I thought I would give a comment by a poster with the handle “ericB” a little more publicity as it was buried deep in an old thread where it was unlikely to be seen by passing “materialists / evolutionists”.
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Calling all evolutionists / materialists! Your help is needed! Alan Fox has not been able to answer a particular challenge, but perhaps you know an answer.
The issue is simple and the bar is purposely set low. The question is whether there exists one or more coherent scenarios for the creation of a translation system by unguided chemicals.
The translation system in cells indicates intelligent design. I would submit that, regardless of how many billions of years one waited, it is not reasonable to expect that unguided chemicals would ever construct a system for translating symbolic information into functional proteins based on stored recipes and a coding convention.
[I realize people have thoughts about what happened earlier (e.g. that might not need proteins, for example) and what happened later (e.g. when a functioning cell provides the full benefits of true Darwinian evolution). For the purposes here, attention is focused specifically on the transition from a universe without symbolic translation to construct proteins to the origin of such a system. Whatever happened earlier or later, sooner or later this bridge would have to be crossed on any path proposed to lead to the cells we see now.]
One of the key considerations leading to this conclusion is that a translation system depends upon multiple components, all of which are needed in order to function.
+ Decoding
At the end, one needs the machinery to implement and apply the code to decode encoded symbolic information into its functional form. (In the cell, this is now the ribosome and supporting machinery and processes, but the first instance need not be identical to the current version.) Without this component, there is no expression of the functional form of what the symbolic information represents. The system as a whole would be useless as a translation system without this. Natural selection could not select for the advantages of beneficial expressed proteins, if the system cannot yet produce any. A DVD without any player might make a spiffy shiny disk, but it would be useless as a carrier of information.
+ Translatable Information Bearing Medium
There must be a medium that is both suitable for holding encoded information and that is compatible with the mechanism for decoding. Every decoding device imposes limitations and requirements. It would be useless to a DVD player if your video was on a USB thumb drive the DVD player could not accept instead of a suitable disk. In the cells we see, this is covered by DNA and ultimately mRNA.
+ Meaningful Information Encoded According to the Same Coding Convention
One obviously needs to have encoded information to decode. Without that, a decoding mechanism is useless for its translation system purpose. If you had blank DVDs or DVDs with randomly encoded gibberish or even DVDs with great high definition movies in the wrong format, the DVD player would not be able to produce meaningful results, and so would have no evolutionary benefit tied to its hypothetical but non-functioning translation abilities. In the cell, this information holds the recipes for functional proteins following the same encoding convention implemented by the ribosome and associated machinery.
+ Encoding Mechanisms
This is perhaps the least obvious component, since the cell does not contain any ability to create a new store of encoded protein recipes from scratch. Indeed, this absence is part of the motivating reasons for the central dogma of molecular biology. Nevertheless, even if this capability has disappeared from view, there would have to be an origin and a source for the meaningful information encoded according to the same coding convention as is used by the decoding component.
(For the moment, I will just note in passing that the idea of starting out with random gibberish and running the system until meaningful recipes are stumbled upon by accident is not a viable proposal.)
So there has to be some source capable of encoding, and this source must use the same coding convention as the decoding component. To have a working, beneficial DVD player, there must also be a way to make a usable DVD.
+ Meaningful Functional Source Material to Represent
It would do absolutely no good to have the entire system in place, if there did not also exist in some form or other a beneficial “something” to represent with all this symbolic capability. If you want to see a movie as output, there needs to be a movie that can be encoded as input. If you want functional proteins as output, there needs to be access to information about proper amino acid sequences for functional proteins that can serve as input. Otherwise, GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out. If there is no knowledge of what constitutes a sequence for a functional protein, then the result produced at the end of the line would not be a functional protein.
+ Some Other Way To Make What You Want The System To Produce
If we supposed that the first movie to be encoded onto a DVD came from being played on a DVD player, we would clearly be lost in circular thinking, which does not work as an explanation for origins. Likewise, if the only way to produce functional proteins is to get them by translating encoded protein recipes, that reveals an obvious problem for explaining the origin of that encoded information about functional proteins. How can blind Nature make a system for producing proteins, if there has never yet been any functional proteins in the universe? On the other hand, how does blind Nature discover and use functional proteins without having such a system to make them?
The core problem is that no single part of this system is useful as a translation system component if you don’t have the other parts of the system. There is nowhere for a blind process to start by accident that would be selectable toward building a translation system.
