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).
Upright:
Murder victims invariably entail a dead person who does not walk, talk, respirate, or exhibit a heart beat. In every instance of a murder the world over, throughout all history, these entailments have invariably obtained.
Therefore every time we encounter a dead person, who does not walk, talk, respirate, or exhibit a heart beat, we can conclude the person has been murdered.
And even if they are alive and do not exhibit these characteristics, if we SAY they do enough times, and mean it sincerely enough, we can believe they were murdered anyway. And if we can repeat it enough times others will come to accept and believe such murders as well. It’s just the nature of belief.
One problem, I think, Upright Biped, is that you are being misled by your own grammatical usage.
A music box does not “use… an arrangement of pins as the representation”.
A music box maker uses an arrangement of pins to encode the order of pitches in a piece of music, and fabricates a box with a comb of tongues arranged such that when any given cylinder is inserted and turned, the piece of music will be communicated to a listener.
It is not the box that uses the arrangement, it is the music-box maker.
What’s more, the arrangement of pins is only “semiotic” to another music-box maker who knows something about the configuration of music boxes, and can read off the music directly from the pins. For the music box, it’s just a series of things that collide with its pins.
Just a general moderation note: I realise this discussion may get contentious, and that there is a great deal of mutual distrust on both sides.
Please remember the game rules, and assume the other posters are posting in good faith (whether or not you in fact believe this to be the case). It’s the whole point of this site.
Thanks 🙂
Dr Liddle,
So after months of arguing from the standpoint that the genome contained information (which you could simulate the rise of) you will now need to equivocate on the use of the term “information”, or, concede that the information transferred from the genome requires physical representations and physical protocols. And if it uses representations and protocols, then it is semiotic. You are certainly free to wring your hands over the terms “representation” and “protocol”, but as I have said a number of times – you may call them anything you wish, it is their dynamic physical roles that are at issue. And while you admonish me for pointing out what I see as disingenuous in many of the objections coming from your side of the fence, I’ll remind you that descriptors such as “transcription” and “translation” (which are 100% communication/language terms) are used as standard definitive terms in every biology textbook on the planet without even a peep of concern, or the slightest bit of ambiguity.
If you are going to accuse me of equivocating on terms, then do more than just lodge the accusation – do the honorable thing of pointing out the equivocation itself. You know (perhaps better than most) that I am not concerned with the domain of the information, but only with its dynamic physical qualities. Do you know of “some kind of symbol” that is not instantiated in a material medium? Are you aware of any representation that does not exist to have an effect within a system? If the answer to these two questions is ‘no’, then my definition of a representation is correct, as seen from the standpoint of its physicality alone. You constantly resist viewing these issues in terms of their physicality, instead preferring to repeatedly return to human involvement – as if there is no information transfer beyond human bounds, and if there is, then it must certainly be different in its physical dynamics than in human information transfer. Both of those positions are demonstrably false. After repeatedly demonstrating the sameness of the objects and dynamics in all forms of recorded information transfer, this constant anthropocentric dance has become tiresome. It has now reached the level of being pointless to the process of understanding. Why not just say “I refuse to consider information by its demonstrated physicality” and be done with it?
Then in all instances of information transfer (including the information transfer you’ve argued for in the genome) will require a symbol-maker to establish the relationships required to transfer the information into its effect. That is not the more modest conclusion of the semiotic argument, but its fine by me.
I will attempt to refrain from any colloquial word use (such as “facts”) so that you may focus on the material observations at hand. Regarding those material observations, can you point to a falsity within them? I have stated that a representation is an arrangement of matter to cause a specific effect within a system. You have agreed that it is inconceivable to record information by any other means. Perhaps now you can point to the “great deal of ambiguity” contained within this observation. I have also stated that a second arrangement of matter is required to establish the arbitrary relationship between a representation and its effect within the system. Again, you have agreed that it is inconceivable to transfer information without such an arrangement of matter. So again I ask, please point to the “great deal of ambiguity” you see in that observation as well.
