Codes, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

I think the term "Big Bang" has in the same way as "genetic code" lead to unfortunate misunderstandings in the general public. These catchy shorthand buzz words can create long standing problems. I don't see how we will ever get free of them though. Korzybski had an idealistic program for language but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately?) no one controls language. It has a life of it's own it seems.lfen

I said all codes are a product of "consciousness" or "consious minds", not human.I also never said that because all codes come from a consciousness, DNA MUST be of intelligent origin by definition, :. DNA was the result of ID.I said (in many more words) that all codes we know of (that fit the definition of code) to date, come from a conscious (not only human) mind.This would present us with an obvious question. Is it possible that DNA, being full of code, was programed like all other codes?By thinking I said all codes were of human origion, one would conclude that I was saying humans programed DNA. That is not what I am saying.(Let me try to clarify this a bit more.)Codes and coded info. are a product of consciouness. DNA is a code, or more properly put, like a computer, it holds/stores info. If DNA is full of code, it would seem that since all other known coded information comes from a consciousness, would DNA not possibly have been incoded by a consciousness?

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...there is a suitably large difference between the pool of known codes and the unknown code. They do not share the same properties, so the induction fails.

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Would you mind expanding on this please?

For information: I have gone over it in Message 83, Message 75, Message 53 and Message 24.An inductive leap follows a structure like the following:5,000 crows that I have seen are black.
Therefore all crows are black.It takes a general trend of an entity (crows) to have a certain property (blackness) and concludes that all of that entity have that property, even though we haven't seen all of those entities.So, you say
All codes that we know the origins of have conscious origins.
Therefore all codes have conscious origins (ie DNA included).I put it to you that DNA is significantly different from all known codes. All known codes, except DNA, are recent. Indeed they are only as old as the pool of all known conscious beings. No code we know of precedes the conscious beings we have so far categorized.Also, DNA is self-replicating which no other code we have ever encountered is. This renders it fundamentally different to all codes.And another idea is that DNA is principally translated by unconscious agents, which no other code is.It is my opinion that whilst DNA might share some properties with human codes, they do not share them all, and indeed DNA has unique properties. These differences are significant, so significant that your inductive leap is unwarranted. Your conclusion is highly suspect. If you had a pool of ancient self-replicating unconsciously translated codes...and we knew that they were all created by conscious minds....then you might have a point.To repeat my earlier post:

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Your conclusion is not based on deductive reasoning. Your conclusion is based on inductive reasoning. Because the entities you are making your induction off (human codes) are significantly different from the entity you are trying to reach a conclusion about (DNA code), the conclusion has an appropriate level of weakness. Due to the magnitude of difference between the two things I conclude that your conclusion has a high magnitude of weakness.

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As an easy way of looking at imagine the following inductive leap:5,000 crows that I have seen are black
Therefore all birds are blackYou would agree that this was weak induction. The conclusion is not very strong.Is that expansion enough for you?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Yes, we know what you said.However, given the definition of 'Code' that you are using, please show evidence that DNA is a 'CODE' as you define it.You made the claim that DNA is a code using the definition you provided.
Prove it.

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What I said (and you actually quoted it and ignored it) was that DNA bears a strong resemblance *to codes designed by people*.

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What other codes do you know of? We coined the word, we defined it, if it follows the definition, then it exactly the kind of code I am talking about. The code kind of code. Not pattern.

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You say you prefer the term "conscious mind" to "people", but people are the only examples of a conscious mind that we have, so you have no choice but to accept that they are synonymous.

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Not so. Animals don't commincate?

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You have no way of knowing what types of codes might be designed by alien conscious minds. To make such a claim would be an illogical leap.

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That changes nothing. If aliens create codes, the codes are still a product of conscious "alien" minds. What programed the alien?

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* Intent is not part of the definition of a code...

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Look up a definition of code that doesn't requier intent or direct conscious programing.

