Codes, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

I'm just using tdcanam's term "conscious mind", but what tdcanam really means is an intelligence. For animals to be pertinent to this discussion you need codes designed by intelligent animals. I'm sure they exist, and while I'm not familiar with this area, I think they'd be very similar to extremely simple codes created by people.But this drifts off the topic. This particular issue isn't whether people are the only intelligence on the planet, but whether a sample set that consists of only the intelligent organisms from a single planet amidst all the planets of all the solar systems of all the galaxies of all the universe is sufficient to draw the conclusion that we know precisely what a code that is the product of an intelligence would look like.Both I and Modulous have conceded that DNA possesses some of the qualities of a code produced by people, and that is why it is so tempting to conclude that it was a created rather than evolved design.An important concern, one already dismissed by tdcanam, is of evolution. Tdcanam evidently dismisses the possibility of evolution, as he has dismissed much else without justification, but let's consider a specific example. Let's say that this gene sequence expresses the intent of the designer to produce protein X: Now there's a single point mutation, changing the the fifth nucleotide in the sequence from G to C, and causing the sequence to now produce protein Y: The designer intended the DNA to produce protein X. The mutation causes the DNA to instead produce protein Y. What has happened to the intent of the designer? It is gone!In other words, even if DNA were originally the creation of a designer some billions of years ago, his original message was long ago replaced by evolutionary changes. This means that it cannot reasonably be claimed that DNA contains the message from a designer, nor any of his intent. At best it can only be claimed that the mechanism of DNA encoding, replication and protein production was designed, and that it represents the intent of a designer to produce life that could evolve over time to conform to changing circumstances.--Percy

"Genetic code" and "code of life" aren't just euphemisms for something that isn't really a code. DNA is a genuine code that has some striking similarities to codes designed by people for communications.First, DNA provides the blueprint for the organism. That the same sequence of nucleotides for a gene invariably produces the same protein is one of the hallmarks of a code. The information for the production of the protein is encoded in the gene's nucleotide sequence.Second, DNA conveys information from one generation to the next through the reproductive process. Conveying information is a primary function of a code.Yes, at heart DNA can be called just chemistry, but at heart a code can be called just squiggles on paper, bits in a computer or dit-dahs on the airwaves. Anything can be dissembled, deconstructed analyzed into its constituent parts. An automobile is no less a conveyance simply because it can be deconstructed into sheet metal, wires and plastic.--Percy

This is the same mistake tcdanam is making.I did not say that DNA possesses some of the qualities of a code.I said that DNA possesses some of the qualities of a *code made by people*. Specifically, it possesses some of the qualities of codes designed for human communications as defined at Wikipedia.But DNA possesses all the necessary qualities for a code, representing information in a structured and orderly systematized fashion.--Percy

While you say you're seeking a way to distinguish codes from non-codes, what you're actually doing is just drawing a distinction between things created by people and things not created by people. To return to the dam analogy, this is like saying a dam created by people is a dam, while a dam created by nature (such as at Spirit Lake at Mount St. Helens) is not a dam. Or it's like saying a car made by people is a car, but if a genie creates a car "poof" from nothing, it isn't a car.Outside of sciences like archeology and anthropology, one cardinal sign of inappropriate anthropomorphization is drawing distinctions based solely upon whether people were involved. In defining a code, you must identify objective criteria independent of the process of creation. Someone gives you a collection of symbols to analyze. Is it a code or not?The reality is that a code is a code, and codes can be created by people, they can be created by nature, or they can exist just from the properties of our universe.--Percy

Depends upon context. When rocks are used as dots to spell words, of course they're not a code. Ink isn't a code, either.But when you're examining the rocks themselves, they contain much coded information, such as method of formation, age, composition, etc. That's the most common type of code people tend to create, but it isn't the only type of code, not even close. Take a look again at the definition of code from Code - Wikipedia: A code is a set of rules for transforming information from one form to another. That includes information that is a series of symbols, but that is not the only way information can be organized. For instance, you look at a rock and note quartzite particles embedded in it, and this can tell you something about how the rock formed. In part, a geologist is someone who has been trained in how to decode the information in rocks. Are the quartzite particles a series of symbols, which is your definition of a code? No, of course not. Are they a representation of information? Of course! And geologists know the code for transforming it into something they can analyze and put in technical papers and textbooks. Let me refer you to Shannon again. This is from page one of his landmark paper, A Mathematical Theory of Communication: As Shannon makes clear, and as I've been telling you, human concepts like meaning and intent (what Shannon calls semantics) are irrelevant to the information issue, or in this case the encoding of information issue. That's why Yockey, who references Shannon, should know better than to make claims that information involves such things as meaning and intent.I can't tell if you're following Yockey or Gitt or Dembski or some combination, but they all include meaning as part of information. None of their views on this have found acceptance in scientific circles.By the way, it's "voil", not "voala".--Percy