The final killer blow is that chemicals don’t care about this “problem” at all. Chemicals can fully fulfill all the laws of chemistry and physics using lifeless arrangements of matter and energy. Chemicals are not dissatisfied and have no unmet goals. A rock is “content” to be a rock. Likewise for lifeless tars.
The biology of cells needs chemistry, encoded information, and translation, but chemicals do not need encoded information or biology. They aren’t trying to become alive and literally could not care less about building an encoded information translation system.
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I’m hoping ericB will find time to respond to any comments his challenge might elicit.
I agree; you are quite right that there are multiple different meanings for “natural”.
You used one possible meaning when you said, “processes that occur in nature”. However, that is not the meaning that I was using or intended.
For this particular discussion, where something happens (e.g. out in nature vs. somewhere in civilization?) is not the important distinction. The relevant distinction is whether something can be caused by natural processes alone (i.e. the laws of physics and chemistry plus chance variations) as contrasted with causes that include the contribution of intelligence.
In terms of this distinction, your own post pointed out that birds have at least a bird level of intelligence and that nests “give compelling indications of intelligent agency.” In terms of the meaning and distinction I am making, the compelling indication of intelligent agency fulfills the requirement of recognizing the nests as Artificial (i.e. they are artifacts) rather than Natural (i.e. produced by mere natural law + chance processes).
Other meanings of the terms are not wrong or illegitimate. As you correctly indicated, it’s just important to be clear about which meaning we are working with. Thanks for asking for the clarification.
No, that would not be correct. Please see my previous post to Neil Rickert where I discuss his correct observation that there are multiple meanings for the term “natural”, and explain which one I am using.
In short, it is important to keep in mind that the relevant distinction being made is not Natural vs. Supernatural, but rather Natural vs. Artificial. Or similarly, as you observe in a different post, Not Designed vs. Design.
The critical observation is that intelligent agents have access to abilities that mindless chemical processes do not. For example, an intelligent agent can pursue a distant goal — even if the intermediate steps are not yet functional let alone beneficial.
That distinction is highly relevant to the construction of complex systems. It is often the case that such a system is not functional in the early stages.
This leads directly to the very relevant question before us. Is it reasonable to expect that natural processes would build a functioning translation system without the aid of any intelligence or intelligent programming?
p.s. BTW, I’m not implying that humans are only material and not in any way supernatural. I’m simply pointing out that the answer to that question is not relevant to the distinction at hand. Even programmed devices that are not in any way supernatural, such as computers or robots, could produce Artificial effects. It would change nothing in the case I’m presenting if intelligence does not require anything supernatural.
Sorry to have to disagree, but whether intelligence is supernatural or not has no effect whatsoever on an inference to intelligent design. It is really a completely irrelevant consideration. As I mentioned in the reply I just made to cubist (cf. especially the p.s.), it would change nothing in the case we are discussing here if intelligence does not depend on any supernatural component.
Anytime anyone looks at an effect and infers, “Someone did this.”, they are making an inference to intelligent design — even if the person is a materialist and even if materialism is true.
I don’t really want to get sidetracked on this, but I felt that this is such an important foundational understanding that it would be difficult to even discuss the topic at hand well if we did not have a clear shared understanding about the meaning.
I’m not requiring that you agree with my conclusions, but to be able to talk, it is essential that you would at least operate in terms of the intended meanings of words and ideas, even of those you disagree with. That doesn’t seem unreasonable, does it?
Nope. You’re trying to pretend that there could have been a Natural ie non-supernatural Big-D Designer before the OoL, that “Designer” which you want to credit with setting up the “translation system” which you believe was necessary before anything recognizable alive could have metabolized and replicated.
But there were NO natural designers, whether intelligent or not, whether artificial or not, prior to the evolution of at least bird-level intelligent life 3billion years later than OoL. Now if you want to admit that your position does entail a Supernatural Designer prior to OoL, then maybe you have something sensible to say following that.
If not, your position is illogical nonsense. You might fool yourself but you won’t fool anyone who can think through the logical timeline.
Sure, and after conceding that you need a Supernatural Designer for your ID position to even get off the ground, then you still need to bring some actual evidence (fossils, morphology, DNA sequences) that your putative designer ever did pursue some distant goal that left any traces whatsoever anywhere in our biota. Sorta like your friend Stephen Meyers tried to do with his Cambrian explosion book Darwn’s Doubt. Too bad he’s an idiot about the science, but at least he tried. What’s your contribution of evidence? Got anything at all?