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* The intent you think you see in DNA is just you projecting human qualities onto it. DNA does not possess intent, which you already agree with, but any intent you think expressed is merely an interpretation or a perspective that you are projecting onto DNA. It isn't a quality of the DNA itself.

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DNA has no consciousness. It can't display intent on it's own. The codes contained within DNA however contain intent. The code sent from DNA contains specific instructions to build a specific thing to specific dimensions. That is intent. The ribsome is meant to get the code, it is meant to understand it, it is meant to replicate it and the intended outcome, already precoded in the DNA, comes out as it was intended. That's intent.Also, the main part of the intent would come from (the possibility of) a programer.

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People can and do project human qualities like intent and purpose onto anything they choose to. One creationist film I saw stated that the intent of the designer to provide food for mankind was clear in the banana, which is ideally suited to be held in the hand, has a curved shape to tilt toward the mouth, and has a handle for peeling conveniently positioned at the top.

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This is absurd, it has nothing to do with the topic, and it is what some call a strawman tactic. You are compairing this topic to an absurd one which in turn would appear to shift its absurdity onto this discussion.

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So you can "see" intent expressed in DNA if you like, but it's a purely subjective and completely unscientific observation.

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Intent is there. I just described it to you. Intent is the physical outcome of the original code contained within DNA. The code was in info. form and is now in physical form. The process shows specific intent. All bodies don't fit together by accident the same way everytime. There is intention in DNA sending code out to have a part "manufactured". Then you have the theoretical intent of the theoretical designer.

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I said "simple denial". I was making note of the absence of any justification, rationale or argument. In most cases all you did was say, in effect, "Not a code."

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I had already explained why water and rocks etc are not codes.

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This is another example of simple denial. You simply declare that the "codes are still created by us" and "codes cannot arise naturally." Declarations and assertions aren't worth much if you can't support them with evidence and argument.

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Lets see what we are talking about here...

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(You)
The question you must ask is whether such codes can arise naturally, and the answer is yes. Even computer programs can arise naturally, as is demonstrated every day by computer programs available on the net that evolve computer code organisms that compete in a simulated environment.
  —Percy

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(Me)
This is not an example of spontaneous/natural code. It took consciousness to make a computer and input the info. nec. for this to happen. All of those codes are still created by us. No, so far codes cannot arise naturally.
  —tdcanam

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That was not good enough?Let me legnthen it a bit then. Programs in a computer, even if they evolve on their own, are not arising naturally. Why? They are in the same lang. we put into the computer and they are products/byproducts of our programs which were encoded by us. So, again, they are still products/byproducts of us. We built the machine, created the code, arranged it into programs, put them into the machine, and everything that happens in the machine or comes out is a product of us.

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All you're doing is pointing out differences between tree rings and DNA. What you need to do is find differences between tree rings and a code. Unfortunately for you there aren't any, because tree rings are a code.

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OK, coded information has a point. It is to serve a purpose. It comes from (to date) a conscious mind.Coded info. contains specific information written in symbols that have preassgined meanings.Lets try this. John and Bill have a language that both understands. John wants to tell Bill to do somthing specific, say peel 5 apples. John has the intended info. he wishes to give to Bill in his head. He can invision Bill doing what he wants Bill to do, peel the 5 apples, but there are no apples or peelings with/near/insight of John, just the idea. John writes this info., his intent on paper in the lang/code that he and Bill understand. John gets Al to take the note to Bill for him. Al takes the note to Bill and Bill reads the note. Bill decodes the message and Johns intent is made clear to Bill. Bill carries out the instructions for Bill. Bill peels 5 apples.What started out as an intention/idea, became a reality after Bill read the code sent by John. An Idea was made physical. Info was made physical.DNA is like this. (This is extreamly simplified) Say the note that John wrote the info on is DNA. AL, is the mRNA. Al takes the message to Bill who is the ribosomes. Bill carries out the intent of the message carried to him by Al who got it from the paper (DNA). Bill builds a leg. The info. on the paper is not a leg, it represents a leg. The info can be read and the intended physical outcome of the info is then made physical. The intent started as info and ended in reality.Problem is, who the hell is John?

