Codes, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

First off, I am not arguing for a God, but if "God" is what you wish to call it, so be it.

quote:

---

It seems to me your reasoning is that

​

1) A code is created by a concious mind
2) DNA is a code
therefore God

---

More along the lines of ...1) A code is created by a concious mind
2) Why is DNA the only code either,
A) not created by a concious mind or,
B) who put the code in DNA?

quote:

---

For example, given your premise that 'A code is created by a concious mind', you have yet to show that DNA is a code by that definition.

---

DNA is not "like" a code, it does not "behave" like a code, it "is" a code.Read Yockey.

quote:

---

It looks like you want to DEFINE God into existance. But, to do so, you have to use the logical fallacy of equivication.

---

No, that is not my intention.My intention isn't the point. The point is, DNA IS a code. Codes are arrangments of symbols with agreed upon meanings intentionally transmitted from a sender/encoder to a reciever/decoder that express' specific instructions/intent.This, even when accepted as fact, in no way proves the existance of a biblical "God". It just puts the fact that there may be another answer besides spontaneous origion followed by evolution on the same plain as opposing theories.Edited by tdcanam, : No reason given.Edited by tdcanam, : Added a line accidently erased.Edited by tdcanam, : HTML

Water carries plenty of specific information. What it doesn't carry is a human-defined code. But water, like everything else in nature, carries plenty of specific information that has to be teased out by unraveling the code. For example, water carries a lot of information about how hydrogen bonds work. If the water is from nature, then a content analysis provides information about where the water has been.The mistake you're making is thinking that the only codes are the kinds of codes humans tend to create, and DNA probably has more similarities to a human-defined code than anything else in nature. But a code doesn't have to be an artificial construct created by humans to be a code. The information from stars is encoded in the frequencies and polarizations of the light from those stars. When we analyze that light with spectrograms we aren't creating information but are merely translating the information from one encoding to another. The encoding in light waves is translated to an encoding that we can read without special instrumentation, such as a picture of the spectrum with the absorption lines that tell us what elements comprise the star, or a table of numbers in a computer database. Now you're comparing starlight to DNA, not a code. There's nothing about codes that requires them to contain instructions, only information. Of course starlight doesn't spell out specific instructions, but that's not a defining element of a code. You haven't created information about light. What you've done is translated the information encoded in the light into a different encoding of the information. This is the way people create codes. It has nothing to do with the way information is encoded in nature. Even just the rising and setting sun contains information, for example, for creatures on earth to know whether to rise or sleep. This is just plain wrong. Codes *are* patterns. If codes didn't contain patterns then they couldn't be decoded.--Percy

Actually doesn't Yockey's mapping of Shannon's general communication system to the communication of genetic messages put DNA in the position of the source message rather than the code? In fact it portrays transcription as the encoding process and translation as the decoding. This is clearly inconsistent with your portrayal.Using this scheme Yockey is saying absolutely nothing at all about any coding of DNA but rather how any 'message' in DNA is transmitted to a 'message' in protein. There is absolutely nothing about the generation of this 'message' in the DNA although as I mentioned previously Yockey has suggested the information of the 'message' is generated by stochastic processes.TTFN,WK

Codes are communications mate.What is light and water communicating with?That is what I'm trying to understand about your rebutt's.Codes must contain specific information. We humans created the word code to fit a certain definition, and we then defined DNA as a code. It fits the description of the word code that we defined. Coded information is info. put into symbols with meanings that two or more "whatevers" have agreed upon so that they can communicate.A code doesn't exist on it's own.There is no point.Why would you create a language that only you understand? It would serve no purpose except to hide info. from other people. Are you know saying that things like rocks and light are trying to hide info. from us?Even creating a code for your own use alone requiers sentients.

DNA is an arrangement of complex chemical structures, there is nothing symbolic about it. There are no "agreed upon meanings" involved in DNA transcription or protein catalysis, merely chemical reactions. There is no mind involved in these processes to agree or disagree with them. DNA is not intentionally transmitted in Nature. Instinct is not intent. Chemical reactions are not intent. Natural selection is not intent. There is no sender/encoder or receiver/decoder involved in DNA transmission in the ordinary sense of these words. Ribosomes are not people, they do not make decisions, they do not have a codebook, they cannot be instructed to move on to the next code now that the enemy has compromised this one. DNA does not "express specific instructions" it enables particular chemical reactions under very specific circumstances. Again, there is no "intent" anywhere in the process. All possible combinations exist, those that replicate themselves win out over those which do not.