Sure, but now you need to demonstrate that the DNA/RNA translation we’ve been discussing is actually “not functional in the early stages”. Good luck with that!
Of course it’s reasonable to expect, if that’s what happened in reality. Only a fool expects things to be contrary to reality.
And since you haven’t provided a lick of evidence that Supernatural/Artificial/Designed processes did result in the DNA/RNA translation, and meanwhile you’ve chosen to ignore that there are some plausible completely-natural explanations, what does that say about how seriously you take your own “relevant” question?
Absorb the education you’ve been handed for free here, then come back and ask some actual biologically-relevant questions.
You’re evading again. The subject of the OP – your discussion, remember? – is your claim that DNA/RNA translation system could not have originated without intelligent guidance. But you have to admit there were no natrual intelligent entities on Earth prior to 3billions years of evolution! So when you’re trying to claim that some entity designed the DNA/RNA translation, that entity by necessity would have been Supernatural.
Use the brains you think God gave you. Be logical about the timeline of your own “hypothesis”.
Don’t behave in a patronizing, snarky, and rude manner to your host. It’s unbecoming of you.
Yeah, I don’t think you’ll offend Lizzie. Or maybe she’ll be too decent and civil to call you on it. But your behavior offends me on her behalf, and I’ll call you on it.
Mike Elzinga:
You forgot to mention Fred Hoyle.
Speaking of …
David Berlinski. Another person who obviously failed high school math.
Hoyle, his math sucked, so did his physics! Isn’t that what’s inscribed on his headstone?
Mike Elzinga:
What makes you think that he thinks that computer parts are stand ins for the properties and behaviors of atoms and molecules?
Computer parts, like humans, are composed of atoms and molecules. In what sense are humans merely “stand-ins” for the properties and behaviors of atoms and molecules?
Humans perform computations. Computers perform computations. When it comes to performing computation computers can “stand in” for humans.
Do you agree or disagree that cells perform computations?
Of course, you probably think that ericB failed high school physics/chemistry. So whatever he says cannot matter to you.
His biology sucked.
Not as smart as Feynman, who admitted it. After spending some time assisting in the biology department and contaminating all the samples.
Well, the fact remains that you just avoided the challenge and changed the subject yet again. So, yes, you flunk every time this subject comes up; and it is still safe to assume you never learned high school science.
But you are pretty good at hurling feces into every discussion; not much of a life achievement on your part.
We will be watching to see if ericB sees the significance of the exercise and how it relates to his assertions, even though you don’t have a clue.
I continue to assert that none of you can do the exercise; not one of you understands the significance of the calculation and what it has to do with ID/creationist caricatures of physics and chemistry. Nothing has changed in fifty years.
cubist:
Donald Bray, oh, forget who he is, has written a book:
Wetware: A computer in every living cell.
Wikipedia:
Who cares what you say? Facts intrude.
Mike, I have yet to see anything yet that you have written pose any challenge. You’re a tired old man living in the past whose grasp of the issues is at best pathetic and whose responses are at best robotic. I graduated high school in only three years. I didn’t do that by failing courses. I did that by meeting the requirements for graduation in only three years.
And no, I didn’t graduate from some “creationist” or “religious” high school.
Don’t let facts intrude:
From the quality of your “scientific” understanding apparently it was the last three years.
ericB:
Well, you’re just wrong. A chess master may devise and seek to execute a plan, but a chess playing computer can beat a chess master without pursuing any goal beyond that which is immediately beneficial.
Completely wrong in every possible way.
thorton:
3 years. First 3 years = Last 3 years. DOH!
thorton:
False. DNA is a molecule.
thorton:
False.
thorton:
False.
Well shucks. I’d really hoped to sneak that past you.
Gee Mung, so you have the ability to cherry-pick the non-applicable one of several definitions of ‘code’ that suits your needs while ignoring the rest. Impressive. What other rhetorical tricks did you learn in high school?
From Biology Online:
“Genetic code
(Science: molecular biology) the relationship between the sequence of bases in nucleic acid and the order of amino acids in the polypeptide synthesised from it. A sequence of three nucleic acid bases (a triplet) acts as a codeword (codon) for one amino acid. ”
Nothing in there about abstract symbols.
Mung,
Being good at math is no guarantee that the person is good at physics or biology.
petrushka,
two words. Dennis Bray (edited)
olegt:
I agree. What is Mike Elzinga good at? Other than insults?
