that the transfer of information is demonstrably semiotic, requiring a mechanism capable of creating a semiotic state.
Of course there is a protocol in place. Like the example of the fabric loom which uses holes in paper cards as the representations, and a specific arrangement of sensors as the protocol. Or the example of the music box cylinder, which uses an arrangement of pins as the representation and an arrangement of tines as the protocol – each coordinated to cause a particular physical effect from a particular physical representation. The same thing is happening with your Victrola. (It’s happening right now in my living room…except my Victrola is an oddball unit playing through some 57 inch full-range ribbon dipoles I built 22 years ago).
Just think of how much more powerful your condescension would be if you could point out a flaw in the material descriptions provided.
DNA Jock,
Information is recorded by an arrangement of matter to represent specific effects within a system. A second arrangement of matter is required to establish the arbitrary relationship between the representation and the effect it represents within that system. There is nothing difficult in that to understand. To the contrary, it is inconceivable to imagine it happening in any other way.
Light does not ‘contain an enormous amount of information’ (there are no particles of information in light) although an enormous amount of information may be created from it. The state of an object is no more than the state of an object. If there is some material quality in light that is to become information, then it will require a mechanism to bring that information into existence. The argument I’ve presented is about the physicality of recorded information transfer. It is an anthropocentric mistake to envision a scenario where a human creates information from the environment, and imply that this somehow impacts the argument. I am not certain if that was your implication, nor am I certain what the point of the remainder of your post. The story of animal training does nothing to change the argument presented.
Allan Miller,
The argument being made is about the demonstrated physical requirements of recorded information transfer.
This is merely an assertion. If you have evidence that Darwinian evolution can establish the representations and protocols required for Darwinian evolution to exist, then I’d be happy to respond.
So you have a simple code of some length that appears somehow, and it generates a few proteins that are useful for something, and then a ribosome appears from somewhere, and that ribosome can create peptides that might do something, from an RNA tape that somehow specifies something… is that correct?
Is this why people should not conflate the origin of the code with the origin of Life?
You system will no longer allow me to post.
Madbat,
1. The conclusion of the semiotic argument is that the transfer of information during protein synthesis is demonstrated to be semiotic. Therefore a mechanism capable of creating a semiotic state is required to create the semiotic state demonstrated during protein synthesis.
2. Everything material thing in the universe operates under the regularities we call laws, so to claim that the transfer operates within those regularities (and therefore the conclusion is false) is a non-answer. You might as well suggest that the content of your post owes its existence to the forces at work in your CPU.
3. The relationship between a bee’s dance and the other bees flying off in a particular direction is not a material relationship (between the representation and its effect). If it is not a material relationship, then it must be established instead. (And that which establishes the relationship must be materially isolated from the representation and effect as well, otherwise, the information could not exist).
Reciprocating Bill,
Is this the passage you are struggling with ? …
So here we have a series of observations regarding the physicality of recorded information which repeat themselves throughout every form – no matter whether that information is bound to humans, or human intelligence, or other living things, or non-living machines. There is a list of physical entailments of recorded information that can therefore be generalized and compiled without regard to the source of the information. In other words, the list is only about the physical entailments of the information, not its source. I am using the word “entailment” in the standard sense – to impose as a necessary result (Merriam-Webster). These physical entailments are a necessary result of the existence of recorded information transfer.
Satisfying each of the four physical entailments confirms the existence of recorded information transfer, as it is demonstrated in every form of information transfer known to exist. You are free to challenge Merriam-Webster if you wish, or, you can challenge the physical observations themselves. Which of these is incorrect:
a) the existence of an arrangement of matter representing an effect within a system
b) the existence of an arrangement of matter to establish the relationship between a representation and the effect it represents within that system
c) the existence of physical effects being driven by the input of the representations
d) the dynamic property that each of these objects remain discrete.
The one rule I try to implement on this site is that we do each other the courtesy of assuming that other posters are posting in good faith. Accusing others of “contrived confusion” is an example of a violation of that rule, and there are others in this thread (on the other side :)). I will let it stand, however, and explain why it exists and what it means: it does not mean that you have to believe that others are posting in good faith, but that the game-rules are such that we make the assumption, for the sake of argument, that they are.
So accusations, on either side of an argument, that the other is being deliberately obfuscatory (and I’ve seen it on both sides) should be avoided if possible.
In fact I think it is true that people on both sides of the evolution/ID divide believe what they do in good faith, and consider their own arguments valid. But we certainly won’t get to the heart of where our differences lie unless we can rise to that level of trust.
I will do my best, and thank you for dropping by! I’ll address your actual posts shortly.
I’ve given up trying to post.
My time is limited, so perhaps another day.
That’s just because we now have a system where first-time posters (since the change) automatically have their posts moderated. It should work for you now.
Yes. I think that is true regardless of what definition of information you are using.
Well, not in usual English terminology. “Representation” usually means some kind of symbol, which is interpreted within a symbolic system shared by a community of symbol users (most notably, human beings). If you want to extend the meaning of the word to cover information transfer in some other sense (from parent to daughter cell, for instance), then I think you need to be very careful not to equivocate in your argument.
And I’d say that “mechanism” includes a community of symbol users.
They aren’t “facts”, Upright BiPed, they are attempts at defining your terms, and so far they leave room for a great deal of ambiguity. You seem to be extrapolating from the word “representation” to mean a symbol used by a community of symbol-users to communicate with each other to some quite different context, if you are talking about cell-reproduction, and I assume you are.
Right now, I, an English speaking human being, am attempting to communicate with you, a fellow English speaking human being, using a symbolic system, namely the English language, which is primarily instantiated in vocal gestures, transcribed into a pattern of visual symbols which are right now appearing as pixels on my computer screen, and, will shortly, I hope, by the wonders of telecommunication, appear on yours. With luck, you will be able to figure out what I am trying to say, and information will have been transferred from me, the sender, to you, the receiver via that symbolic system.
If you want to map that use of the word symbol/representation onto cell reproduction, can you explain who/what is the sender of the information, who the receiver, which bits are the symbols, and what is the analogy of the community of language speakers in which those symbols can be interpreted?
If so, great, but at the moment I am not seeing the mapping.
I certainly agree that pattern is not “reducible” to the parts of which it is composed, because you can destroy the pattern without destroying the parts. It’s a point I have made myself many times.
Well, no, but I hope we can this out if you can respond to my questions regarding the mapping of a symbolic system on to cell-reproduction.
On the contrary (and, btw, I have no wish to “derail the argument” but rather to un-derail it) I’d say that the “anthropocentric attempts” are from you – you are the one who is importing words like “semiotic” and “representation” from the anthropological context of language use into the context of cell-reproduction. If you want to make that connection, you do, I think, have to justify it.
If not, let’s just talk about the biochemistry, and leave words like “semiotic” and “representation” out of it, otherwise we will indeed be distracted by their anthropological connotations.
Indeed. So what is the analogy of the geologist in cell-reproduction? And you are not, I don’t think – or are you – saying that varves are symbols?
But as you have just pointed out, if you remove the geologist, you no longer have information transfer!
From whom/what to whom/what is what information being transferred by what system of symbols/representations when a cell divides?
No, that is not my position. To try to clear this up, let’s look at two of the Merriam-Webster definitions of information:
Do you regard these two definitions as equivalent?
And are you using the word “information” in either or both senses?
The point is there is more than biochemistry at work/ play. Just as there is more than electricity at work/ play inside of your computer.
In both cases information guides the processes. Information which is neither matter, nor energy.