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Give poor Yockey a break and look at the Wikipedia definition of code. It defines a code as a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation. Trees convert the information that a year has passed into a ring. We then decode this information by cutting the tree and counting the rings. It's as simple as that.

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Again, trees are a product of DNA.But, in the case of a tree, apart from the DNA code going throught the note, Al, Bill comunication, where is the note, Al, Bill comunication in tree rings?Code (DNA), spoken language, programs are all forms of comincation. Ask any comincation engineer, or info. theorist, or computer programer, etc, they will tell you that codes are a form of commincation. Codes serve a purpose. They allow us to comunicate with one another. That is the point of code. Comunication. Tree rings are not commincating with anything. They don't comunicate with us. Trees just grow and we can observe the impact environment has on them in the form of tree rings and make observations that allow us to know the age of trees. Is it necessary for you to comunicate with trees or their rings? No. Nothing else comunicates with the trees rings because they are not a form of cominication. They are a physical record of natures impact on the tree.It is necassary for DNA to comunicate with ribosomes and people to comunicate with other people. Comunication is the whole point.

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What I said (and you actually quoted it and ignored it) was that DNA bears a strong resemblance *to codes designed by people*.

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What other codes do you know of? We coined the word, we defined it, if it follows the definition, then it exactly the kind of code I am talking about. The code kind of code. Not pattern.

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You say you prefer the term "conscious mind" to "people", but people are the only examples of a conscious mind that we have, so you have no choice but to accept that they are synonymous.

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Not so. Animals don't commincate?

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You have no way of knowing what types of codes might be designed by alien conscious minds. To make such a claim would be an illogical leap.

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That changes nothing. If aliens create codes, the codes are still a product of conscious "alien" minds. What programed the alien?

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* Intent is not part of the definition of a code...

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Look up a definition of code that doesn't requier intent or direct conscious programing.

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* The intent you think you see in DNA is just you projecting human qualities onto it. DNA does not possess intent, which you already agree with, but any intent you think expressed is merely an interpretation or a perspective that you are projecting onto DNA. It isn't a quality of the DNA itself.

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DNA has no consciousness. It can't display intent on it's own. The codes contained within DNA however contain intent. The code sent from DNA contains specific instructions to build a specific thing to specific dimensions. That is intent. The ribsome is meant to get the code, it is meant to understand it, it is meant to replicate it and the intended outcome, already precoded in the DNA, comes out as it was intended. That's intent.Also, the main part of the intent would come from (the possibility of) a programer.

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People can and do project human qualities like intent and purpose onto anything they choose to. One creationist film I saw stated that the intent of the designer to provide food for mankind was clear in the banana, which is ideally suited to be held in the hand, has a curved shape to tilt toward the mouth, and has a handle for peeling conveniently positioned at the top.

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This is absurd, it has nothing to do with the topic, and it is what some call a strawman tactic. You are compairing this topic to an absurd one which in turn would appear to shift its absurdity onto this discussion.

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So you can "see" intent expressed in DNA if you like, but it's a purely subjective and completely unscientific observation.

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Intent is there. I just described it to you. Intent is the physical outcome of the original code contained within DNA. The code was in info. form and is now in physical form. The process shows specific intent. All bodies don't fit together by accident the same way everytime. There is intention in DNA sending code out to have a part "manufactured". Then you have the theoretical intent of the theoretical designer.

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I said "simple denial". I was making note of the absence of any justification, rationale or argument. In most cases all you did was say, in effect, "Not a code."

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I had already explained why water and rocks etc are not codes.

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This is another example of simple denial. You simply declare that the "codes are still created by us" and "codes cannot arise naturally." Declarations and assertions aren't worth much if you can't support them with evidence and argument.

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Lets see what we are talking about here...