Over at UD Salvador Cardoza claimed that being kicked out of a casino proved he is good at math.
My response was that the fact that I had played an entire game of chess blindfolded and even won the game did not prove that I am good at chess. His response was to delete my post 🙂
So yes, R.A. Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane and Sewall Wright, and even
Motoo Kimura. No guarantee. Your point?
My point is that Fred Hoyle was both a mathematician and a physicist. So to claim he was clueless in either field is suspect.
True, Fred Hoyle was not a biologist. But why does that disqualify him from understanding and analyzing the mathematics of population genetics?
Why should any claim that he did not understand the physics be taken seriously?
Do you mean Dennis Bray?
thorton:
Your claim that I have cherry picked is simply yet another false claim. Present another definition of a code different from the wikipedia article I quoted.
How many definitions of code can you present?
Wikipedia:
Better yet, show how/why “the genetic code” fails to qualify as a code so defined.
Obviously I am very good at exposing your and other ID/creationist’s ignorance of basic, high school level science, because every one of you manages to avoid facing up to the fact that you have been nailed.
By avoiding a very simple, high school level exercise, you keep demonstrating that none of you understand any of the science you claim to be able to criticize.
And every response of yours that simply hurls more feces and tries to project your inabilities and ignorance onto others simply confirms what we already know about you.
You are apparently not smart enough to fool anyone; because you see, Mung, I manage to get you every time. You just hurl more feces. Yet you can’t do the exercise; and now everyone here knows it.
When can we expect you to grab hold of a high school physics text and figure out how to do that exercise?
I already did.
The one for genetic code that disproved your assertion was enough.
Because the genetic code doesn’t use symbols. There is no abstraction or representation of a message through symbols anywhere in the process.
Mike Elzinga:
Google search of “high school physics text” and “mike elzinga” fails to turn up anything of interest. Who was your publisher Mike?
Mung,
Caution — Mike’s scaling exercise involves geometry and physics. Remember what happened the last time you tried to do some geometry here at TSZ?
Unbelievable, indeed.
Ah, the “1 move deep” chess program! Just make the ‘best’ move every time. Guaranteed to beat any grandmaster (with brain damage).
Not. Even. Wrong.
I’ve moved some posts to Guano. There are probably some more that should go there.
Please read the rules, guys.
Don’t feel under any pressure. We all have variable amounts of time and inclination to participate here. There’s no rule (other than house rules, of course!).
Scary, I was checking how to send comments to guano and I see I’ve been pre-empted! You must be aware of my reluctance to “guano” comments but I was going to, as I started the thread, and some comments were way past borderline on any fair person’s judgement
Mung, I am aware that many people have employed the “information in cells” metaphor. I am also aware that of the people who have employed said metaphor, many seem to believe that this ‘information’ thingie genuinely is a feature of living cells, as opposed to a pedagogical metaphor. My position is that people who believe that ‘information’ genuinely is a feature of living cells, are wrong; they are committing the error of reifying a metaphor.
What goes on in a living cell is just chemistry, Mung. Extremely complex chemistry, sure, but chemistry nonetheless. If you disagree, fine; you disagree. But if you want to refute the proposition that what goes on in living cells is just chemistry, and ‘information’ need not apply… you’re gonna have to demonstrate that there genuinely is something more to living cells than just chemistry. And that means you’re gonna have to do something other than, oh, cite the work of a person who erroneously reifies the ‘information in cells’ metaphor.
Are you up to that task, Mung?
To pit material processes (just chemistry and physics) against information or codes or symbolic processing is an example of a false dilemma, an error in reasoning. It was covered at length back on the original thread at uncommondescent.
For the materialist, to pose this false dilemma is to imply that information and codes and symbolic processing cannot exist at all, since everything is ultimately material (in the materialist’s viewpoint).
Computer’s are a specific example of a device that processes symbolic information according to material (chemical and physical) processes. The composition of the device and its manner of operation are irrelevant to the question of whether it uses codes or processes information.
I disagree with that. A computer is an electrical appliance. It carries out complex switching operations on electro-magnetic signals. The only symbols that you will find in a computer are the ones printed on the manufacturer’s label.
Yes, the computer carries out information processing. But it does that only in the sense that we view it as doing information processing. What we see as information in the computer is information by virtue of our intentionality. The computer itself has no native intentionality, and is not at all informed by what we call “information.”