How many times must we go over this Dr Liddle? I have described the transfer of recorded information by the material objects involved, as well as by the dynamic relationships between those material objects. These material objects and their dynamic relationships do not entail the domain of the information – only the physical properties of the recorded transfer. The questions of ‘who/what the sender is’ is not relevant to the observations. That’s precisely the point made by the observation – it is demonstrated that the physicality of the transfer is exactly the same regardless of the domain of the recorded information. You have already conceded that it is inconceivable to transfer recorded information by any means other than by those objects and dynamics, so why the constant need to inject an anthropocentric veil over the observations? Do you not agree that a human transfer of information requires representations and protocols operating in specific roles within a system? Do you agree that bee communication requires representations and protocols operating in specific roles within a system? Do you agree that an information-driven fabric loom requires representations and protocols operating in specific roles within a system? Do you agree that a music box requires representations and protocols operating in specific roles within a system? At what point to we dispense with your anthropocentric veil, and simply recognize that ALL recorded information transfer requires representations and protocols operating in specific roles within a system? You have already conceded that it is inconceivable to record and transfer information by any other means, so why do you continue to perpetuate this constant distraction, as if the recorded information transfer from the genome demonstrates something entirely different than those same roles operating within a system? You know very well that it doesn’t.
You have previously agreed that it is inconceivable to record and transfer information without an arrangement of matter to represent an effect within a system, and then without missing a beat, you turned around and literally just asked me “what bits are the symbols” regarding nucleic translation. Is it any wonder I find some of your objections patently disingenuous? This, after you and I spent months going over these exact same observations. Since May of 2011, just how many times do you think we have talked about the sequence of nucleotides in DNA acting as representations of specific effects within a system? More than 20? More than 30? More than 50? And now, almost a year later, you still have no problem in asking such an impertinent question. You see Dr Liddle; the problem is that you have yet to show a single material observation that is false in the argument. You certainly objected all along the way, but all your objections have been repeatedly answered. You have been unable to demonstrate anything invalid. At what point do you think one person is justified in believing another person is being willfully obstinate in asking such a question, yet again? And yet, you now want to protect your actions under the guise of moderation. If my voicing the history of this conversation gives you reason to delete my posts, then by all means, feel free to do so.
You failed to answer the two questions: “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?” Yet, based upon your agreement as to what is inconceivable, it should be quite convincing that representations and protocols are an IC system fundamentally required in order to transfer recorded information.
Again, words like “transcription” and “translation”, which are entirely anthropic language-based terms, are in wholesale use in describing the processing of DNA. These are the standard terms used throughout the biological sciences, and a quick search of Google Scholar returns 1,600,000 articles and technical papers using those terms. My guess is that this will not faze you in the slightest. In any case, no one is confused by their use. And again, I have told you umpteen times you may use whatever – whatever – terms you wish because it is their physical nature that is at issue. And how is it that you can claim being distracted or confused when you’ve agreed to statements using these very terms in this context? At some point, Dr Liddle, the constant objections simply lose their capacity to mean anything. And as far as “making the connection” and “talking about biochemistry”, how many dozens of times have you and I talked about nucleotide sequences being the object (arrangement of matter) to cause an effect within a system, and how many dozens of times have we talked about aminoacyl synthetases being the object (arrangement of matter) that establishes the specific effect to a specific arrangement of nucleotides? How many dozens of times have we talked about the dynamic roles played by these objects, or the material isolation at work in this process? What is the purpose in presenting yourself as if these conversations never took place?
Not to be flippant, but there are no geologists at work in protein synthesis. The example of protein synthesis is not a correlation to a geologist creating recorded information from the state of an object (like a rock for example). However, it is specifically correlated with the music box or the automated fabric loom or any number of an untold million other examples where representations and protocols have been purposefully established within a system in order to process recorded information and produce a specified result.
And no, varves do not contain recorded information; they are no more than the state of an object – just as I have said.
Why are varves not considered to be recorded information? As I have always maintained, not only would that position deviate wildly from the core etymology of the word, but because if we do so, then every material thing in the cosmos becomes “recorded information”, which does not account for the reality where matter is actually arranged specifically to record information. We would simply be forcing ourselves to invent a new word for “information” in order to contrast it against the old word which we had destroyed by our use. We will have taken a very narrow and specific physical reality (recorded information) and transformed it to being ubiquitous among matter, therefore destroying its meaning and creating an unnecessary hole in our vocabulary where one does not now exist. Moreover, there is no “information” contained within a rock, if there were, then “information” would need to be added to the Periodic Table of elements. And finally, the motivation to consider all matter as “information” is driven by the human desire to make that matter calculable to human observers – and what could be more anthropocentric than that?
