Information and Genetics

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Originally posted by Fred Williams:
No it isn’t, because information cannot arise naturalistically. There are no known examples in the universe to counter this law of nature.

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This thread is getting extremely tiresome. It should be evident on reflection that "information" is in itself a metaphor for aspects of what canbe perceived, that this metaphor is in turn applied metaphorically to biological processes as a convenience, and that examining the internals of the metaphor may or may not be informative about the biological processes in question, but that conclusions from the metaphor can only be applied to the processes only in so far as the metaphor is appropriate.Discussing the word "oak" can be informative about oaks, but only to a limited extent.Discussing the information content, if any, of biological processes can be informative about those processes, but only to a limited extent.Naturally occuring codes, in the form you describe, occur throughout nature in great abundance. In my garden at the moment there are strawberries signalling their ripeness with a highly effective colour-code. The colour signal conveys information about the state of the sender as surely as my cable modem signals this message.Howver, it is no surprise to me that Fred should declare that there is no naturally occuring information. Not only does he believe the misguided metaphor suits his purpose, but the nature of the metaphor itself is highly biased. "Information" is a term used primarily to indicate communication between intelligent agents. When applied to other systems metaphorically (as in information theory, where it acquires a specialised technical definition, different from the common usage) it acquires its ramifications. Fred's use is a classic case of the pseudorefuting description - abundant natural information cannot be true information, because true information cannot be natural.So Fred, is the strawberries' colour information?I notice you brushed off the tree ring problem with "they are abviously not a code" which was a pathetic answer, which begged more questions than I think you have either time or arguments enough to answer in full.