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(You)
The question you must ask is whether such codes can arise naturally, and the answer is yes. Even computer programs can arise naturally, as is demonstrated every day by computer programs available on the net that evolve computer code organisms that compete in a simulated environment.
  —Percy

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(Me)
This is not an example of spontaneous/natural code. It took consciousness to make a computer and input the info. nec. for this to happen. All of those codes are still created by us. No, so far codes cannot arise naturally.
  —tdcanam

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That was not good enough?Let me legnthen it a bit then. Programs in a computer, even if they evolve on their own, are not arising naturally. Why? They are in the same lang. we put into the computer and they are products/byproducts of our programs which were encoded by us. So, again, they are still products/byproducts of us. We built the machine, created the code, arranged it into programs, put them into the machine, and everything that happens in the machine or comes out is a product of us.

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All you're doing is pointing out differences between tree rings and DNA. What you need to do is find differences between tree rings and a code. Unfortunately for you there aren't any, because tree rings are a code.

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OK, coded information has a point. It is to serve a purpose. It comes from (to date) a conscious mind.Coded info. contains specific information written in symbols that have preassgined meanings.Lets try this. John and Bill have a language that both understands. John wants to tell Bill to do somthing specific, say peel 5 apples. John has the intended info. he wishes to give to Bill in his head. He can invision Bill doing what he wants Bill to do, peel the 5 apples, but there are no apples or peelings with/near/insight of John, just the idea. John writes this info., his intent on paper in the lang/code that he and Bill understand. John gets Al to take the note to Bill for him. Al takes the note to Bill and Bill reads the note. Bill decodes the message and Johns intent is made clear to Bill. Bill carries out the instructions for Bill. Bill peels 5 apples.What started out as an intention/idea, became a reality after Bill read the code sent by John. An Idea was made physical. Info was made physical.DNA is like this. (This is extreamly simplified) Say the note that John wrote the info on is DNA. AL, is the mRNA. Al takes the message to Bill who is the ribosomes. Bill carries out the intent of the message carried to him by Al who got it from the paper (DNA). Bill builds a leg. The info. on the paper is not a leg, it represents a leg. The info can be read and the intended physical outcome of the info is then made physical. The intent started as info and ended in reality.Problem is, who the hell is John?

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Give poor Yockey a break and look at the Wikipedia definition of code. It defines a code as a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation. Trees convert the information that a year has passed into a ring. We then decode this information by cutting the tree and counting the rings. It's as simple as that.

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Again, trees are a product of DNA.But, in the case of a tree, apart from the DNA code going throught the note, Al, Bill comunication, where is the note, Al, Bill comunication in tree rings?Code (DNA), spoken language, programs are all forms of comincation. Ask any comincation engineer, or info. theorist, or computer programer, etc, they will tell you that codes are a form of commincation. Codes serve a purpose. They allow us to comunicate with one another. That is the point of code. Comunication. Tree rings are not commincating with anything. They don't comunicate with us. Trees just grow and we can observe the impact environment has on them in the form of tree rings and make observations that allow us to know the age of trees. Is it necessary for you to comunicate with trees or their rings? No. Nothing else comunicates with the trees rings because they are not a form of cominication. They are a physical record of natures impact on the tree.It is necassary for DNA to comunicate with ribosomes and people to comunicate with other people. Comunication is the whole point.

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... in the mean time we might find out some interesting things by exploring that other possibility: that DNA came about spontaneously and illustrates self-organizing properties of matter. There's certainly something to say for that, and there is so much that can be investigated and learned!

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The idea that DNA and matter just spontaneously appeared is better than, since all codes we know of today are products of conscious minds, DNA may be a product of a conscious mind? Niether one can be explained and niether one can be explained yet.

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It's not actually that simple. The tree doesn't put the ring there for the purpose of determining its age. The ring is a result of the tree going dormant in the winter months. We assume that one winter happens each year (a perfectly fine assumption) and from that we reason that the tree has been alive for the same number of years as its rings count.