Well, your definition of a code is 'a code is put there by a conscious mind'.OK. You then declare DNA is a code.. and therefore a conscious mind put it there.Given the premise that 'a conscious mind' put in the code, demonstrate that by THAT definition, DNA is a code.Your declaration does not make it so. Give evidence for it.

What is DNA communicating with? As Iblis correctly notes, if you want to insist that the only codes are those constructed for purposes of human communications, then DNA is not a code. All DNA does is react with other chemicals, similar to how the photons in starlight stimulate chemical reactions on our retinas, and how the spacing of the tree rings results from the chemical reactions of growth governed by the availability of resources.But I don't think Iblis's perspective is the only valid perspective. As long as a perspective is self-consistent then it can be valid, and your perspective is not consistent. If a code is something designed for purposes of human communications, then DNA is not a code. But if a code is a system for representing and storing information, then DNA is a code. And so are starlight and tree rings. You're talking about human designed codes again, but anyway, starlight and tree rings contain specific information. Saw a tree at it's base, count the tree rings, that's how old it is. The trees age is encoded in the tree rings. It's a very simple code. I think it would be more accurate to say that DNA shares some of the characteristics of human defined codes, but so do starlight and tree rings.Here's a simple example. Pretend you're a spy. You devise a code to tell a fellow spy what time you should meet the next day. Your code says that the 24-hour time will equal the number of peas you place in a matchbox that you leave on your front doorstep. Your fellow spy walks by your front door, scoops up the matchbox, counts the number of peas, and knows what time you'll meet the next day.How is that any different from counting tree rings to get the age of a tree? You're again confusing the general concept of codes with formal definitions of human-defined codes, and a code is not a created language anyway, they are an encoding of information. Purpose is a human concept and is not a necessary quality of a code. While codes are often created to hide information, even many human defined codes are not created for that purpose. It is not an essential characteristic of codes to hide information. All information crossing the Internet is encoded, but very little of it is encoded in any secure way. Codes can arise even without our knowing it. Someone observing your house might discover that you leave for work every morning at 7:30 AM, except on Tuesday's when you leave at 10:00 AM. He now has a simple code: Tuesday mean's you'll be leaving for work at 10:00 AM.Halley's comet is a code. Say you didn't know what year it was, but you knew that Halley's comet had last appeared in 1986. So you just wait until you see Halley's comet, then you'll that know 76 years have passed since its last appearance and that the year is 2062.--Percy

You are trying to make a case that all known codes (to date) were produced by some concious mind (An therefore are instances of intent). But you also assume here that DNA expresses intent in one of your premisses. That is a fallacy called begging the question. I'll take it that you are just ignorant of the fact that star light does indeed contain coded information about the chemistry of stars. (unless you define a code to be something that shows intent in which case to lable DNA a code would not be warranted by the evidence)

Again: If you define code the way you do here, it is not warranted to call DNA a code (You would have to show meaning and intent to begin with). You cannot declare it a code just because someone called it a code in a book you read, and then have your own definition of code apply. If you do that you are commiting the fallacy of equivocation (wheather you intended to or not, wheather you are aware of it or not).

what other options are there? (Please don't give me the silly ETdidit. it's even sillier then the godidit answer)

Ahh, but I am not making the declaration you think I am making.If you can see that DNA is a code, then it presents an opening for something else other than spontaneous origin. I have no real issue with evolution, other than the one that I can only present once you can see that DNA is a code.Evolution isn't the end all of the origions problem. Even when/if proven , evolution cannot answer origions. Even if we prove that all life on this planet came from one tiny cell in the middle of an ocean, it will never explain the ocean, the things that matter is made of and where they came from.Stretch your perception a bit. Even if every theory was proven true, ie the string theory, bouncing big bang, etc., it still would not explain where everything came from.If you, even for one second, can believe that all of this just always was, than you have more faith than a delusional lay-chrisian.

quote:

---

What is DNA communicating with? As Iblis correctly notes, if you want to insist that the only codes are those constructed for purposes of human communications, then DNA is not a code. All DNA does is react with other chemicals...