None of that matters, given the way that we use computers. As long as what the computer does can be interpreted by us, as processing our information, then we can continue to think of it as an information processor. However, we cannot just look at its physical operations and conclude that the computer processes information. Looking only at its physical operations, the most that we can conclude is that it does complex switching of electrical signals.
I agree that we don’t see that happening at present in biology, which is part of the motivation for the central dogma of molecular biology. (Another motivation is the problem of implementing a one-to-many mapping from amino acid sequences to nucleic acid codon sequences.)
I present the issue in the context of the need to populate the store of meaningful recipes for functional proteins. It exists. It must have an origin. Somehow this information came to be in its stored, encoded form. How did the collection arise? Every proposed solution must address this without falling into the error of assuming chemicals will build a system according to its future benefit.
I would not agree with this statement as worded. While a random sequence of RNA could be fed to a ribosome to produce a polypeptide amino acid sequence, that does not constitute a protein. I don’t want to get bogged down in terminology, but proteins function as such because of the stable three dimensional folds they establish. Sequences that can establish such folds are vanishingly rare within the space of amino acid sequences. Plus, if one is using the wrong STOP code, the process is likely terminated prematurely, even if the original message had been a
functional protein recipe for another organism.
Sorry, but I don’t think we can just “permit” assumptions as large as “a smaller version of the ribosome” simply as givens. There are major missing pieces before you have justified a full translation system.
Again, while you excel at chemistry that requires no real code (by your own description), that still keeps those points of yours (however valid) on the outside of the challenge.
I’m out of time for the moment. Back later. Sorry I cannot elaborate more right now. But please do think about the origin process for a store of recipes for proteins that can fold into stable 3D shapes.
In standard usage, all linear polymers of amino acids are proteins. It’s by definition. If you mean something else you can use a qualifier. (big, small, globular, catalytic, functional, unstable).
Well, not just the folding. The process depends on the sequence of amino acids and their properties, whether hydrophilic or lipophilic, acid or basic side chains, hydrogen bonding etc. Functional proteins will all eventually fold into stable configurations that are characteristic of the protein, to the extent some can be crystallized.
You are mistaken here.There is no way of establishing what functionality lies in unknown sequence space. Some work has been done that indicates protein space may be quite rich in proteins with enzyme activity.
How do you justify that comment given the differences in the rules and the energies of interaction among the constituents of a computer and those of a cell?
This is where ID/creationists go off the rails when reifying the “information” metaphor. You assume that computers are metaphors for the processes that take place in cells; yet you can’t explain the qualitative as well as the quantitative differences in the energy exchanges taking place in computers compared with those taking place in cells.
The energy levels are vastly different, the energy sources are vastly different, the rules are vastly different, and the properties of the constituents are vastly different.
It is not “spontaneous molecular chaos” taking place down there among atoms and molecules that has to be ordered or guided by “information” or “intelligence.”
There is a little high school level exercise in the table that you are ignoring.
We would like to know, in the light of the results of that calculation, how you justify the analogies used by ID/creationists to “refute” the “materialist” understanding of what goes on in the chemistry and physics of cells.
Compare those energies of interaction among kilogram-sized masses separated by distances on the order of meters and having the same charge-to-mass ratios of protons and electrons. Express your answer in joules and in megatons of TNT.
You should also compare that with the kinetic energy of a kilogram mass being blown around at the wind speed of an F5 tornado.
Hand waving arguments from reified information metaphors have nothing to do with chemistry and physics.
Here is an interesting talk given by Peter Hoffmann of Wayne State University. It is of some relevance here.
I’m not “pitting” anything against anything. I am saying, as clearly as I can manage, that there is no ‘information’ in living cells. The existence (or not) of ‘information’ in other physical entities, such as computers, is a separate issue, unrelated to the existence (or not) of ‘information’ in living cells. Now, if you want to presuppose that ‘information’ exists in living cells, hey, go for it. You’ll get plenty of agreement from other people who share that locked-in presupposition. But if you want to convince anybody who isn’t locked into the presupposition that there is ‘information’ in living cells, you’re gonna have to demonstrate that information-in-cells is more than just a pedagogical metaphor. Are you up to that task, ericB?
‘Materialist’. Yeah, you ID-pushers aren’t the least, tiniest bit religious at all; purely scientific, you lot are! Apart from that: I am not arguing that “information and codes and symbolic processing cannot exist at all”. I am, instead, saying that the workings of living cells are adequately accounted for by mindless, unguided chemistry and physics. My position does not imply that “information and codes and symbolic processing cannot exist at all”; rather my position implies that there is no need for the information-in-cells hypothesis.