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It's like determining that it is going to rain because the clouds are grey. The clouds haven't set up some complex weather code that we are deciphering, no. We are just making an observation based on what we know about the weather, and then making a prediction. Just like with counting the rings on a tree.

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Now, what about the trees that don't have rings? If these rings were a code, don't you think all the trees would have them? Tropical trees don't show rings, because there isn't ever a dormant season.

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Did I say tree rings were codes? If I did, I must have been drinking, (happens).For the record, no, none of these things are codes. I re explained this a few posts up from this one. (As well as your other points)

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Let me set out the logic of your position now:
Premise 1: "Every code known to man to date is a product of a conscious mind."
Premise 2: "Yes," "the rings in a tree" (are) "encoded with data"
Conclusion: Trees have a conscious mind

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Premise 3: "No. Trees are not intelligent."

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This is a direct contradiction, so at least ONE of the premises MUST be false.

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I explained this in a recent post, 4 mabey 5 ago.Trees rings can be put into data form, they can be observed and conclusions drawn. Trees do however contain DNA, which has code in it. Trees are product of DNA. No contradiction.Again, read my recent posts to clear up any misunderstandings and to get a better picture of code.

Ribosomes are the receiver in your model. They have no intelligence of their own. What possible grounds are there to believe that the sender in such a model would have some innate intelligence?If you weren't totally dismissive of the very clear explanations being made to you over and over again about other complex natural information like tree rings and spectro-analysis, you would at least be able to point at existing asymmetric codes where the sender doesn't seem to have intelligence but the receiver does. The existence of such asymmetric relationships one way could be used to imply that it isn't totally unreasonable to suggest at least one could work the other way.But these arguments are lost on you because they represent good science, whereas you seem to be primarily interested in rhetoric. The scientist forms his theory and immediately begins examining all the information which might be used to disprove it, modifying the theory to match the facts. You have a "conclusion" that you are determined to stick with regardless, and continue to organize and reorganize your "facts" in an attempt to "prove" it.

Uh, yes. And more than that. Even an inexperienced cook can enter an unfamiliar kitchen and tell apart the 1 quart pots from the 2 quart pots at a glance. And the iron from the aluminum, the copper and the steel.Only if you want to accept tdcanam's definition that codes are designed by people with some purpose in mind is the universe not full of encoded information just waiting for us to decipher the codes. Clearly if tdcanam's definition is correct then the universe is not full of codes, but then neither is DNA a code, as you have pointed out.Say I want to communicate colors, and so I devise a code where different radio signal frequencies correspond to different colors:

• red: 428,374 GHz
• green: 545,077 GHz
• blue: 666,205 GHz

If I want to communicate the color green, then I send a radio signal of frequency 545,077 GHz. Someone receiving a transmission on that frequency knows I'm sending a message that the color is green.But the frequencies in that list are the actual frequencies for red, green and blue. For your position (and tdcanam's) to be right, it's a code if I create it and use it, but if a star broadcasts colors that correspond to the same color/frequency table then it isn't a code. But it is generally a good idea to shy away from anthropomorphisms where if humans do it it's one thing, but if nature does it it's another, but there are no other distinguishing features.In reality nature is more complicated than my simple code example, which is just a subset of the real world of continuous frequencies. Now I think you're confusing codes with language.--Percy

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An inductive leap follows a structure like the following:

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5,000 crows that I have seen are black.
Therefore all crows are black.

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It takes a general trend of an entity (crows) to have a certain property (blackness) and concludes that all of that entity have that property, even though we haven't seen all of those entities.

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That is why I said, to date, all codes are products of conscious minds.All mankind has seen this of codes, not just one person. So as far as we know, all codes are a product od conscious minds. One may be found, but hasn't been yet. The idea is, so far, none are known which may be because there are none. Then again, there may be naturally generated codes we have yet to find.