Again, all of these issues have been covered a number of times, and none of them have any impact whatsoever on the material observations (of the objects and dynamics) involved in recorded information transfer. So why are we still here after almost a year of conversation?
If you have an actual objection which would invalidate any of those material observations, then state it.
Through his sensory systems, the geologist provides the capacity to create recorded information from the state of an object. An observer can uptake information from his environment because he has a system of representations and protocols to do so. This is true, unless you hold to the idea that touching something warm sends warmth through your nervous system. Otherwise, the sensation is only a representation of warmth, actualized by a protocol to respond to that sensory input. On the other hand, when the geologist writes his notes for others to read, that exchange demonstrates the same physical objects and dynamic relationships as any other form of recorded information transfer. That exchange is semiotic; which is the argument you’ve been thus far unable to challenge.
Dr Liddle,
Yet previously…
So in order to dissemble this issue, you want me to review two definitions that have nothing whatsoever to do with the validity of the three statements made. One must also take into consideration that you entirely ignored these follow-up questions in my last post:
Reciprocating Bill,
Thank you for your response. The fact that you were forced into mockery is a welcome compliment. If it’s any consolation, I think your witty retort was very convincing.
Perhaps now you can point out a fault in the material observations.
Dr Liddle,
This is another powerful objection. My oven does not use a heating element in the top for broiling and another in the bottom for baking. My car does not use spark plugs to ignite the fuel mixture in the cylinders. My computer does not use ports to communicate with accessory systems. My front door does not use barrel hinges in order to swing open and shut. The lamp in my garage does not use florescent tubes. All of these required something else to come into existence.
Odd isn’t it; when it comes to the genome, you will immediately change positions and say the direct opposite is true.
Do music-box makers instantiate the protocol for correct playback into the system, or not? If they do, then the protocol for correct playback will exist there. If they do not, then the protocol for correct playback will not exist there. So which is it?
Again, these existential requirements you keep highlighting will suddenly vanish the very moment you turn to the genome. Is that not true? Or will ignore the material evidence, and simply never allow it to get to that point?
My money is on the latter, but in any case, you still have yet to demonstrate a single falsity in the material observations.
Upright BiPed,
You’re jumping layers here.
Elizabeth said, “arrangement of pins”, (as in information), not “pins”, (as in physical object).
The music box does not know that a certain “arrangement of pins” means “Hey Jude” when played.
Your oven elements do not use “information” in this way.
The analogy is not very helpful to your case.
Biped:
My comment underscores a fundamental flaw in your reasoning:
This is wrong, for the same reason that the conclusion that the next deceased person you encounter was necessarily murdered is wrong.
It simply would not follow from an observation that all known instances of semiotic information transfer (all of which are instances of human symbolic or representational communication) exhibit your “material entailments” that all systems exhibiting these “entailments” are necessarily semiotic, convey semiotic information, or have semiotic origins. Unless, of course, you are simply defining “semiotic” as “exhibits these material entailments,” in which case to assert that “a system that satisfies the entailments (physical consequences) of recorded information, also confirms the existence of a semiotic state” is a tautology that gets you no further than did proposing your definition.
The counter assertion is that your “entailments” and “semiotic state” are not coterminal, and that some instances of information transfer (human symbolic and representational communication) display your “entailments” because such entailments are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions of symbolic and representational communication (that is to say, “semiotic” denotes many characteristics beyond your enumerated entailments), while others (biological systems) display those characteristics while having arisen by means of evolutionary processes that have no semiotic content or function (and lack those additional characteristics). Even if one grants that your entailments are a necessary condition for the transfer of symbolic and/or representational communication; it does not follow that representational or symbolic content is a necessary condition for the emergence of systems displaying your material entailments.
Of course, that is simply to state a starting assumption, not anything conclusory. It then becomes an empirical question, not one that can be decided in an armchair shuffling dictionary definitions. The science inheres in the work that follows: articulating how such complex biological systems arose by means of evolutionary processes. No trivial task.
———————————————-
I think dissembling comes much more natural to you that that. Indeed, nearly unavoidable.
Could any arrangement of matter exist without non-material information?
The answer is no, and that is why materialism fails.