It’s just chemistry, ericB. Mindless, unguided atoms and molecules doing their mindless, unguided thing in accordance with the mindless, unguided laws of chemistry and physics. You have earlier asserted that it’s not a matter of whether or not ‘information’ is necessary in order to describe the present-day functioning of living cells, but, rather, whether or not ‘information’ is necessary in order to describe the origin of… something-or-other in living cells. But that ignores the fact that living cells are produced by other living cells, as part of their normal functioning. When a living cell reproduces, it’s all just mindless, unguided chemistry; no ‘information’ need apply (if you disagree, please show where ‘information’ applies, that is, where in the process of cellular reproduction there occurs anything that requires more explanation that can be provided by mindless, unguided chemistry). Therefore, no parent-cell requires ‘information’ to produce child-cells. So what need for ‘information’ in the first place?
People with a locked-in presupposition that by golly, The Designer must have done it will of course argue that The Designer’s intervention was required in one of the aspects of life for which we don’t currently have any well-supported answers… but that ‘reasoning’ is pure
GodDesigner of the Gaps. I suppose this (fallacious) reasoning is fine for people who are locked into the presupposition that by golly,GodThe Designer must have been involved somewhere!, but it’s unlikely to persuade anyone who is not locked into said presupposition.Every ID/creationist wannabe debater I have seen in the last 50 years uses the same debating tactic of trying to drag the “debate” onto the territory of ID/creationist misconceptions and misrepresentations. Morris, Gish, Brown, and all the others at the ICR used this tactic and taught it in their courses at the ICR.
Their “opponents” are supposed to explain away the “problems” that ID/creationists extract from their own caricatures of science, no matter which science is being “debated.”
The appropriate answer to this tactic is that ID/creationist concepts of science don’t explain anything. ID/creationist “science” is already moribund at the starting line; so scientists are not obligated to “defend” the misconceptions and misrepresentations that ID/creationists attempt to foist onto them.
No matter how many times ID/creationists get nailed on their misconceptions and misrepresentations; no matter how many times they are shown to be completely ignorant of basic concepts, their response is to arrogantly ignore their opponent and just throw out more junk science. It’s the old Gish Gallop repeated endlessly in every “debate.”
Debating is a political tactic that attempts to get the ID/creationist a free ride on the back of a scientist and support the ID/creationist claim that there is a raging debate going on in the science community about evolution.
Yet not one ID/creationist in something like 50 years can grasp basic science at the high school level. Every time they are pressed, they Gish Gallop.
The Designer’s intervention was required in one of the aspects of life for which we don’t currently have any well-supported answers… but that ‘reasoning’ is pure God Designer of the Gaps.
ID has never been anything more than god of the gaps.
I will ask again for an example from the history of science where god of the gaps was a useful and productive hypothesis.
Addendum to this comment of mine: Before ericB pounces on my “living cells are produced by living cells” assertion, note what I didn’t say: Namely, I did not say that living cells are produced by living cells, and only by living cells. I don’t have a problem with the notion that a living cell could be produced by some other cause than a previous living cell; I just insist that the first living cell could not have been produced by a cause which is, itself, dependent on the prior existence of living cells.
If ericB wants to argue for a Designer which is, itself, not dependent on the prior existence of living cells, he is welcome to do so—but every known Designer is known to be dependent on the prior existence of living cells. This being the case,
godThe Designer was not involved with the origin of living cells is not a locked-in presupposition. Rather,godThe Designer was not involved with the origin of living cells is merely the null hypothesis, which must be disproved if one wishes to establish thatgodThe Designer was involved with the origin of living cells is a scientifically valid proposition.I am strongly inclined to doubt that ericB is up to the task of disproving said null hypothesis, but I wish him the best of luck in any of his attempts to do so.
That is a non sequitur. Why would you possibly draw that conclusion? Do you think that something happens inside computers that “cannot be described by the boring, mindless laws of chemistry and physics”?
Or do you deny the existence of “information”? Or perhaps instead deny materialism? How would you view this reductio argument?
I would suggest that the first premise needs to be rejected. As I comment elsewhere, it is a false dilemma to suppose that material processes exclude symbolic information processing.