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So, you say
All codes that we know the origins of have conscious origins.
Therefore all codes have conscious origins (ie DNA included).

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I put it to you that DNA is significantly different from all known codes. All known codes, except DNA, are recent. Indeed they are only as old as the pool of all known conscious beings. No code we know of precedes the conscious beings we have so far categorized.

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A theory. This can point to the possibility that since all codes now known are products of conscious minds(animals communicate don't they?), nature wasn't been able to generate one since so far even now nature doesn't (as far as we know) create codes.Say, a theoretical origional consciosness programmed the first code. Until another consciousness capable of encoding their ideas and intentions came along, no record was possible. When man came along, he started leaving evidence of codes/lang.I don't think that time passing between the origional code, DNA, and the next most recent code, say writing, weakens the idea. If one was to, for arguments sake, assume that DNA was programed, the gap between DNA and human codes would strengthen the argument. It would show that nature wasn't able to generate codes, only consiouness. The origional, and us. (Animals wouldn't leave communication behind.)

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Also, DNA is self-replicating which no other code we have ever encountered is. This renders it fundamentally different to all codes.

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DNA, like in my example some posts before this one about John, Al, and Bill, is like a computer storing info.mRNA takes the info to the ribosomes and they inturn build physical/tangible parts that nonphysical/intangable info. stored in DNA represent. That is communication. This communication allows the ribosomes to build specific parts specified in the information sent from the DNA by the mRNA. The code in DNA that contains "blueprints" for an arm is not an actual arm, it just represents an arm. It is info. meant to communicate to ribosomes, "build this arm to these specs, not the arm itself. Again, it sends instructions for building the arm, it doesn't send the arm.One more time, lol. DNA doesn't replicate itself, it is like paper with instructions for parts on it. mRNA looks at it, copies down the info and heads over to the ribosomes. It say's, "hey mate, here are those spects you asked for, I think it's info. on how to build an arm". Ribosomes say's, thanks mate, I'll start getting the materials together to build it now. Communication.

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And another idea is that DNA is principally translated by unconscious agents, which no other code is.

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Yes, other code do. Look at antivirus programs. We make'm, and put'em on a puter. They do all the work. I go to sleep and the program communicates all night.A better example? Email. You would be amazed at how many error correction mechanisms are employed for me to get an email to you. There are many, many layers of error correction in the computer world. Error corrections are done by things called "checksums"; before the message is sent out, it runs through a formula and come up with a number. This number is sent to your receiver and is ran through the same formula to see if it is the same. If not, it sends a message back asking my email to resend the number. This is how computer languages usually work. I send email and walk away. The program takes over. The message checked for errors and authenticity, then it goes out. The program does a "handshake" with your email. Your email checks and verifies identity and autherization, etc, etc, a handshake occurs and presto. All of this is done unconsciously.

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It is my opinion that whilst DNA might share some properties with human codes, they do not share them all, and indeed DNA has unique properties. These differences are significant, so significant that your inductive leap is unwarranted. Your conclusion is highly suspect.

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What are these differences? Remember, DNA itself is not the code, it is the medium, like a computer storing info.Let's rephrase your statment a bit.All the crows that we have seen are black
Therefore, it is reasonable to say that, to date, all crows are black.

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You would agree that this was weak induction. The conclusion is not very strong.

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This is not a weak induction. The conclusion makes sence. It is also observable, measurable and testable, :. scientific.

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If you weren't totally dismissive of the very clear explanations being made to you over and over again about other complex natural information like tree rings and spectro-analysis, you would at least be able to point at existing asymmetric codes where the sender doesn't seem to have intelligence but the receiver does.

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O.k., let's give this a shot. With tree rings, we have no sender. Good for me. I agree 100%Who is the reciever?Codes, are communication. What is communicating with whom/what?Read my recent posts, they should clear this up.

You are misrepresenting what I posted as the definition of code.And by the way, code are languages. Exactly languages. All about communication.My recent posts explain all this.