Hello Toronto,
Dr Liddle’s objection was not about information; it was about my application of the word “use” to an inanimate object accomplishing a function, She made the distinction clear in her text:
Consequently, my response was about the common application of the word “use” to inanimate objects that accomplish functions. In any case, it appears that you missed the larger issue, that is, “Hey Jude” does indeed play, and the fact that it does is not reducible to the music box, but to the arbitrary relationships between the representations, protocols, and effects.
And by the way, no one has ever suggested that the box knows the song it plays. It’s irrelevant to the material transfer..
Reciprocating Bill,
That was one long assertion. Do you intend on backing it up with a material counter example? Or should we just be enamored by your claim, and rest assured that there is one?
Upright BiPed
Reciprocating Bill,
That was one long assertion. Do you intend on backing it up with a counter example? Or should we just be enamored by your claim, and rest assured that there is one?
Actually RB made some very salient points and demonstrated quite clearly the rather large holes in your reasoning.
Are you going to address his criticisms, or will you just wave your hands and pretend there’s no problem?
Thorton,
From Bill I am awaiting the material counter examples that his objection assumes to exist.
From you I am awaiting a description of the large holes in the material observations provided in the argument.
Upright BiPed
Thorton,
From Bill I am awaiting the material counter examples that his objection assumes to exist.
From you I am awaiting a description of the large holes in the material observations provided in the argument.
OK, just wave your hands and pretend there’s no problem it is.
Semi-idiotic theory is becoming more appropriate every day.
Does that conclude your critique of the material observations made in the argument?
Insults before swine, eh, Thorton?
uprightbiped,
What is your ultimate point?
Have you submitted a paper on this topic to an appropriate, peer reviewed journal?
Upright BiPed,
But it’s not arbitrary.
If you put a pin “there”, you will get “that” note at “that” time.
What you claim as “information” in the music box, is “hard-coded” as there is no level of indirection involved.
There is no “protocol”, as it is in effect hard-wired.
Living cells work because of chemistry, not “code”.
The cell and the music box only contain “information” after the fact, as we humans try to come up with a description of them.
All semiotic systems satisfy the entailments (physical consequences) of recorded information. Therefore demonstrating a system that satisfies the entailments (physical consequences) of recorded information confirms the existence of a semiotic state.
All rainstorms make the ground wet. Therefore demonstrating that the ground is wet confirms the existence of a rainstorm.
Think real hard UprightBiped, and tell me what’s wrong with the above logic.
Upright BiPed,
Just to make it clear, an MP3 player would work with “information”, while a music box doesn’t since the pins are not symbolic, they are part of the actual “process”.
Toronto
Just to make it clear, an MP3 player would work with “information”, while a music box doesn’t since the pins are not symbolic, they are part of the actual “process”.
This ^^^
UB is making the same silly mistake made by thousands of Creationists before him. He’s assuming that the molecules that make up a genome are abstract symbols, but they’re not. They aren’t abstract representations of anything, and the only ‘protocols’ that apply to them are the laws of chemist and physics. They pass ‘information’ only because we define the results of the self-sustaining chemical reaction they’re in to be information.
UB is just repackaging the same Creationist PRATT argument, except he’s a lot more verbose and long-winded than most.
You’ve been making this argument for several years at least now, if it is a strong as you believe and proves what you believe it proves why have you not formally published it so it’s strength can support the ID case generally? If you are interested in others critiquing your work you’ll find that many more people are willing to do it against a formally published paper rather then on blogs etc. So everybody wins.
If you in fact have published, can you link?
There are several ID journals which I happen to know are desperate for content. Why not support them?
Upright Biped:
Yes, easy to mock speculation, isn’t it? The reason we should not conflate the origin of the code with the origin of life is that there is no evidence that they were contemporaneous. So to do so is to build a body of theory upon something that may prove to be a straw man. The very complexity of the system requires that we infer a simpler precursor (or a celestial biochemist who can bolt together this interactive system, counter to what we know of chemical reactivity).
As I said, the state prior to LUCA is not available for indirect examination through comparative biology. Therefore we must do a great deal of inference. That inference must be guided by the states we observe today, which include a significant amount of patterning among the properties of the acids of the ‘modern’ code. This is held up by Creationists as some kind of inexplicable miracle of IC design, whereas it is those chemical relationships themselves which would be expected to constrain expansion of a limited code set towards the present 20 in a pattern that would be forgiving of occasional misread errors. If there was a period when few proteins were coded for, the code would be malleable, but not infinitely so. Accidental substitutions that were NOT chemically conservative would be punished, leaving those that WERE chemically conservative through this substitution filter. The result of a chemically conservative substitution process would be codons whose close neighbours (into which misread errors strayed) were chemically similar amino acids – the design-like error tolerance at which we are invited to marvel today.