Incorrect reasoning. Chemistry and physics can describe computers. Computers do process information according to codes and conventions. Such a system does require intelligent agency for its origin (i.e. material processes alone would never create it), but that never means that it defies chemistry and physics for its operation.
How does “information” push atoms and molecules around in cells? Describe the mechanism.
If a unit of “information” acts on an atom, how much acceleration does it produce?
At what point along the spectrum of increasing complexity in matter do the laws of physics and chemistry become insufficient to assemble complex structures and therefore “information” has to step in and do the job the physics and chemistry cannot do?
How much progress have you made on that little high school level physics/chemistry calculation?
Any chess playing computers that can beat a chess master must employ a look ahead algorithm to consider the long range consequences of any course of action. Otherwise they would fail. The best programs are able to look deeply into the game before each move.
BTW, the algorithm that makes considering the long range consequences possible is provided by the intelligence of the programmers.
The contrast I am making is with mindless chemicals that only respond to the current situation according to material laws and chance. Any program executing a planning algorithm would not be an example of that.
That last statement is an assertion of yours, but without any support provided.
Even before The Mystery of Life’s Origin was published back in 1984, one of the even earlier positions to affirm that life must be designed by an intelligence was one that held the very position that you describe as though it were impossible. Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe maintained that the biological life we see was necessarily designed by an intelligence, but they also proposed that this intelligence was not God, i.e. not a supernatural Creator. They are not alone in proposing this position.
I’m not asking you to agree with or even like their position. I’m just pointing out that it is another position.
It is correct to observe that, if we exclude an infinite regress, the design of the life we see implies the existence of an undesigned designer. That also implies that the nature of that designer would have to be fundamentally different from our own. What you have not shown, and what some would contest, is the assumption that this immediately and automatically implies the designer must be supernatural. Some hold otherwise on that point.
If you want to know my own position, I do hold that the Creator of the universe, who also established the necessary extremely fine tuning of the universe that makes it suited for life, is responsible for life as well. However, I am not claiming that the challenge I’ve presented here leads directly or necessarily to that conclusion. As I’ve pointed out explicitly previously, it only leads toward the conclusion that some designing intelligence is responsible for the translation system.
Sorry, it seems I was not clear enough. The functioning translation system itself is the “distant goal” that requires foresight and intention to create. We see that it is quite real. It is present in every cell (no problem looking for “traces”). And we see that we have found nothing like it in the entire universe — apart from artifacts created by intelligent agents.
I’ve already pointed out examples of how the interdependence of the components makes each of the useless without the support of the others. A ribosome/decoding component cannot function to create the proteins if it does not have suitable input of encoded protein recipes. On the other hand, creating the encoded recipes for proteins would also be useless without an ability to decode them. These are just a couple of the many interdependencies.
The whole point of the challenge is to see if anyone can provide a plausible scenario that deals with these interdependencies in a way that is not contradictory and that does not assume mindless chemicals plan and build for the future.
So far, the proposals have focused on other steps that do not require a system for translating encoded information via a code. As long as a proposal does not yet needs real codes and real translation of encoded sequences for proteins, it is not yet a solution to the challenge.
Of course, you realize that if you were to start by assuming beforehand “what happened in reality”, then you would be guilty of the error of begging the question.
You are going beyond what my challenge can support logically. Nothing in my challenge establishes that there were no intelligent entities on Earth prior to the first cells. It doesn’t even establish that the life we see here was first created here. (Some maintain otherwise.)
If you want to know what I believe myself, I’ve already said that above. However, it would be incorrect to claim that this challenge by itself must lead to that conclusion. That would be going to far. You know that if I made such a leap, any number of people on this forum would easily spot it as invalid, and they would be correct, if I were to do that.
There is no dodge or evasion here. I’m pointing out the true limitations of what this challenge about the origin of the translation system does and does not indicate, and also what this challenge does and does not suppose. For example, it would make no difference at all to the challenge if materialism were true.
The algorithm is supplied by programmers, but the program also learns. There are decent checkers programs that have learned everything, including the rules.
That computer — the one that beats a chess master, has a completely material description of its actions (in terms of electromagnetic signals). And that material description completely describes what happens in the computer. According to that material description of the computer operations, everything that happens is in response to the current situation.
You are making a very clear distinction between two things, and asserting that the distinction makes all the difference (your “Otherwise they would fail”). Yet the two things are not distinct at all. They are merely two different ways of conceptualizing.
In short, your argument is nonsense.