---

I never said that "the only codes are those constructed for purposes of human communications". What I said was that codes communicate information to something that understands and was ment to receive the code. That is DNA.Your computer contains coded info. You program info. into it, say an anti virus program, and then you leave. That computer program runs all by itself. It no longer needs you. The program is not the computer, but info. in the computer.DNA is like this. For simplicities sake, let's say DNA is a computer. Something programmed a code into the computer. The programmer leaves and the computer that contains the code runs the code day and night. It does what is intended to. It takes specific info. and sends it via electricity, magnets, binary, whatever to other parts that decode the info. and carry out the instructions in the DNA computer.How is hard for you to see? DNA works like that. The parts don't need to be conscious in order to do the job of sending/decoding. They just do it mechanically. Are you telling me computer programs, because they are not human, do not communicate with other non-human parts of hard/software?DNA is a double helix that is laden with an a, t, c, g alphabet ordered in specific sequence. That alphabet is a code. Why? Because the arrangement of that alphabet means something, represents something. It is a storing mechanism, like a computer, for info. That info is to be utilized, like that of a computer. The utilization of that code requires another to decode the info, like a computer program. It is as plain as day.Yockey and others stated more than once that DNA is not "like" a code, "as" a code, "similar" to a code, or can be "compared" to a code. Yockey and others stated that DNA IS a code in all definitions of the word. It is a code. How many diff. ways can I say it? How many times do you want me to post quotes saying these exact things? DNA IS a code.

quote:

---

But if a code is a system for representing and storing information, then DNA is a code. And so are starlight and tree rings.

---

What is the point of starlight and trees holding code? (Remember what I just wrote.)Do they use their own code as a reference? I think it's safe to say no. Codes are meant for communication. As a computer communicates with its nonliving hard/software, so DNA communicates with its non-conscious pieces. What does starlight communicate with, or tree rings? Sure, you can "read" into their patterns, but they weren't put there specifically for you to understand. You were not meant to understand them.Tree rings and starlight are in no way a code. There is info. on and in everything, but not like language, programs, and DNA. These things communicate with others that speak their language, conscious or not, as a computer does. We can learn their language, because their language follows the 4 levels of our language/codes perfectly, which are from the lowest level to the highest; statistics/alphabet, syntax/grammar, semantics/meaning, pragmatics/intent.Your examples fail to do this on every level. You read into them, but nothing else is waiting to decode them, no receiver was meant to decode their message.And by the way. DNA does express intent. When DNA sends out a message to be decoded, it contains specific instructions that this info must be replicated to these specifics. I don't care if it is chemical in DNA, or magnetic in a computer. Both contain a program that sends coded info that express a desired out come, aka intent.

quote:

---

Here's a simple example. Pretend you're a spy. You devise a code to tell a fellow spy what time you should meet the next day. Your code says that the 24-hour time will equal the number of peas you place in a matchbox that you leave on your front doorstep. Your fellow spy walks by your front door, scoops up the matchbox, counts the number of peas, and knows what time you'll meet the next day.

​

How is that any different from counting tree rings to get the age of a tree?

---

The spies agreed upon a message to express intent, to pass on specific info that served a purpose and needed to be received. The tree couldn't give a rats ass if you read it or not. You were not put here to decode the trees info. And if you say that you are the trees receiver, than you must believe in ID. You were meant to receive info from a tree, or a star.

quote:

---

You're again confusing the general concept of codes with formal definitions of human-defined codes...

---

Really? Someone had better inform old Yockey. He seemed to be under the assumption that DNA is a code, and codes are encoded information meant to express specific ideas/intentions.

quote:

---

Codes can arise even without our knowing it. Someone observing your house might discover that you leave for work every morning at 7:30 AM, except on Tuesday's when you leave at 10:00 AM. He now has a simple code: Tuesday mean's you'll be leaving for work at 10:00 AM.

---

That is not a code, it is information gathered from observing a pattern. DNA nor language works like this. They are full of specific information, intentionally sent out to achieve a goal. To communicate intent.

quote:

---

Halley's comet is a code. Say you didn't know what year it was, but you knew that Halley's comet had last appeared in 1986. So you just wait until you see Halley's comet, then you'll that know 76 years have passed since its last appearance and that the year is 2062.

---

Again, that is not a code, it is a pattern. There is a world of difference between a code and a pattern.

Time to find out then isn't it?No et, that just pushes the prollem back further.

I posted 3 or 4 times before this post, please read them all before posting.

I'm pretty sure I've read all the posts and I don't see any reply to the points raised in Message 24 and Message 53. So far all your posts seem to be arguing about whether or not DNA is a code. My points assume that DNA is a code, but then point out the weakness still inherant in your logic viz the fundamental difference between the two types of codes (ones we know have conscious origins and ones which we don't).There is no compulsion on you to answer the issue, but I think it is important to the matter at hand.