I suspect you are not unduly bothered by matters of chemistry, and as someone who rejects evolutionary explanations, will be happy to carry on touting the 20-acid, 4-base code as the acme of Design, the very first cell a DNA-based ribosomal protein factory using that full set in complex symphony. We have no extant examples of simpler codes, no life forms which are not heavily into protein manufacture, and no knowledge of the functions of early proteins. So if it pleases you to assume that there never were such things, knock yourself out.
Exactly so. What we are looking at today is what worked in the past.
What did not work did not make it to today.
The fact is that whatever form the information that makes us what we are is instantiated in would be pointed at by Upright as evidence. DNA, silicon, beads on a string.
If DNA is a representation of information that was created by a designer perhaps Upright would care to translate a few thousand sentences into English?
This is so bizarre. OOL has been a mystery since forever, and the origin of the genetic code a mystery since 1970. There’s nothing new added by reifying a metaphor.
I fail to see why this is even interesting. When we can produce a primitive code in the laboratory we will have something interesting to discuss.
Biped:
My remark above underscores a fatal logical non-sequitur in your reasoning and doesn’t turn on “counter examples.”
If you can’t either show where I am wrong, or revise your reasoning to avoid that non-sequitur, your argument fails.
There is another option open to UB et al. I hope he does not take it and sees the course through here.
LoL! The “theory” of evolution is desperate for content. Unfortunately no one can help it.
The problem is that “evolutionary” explanations do not appear to be testable.
Ya see the problem with your “inference” is that it is based on your world-view and they cannot be tested. Change your world-view and the inference changes.
The problem is you are not even wrong.
And there is ANOTHER option as well- that being you anti-IDists actually step up and start supporting your position.
As for UB, there is nothing here for him to see through- well actually I am sure he can see through evo obfuscation
Yes, that is the distinction that I would make. And that is why I am underwhelmed by these arguments about DNA as information.
There’s something else wrong with this kind of argument. The ID proponents are, in effect, saying: “Wow! That looks like magic. It must be evidence for God (or for an unnamed intelligent designer.”) By contrast, the scientists in effect say: “I’m not sure how that works, so it is something to investigate.” I see the scientists way of looking at things to be the best way, even if one is religious.
Asteroids are an arrangement of matter. Specifically describe and demonstrate the non-material information, and the origin of the non-material information, in an asteroid that has never been detected or seen by humans or any other living thing.
After you do that, consider and respond to this:
An undetected asteroid is coming toward this planet. When it enters the atmosphere it ‘burns up’. It is no longer an arrangement of matter, is it? Where did the matter go? What happened to the non-material information? Does that non-material information still exist?
LoL! hey Neil, unfortunately your position has no answer for DNA nor how it gets transcribed nor translated.
Do you really think that once you get all the right parts that transcription and translation will “just happen”? Really?
Yes asteroids are an arrangement of matter. But they wouldn’t exist without that non-material information.
Yes, I do. I mean that if we were to construct, molecule by molecule, the an exact replica of the contents of a cell, yes, I think the “transcription and translation” would “just happen”.
Just as I think that if I were to construct, part by part, an exact replica of any working object, it would work just like the original. Don’t you?
What “non-material information?” How can you measure its presence?
Prove it.
It amazes me that this even needs saying. What on (or off) earth does JoeG think is needed to make a working replica, other than the necessary component parts?
Joe does not do proof.
Great- perhaps some day someone will do that.
If I construct a computer it isn’t going to work until I add software. When Venter synthesized DNA he needed everything else the cell contains to make it work.
So no, Liz, I doubt a living organism is so reducible.
Norbert Weiner– who is an authority on information said:
Refute it.
Evos don’t do anything but gripe.
Software, ie information to make all the parts start working.
If Liz is right then it should be easy to construct a living organism from scratch. Is Liz trying to say OoL researchers are too stupid to pull off such a thing?
And joe avoids questions.
uprightbiped,
Do you agree with joe that the arrangement of matter in an asteroid is due to non-material information?
Evos avoid reality…
Ya see if you could just answer questions pertaining to your position we may not be having this discussion.