This contains a couple mistakes, I'll address the second one first.You say I didn't reply, but I did. You replied twice to my Message 117, and I replied to both. Check out the list under "Replies to this message" for your two replies (Message 120 and Message 145) and you'll see that I replied to both.Now, addressing the first mistake, no, you didn't explain my color/frequency list in either of your messages. This is the entire content of your Message 120: Notice that nothing addresses my color/frequency list, and I did reply to this message. And this is the entire content of your Message 145 that touches on my color/frequency table: This is the briefest of explanations, it is just a repetition of your claim that meaning is part of the definition of a code, and I replied to this message, too.As I said earlier, I don't think the discussion is going to make any progress until we agree on the definition of a code. I've pointed you to the definition at Wikipedia (Code - Wikipedia), and it does not include meaning or intent in the definition. According to Wikipedia, a code is a set of rules for transforming information from one form to another.I've also pointed you to Shannon's landmark paper, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, which makes clear that meaning is not part of the problem of communicating information.People like Yockey and Dembski and Gitt or whoever you're following are just making up the parts about intent and meaning. There is nothing scientific about their unsupported assertions in this regard.--Percy

I'm not quite sure how you intended this. If you mean the program cannot make the computer do anything that wasn't already within its capabilities, then you are correct. The computer is the program's universe, and just as we ourselves can't do anything beyond the constraints of the universe in which we live, so the program cannot do anything beyond the capabilities of the computer on which it runs.But if you mean that the new program can only do things already conceived of by the original program, then this would be incorrect. The important thing to note is what I said earlier about the original program being an evolution simulator for program organisms in which mutation and allele remixing through reproduction are combined with natural selection to create novel programs not previously dreamt of. In other words, the programs are designed by the process of evolution, not by people.I'm afraid I couldn't follow the rest. Perhaps if I had some scotch... --Percy

Only if untrue. You go on to say: But I was taking you at your word in Message 78, where you dismissed Parsomnium's argument because evolution isn't a fact. Reading some of your other comments about theory, perhaps you are operating with a different definition of theory than the rest of us. Most of us here see theory as tentative - theory never becomes fact. If you're waiting for evolution to become fact, you're going to have to wait a very long time.--Percy

At heart it comes down to whether you believe DNA contains information. I'm guessing you do not, because for DNA's information to pass from parent to child some form of communication would have to take place, and I believe you reject that possibility.I still view your argument as deconstructionist, like arguing that music is only in the notes and that higher levels of abstraction for viewing music like phrases, themes and sonatas are just helpful analogies. Sorry you think it's an insult, it's not intended that way.Another way of looking at it is that you're trying to take the easy route to countering the Dembski et. al. arguments by simply denying there's any communication of information going on. This is probably insulting, too, so I'll apologize in advance. --Percy

Let me say once again that I think the discussion will remain at an impasse until we agree on a definition of code. I won't type in the links again, but I suggest you respond to the definition at Wikipedia that I keep pointing you to, and to Shannon's point in the seminal paper on information theory that meaning is not part of information.--Percy

Yes, that's precisely what evolutionary principles applied to computer programs can do, allow them to fly where the original program couldn't. Genetic algorithms have proven capable of producing both novelty and innovation.--Percy

Maybe there's a misunderstanding. That there's a higher level of abstraction than cellular chemistry available in no way denies the critical importance of microbiology, at least not to me. I think systems can frequently be interpreted at more than one level of abstraction, and saying that the insights provided by one level of abstraction are valuable in no way diminishes the insights provided by other levels of abstraction.--Percy

I have no objection to someone believing their abstraction is better than mine. I thought that when you called it an analogy that you were denying it status as a useful level of abstraction.--Percy

You're again just finding arbitrary differences between DNA and what you think a code is. Start/Middle/End is not part of the definition of a code. I again refer you to the definition at Wikipedia: To say it another way, a code is a set of rules for converting information from one form to another. So this sequence that you provided is incorrect: To correctly express the transformation from one representation to another you would say this: Moving on: I refer you back to the Wikipedia definition, which doesn't mention a creator.The correct way to look at codes is that information in whatever representational form needs a set of transformation rules, a code, to convert it to another representational form.I think a lot of the misunderstanding is the sloppiness with which the word code is being used. A code is not, for example, a sequence of symbols. I know we use the word code in this way all the time, for example, looking at a sequence like "qeud fjdl jejc wpqx" and saying "Ah, this is a code," but it's not a code. A code is the set of rules used to create the sequence from the original representational form.This means that a sequence of symbols is one form of representation of information. A code can transform that sequence of symbols into some other representational form of information.Like I keep saying, this discussion is going nowhere as long as we all use different definitions of "code". The word "code" as used in communications *does* have a formal definition, as does "information".--PercyEdited by Percy, : Tighten up the usage of the the word code to be more precise.

As I explained in my previous message, we've been using the word "code" in a very sloppy way. DNA is *not* a code, not in the formal sense anyway. A code is a set of rules for transforming the representational form of information, and DNA is not, by that standard, a code. We refer to it as a code when we're not trying to be precise, but I think this discussion requires more precision.So by the formal definition of code, DNA is not a code, but it is encoded information. The encoding process occurs during reproduction when the DNA helix splits into two halves and each half acquires an opposite nucleotide. This is the encoding table:

• A => T
• T => A
• C => G
• G => C

Sometimes mistakes are made in the encoding process - these mistakes are referred to as mutations.--Percy