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Author | Topic: coded information in DNA | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
WordBeLogos Member (Idle past 5421 days) Posts: 103 From: Ohio Joined: |
Onifre,
Fuzzy wuzzy was a what...? "An uncaused cause of all that is caused" - What does that even mean...? All finite things have a cause. The only logical conclusion is, that there must ultimately be some original Uncaused (eternal) cause of all finite things which themselves have been caused. If not, you run into an irrational infinite regress of finite causes and effects.
So, let me beg the question, 'cause I'm in the mood, why can't DNA fit the bill of "an uncaused cause of all organisms that are caused"? Because DNA is finite. As you have rightly said, there was a time it didn't exist. Therefore, it can't be the uncaused cause. -Word John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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WordBeLogos Member (Idle past 5421 days) Posts: 103 From: Ohio Joined: |
mark24,
All codes, where the origin is known are natural. Unless humans are supernatural all of a sudden? We are a part of the universe, & anything we do is as natural as a beaver's dam, as a bees hive, as a birds nest. Humans aren't an exception, all codes made by humans are therefore natural in origin. But isn't this the very question? All intelligent code makers are what? Derived from code in DNA. This is the question mark, is code natural? If you think so, all you need is one example of a code that doesn't come from a mind.
Given that this is the case, please respond to the "logic" that mirrors your own that states that we have not observed a code that is not natural in origin, therefore all codes are natural in origin. See above.
You can't expect to progress in this discussion, or convince anyone of anything without addressing the flaws in your own logic. If the logic that states all known codes have an intelligent origin, therefore all codes have an intelligent origin is sound, then the argument regarding natural origins of codes, above, is also sound. And this means you have a serious problem with your reasoning, fallacy of composition aside. But the natural origins of codes is not sound. You are assuming the thing in question. Again, see above. -Word John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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WordBeLogos Member (Idle past 5421 days) Posts: 103 From: Ohio Joined: |
Hello Phage0070,
Phage writes: Word writes: They now contain information (a message) which did not originate from the laws of nature or the properties of the pebbles. Precisely the case in DNA. I might have missed it, but justify your claim that DNA’s function does not originate from the laws of nature and the properties of its constituents. I don't claim that. The question of where the molecule came from and how it operates is an important one but not relevant to the discussion at hand. The question that needs answered, is where the code / message came from in the first place. The immaterial information the physical medium carries. Just like the immaterial information a book carries. The mechanics of the book, how it obeys the laws of physics and all of it's physical properties do not account for message it carries.
The pebbles contain a message that is uniquely understood by a language originating with humans, but the DNA’s information is a series of chemical reactions which did not originate with human understanding. Are you claiming that all chemical reactions are information and designed, or is there some special quality that the chemical function of DNA has that distinguishes it from other reactions? Yes, DNA is an information / comunication system which uses a system of symbols using an encoding / decoding mechanism which transmits a message that is seperate from the medium. In all cases of human observation, 100% of them, such systems are *ONLY* the product of mind. -Word John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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Percy Member Posts: 22503 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
WordBeLogos writes: If you think so, all you need is one example of a code that doesn't come from a mind. I'm sure no one can figure out why you think valid rebuttal consists of declaring, "Only an intelligent agent can create a code," then repeating this over and over and over again. Until you stop imitating a broken record and engage in sincere discussion, this thread can't really make progress. --Percy
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Yes, DNA is an information / comunication system which uses a system of symbols using an encoding / decoding mechanism which transmits a message that is seperate from the medium. Who decodes it and what does it say?
In all cases of human observation, 100% of them, such systems are *ONLY* the product of mind. Percy gave you a great example of a natural code from the sun in Message 190
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WordBeLogos Member (Idle past 5421 days) Posts: 103 From: Ohio Joined: |
Hey Bluejay,
Bluejay writes: WordBeLogos writes: We now know functioning proteins require a lenghty and specific sequential arrangment of amino acids. We actually know that this is completely false: all proteins have literally hundreds (probably even thousands) of sequence variations that work perfectly well. Is there only one way to say something in the English language? "Let's go to my crib." "Let's go to my house." "Let's proceed to my crib." "Let's head to my house." Of course not, but in each case, they still require a specific sequential arrangment of English letters to produce functional meaningful text.
From variations in the base-pair sequences that code for certain proteins. This idea that sequence specificity prohibits unguided natural processes from producing the genome is completely unfounded. I've never claimed that. -Word Edited by WordBeLogos, : No reason given. John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Is there only one way to say something in the English language? "Let's go to my crib." "Let's go to my house." "Let's proceed to my crib." "Let's head to my house." Of course not, but in each case, they still require a specific sequential arrangment of English letters to produce functional meaningful text. Acutlaly, you olny need the frsit and lsat leteres to be the smae to get the piont asrcos.
quote: You fail again.
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mark24 Member (Idle past 5224 days) Posts: 3857 From: UK Joined: |
WordBeLogos,
This is the question mark, is code natural? If you think so, all you need is one example of a code that doesn't come from a mind. Every code where we are aware of the origin of that code, are all natural. Every single one. What YOU need is an unnatural one. All minds we are aware of are natural, too. So if a mind made DNA it must be natural & of this universe! All you need is one supernatural mind, JUST ONE! For the purposes of this discussion we are juxtaposing "natural" with "supernatural", anything of this universe is natural, anything that comes from outside it is supernatural. As I and others have pointed out, something created by humans is natural, it was created 100% within this universe. If a bees hive is natural, or a beavers dam, then so is anything made by man. Moreover, you have juxtaposed "natural" with "not intelligently created", which is incorrect. You should juxtapose natural with supernatural, or intelligently created with not intelligently created. This is why the following makes no sense:
mark writes: Given that this is the case, please respond to the "logic" that mirrors your own that states that we have not observed a code that is not natural in origin, therefore all codes are natural in origin.
WBL writes: This is the question mark, is code natural? If you think so, all you need is one example of a code that doesn't come from a mind. You haven't addressed the issue. You have just muddied the water by confusing "natural" with " notintelligently created".
But the natural origins of codes is not sound. You are assuming the thing in question. I am not assuming anything in my logic that you are not. My logic is as sound as yours, please show me what part of my logic is wrong: Premise 1: All codes where the origin is known have natural origins. Bar none. Premise 2: DNA has a code of "unknown origin". Inference: All codes must therefore have natural origins. Conclusion: DNA has natural origins. All YOU need to do is provide us with one code of non-natural origins. JUST ONE! You clearly have a problem, my logic is just as good as yours, yet conflicts with your conclusion. Of course, you could accept both sets of reasoning & conclude that a natural intelligence born of this universe created DNA, but something tells me that's not the answer you want. Mark Edited by mark24, : No reason given. Edited by mark24, : No reason given. There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
Yes, DNA is an information / comunication system which uses a system of symbols using an encoding / decoding mechanism which transmits a message that is seperate from the medium. No, it is not. For the reasons I explained earlier in the thread. Gene regulation, among other processes, would not function if DNA was changed for another medium.
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WordBeLogos Member (Idle past 5421 days) Posts: 103 From: Ohio Joined: |
Hello CS,
CS writes: Word writes: Percy writes: I earlier gave you example of Alphabits cereal. If you arrange three letters to spell "yes", that is information. But if you jostle the box and three letters fall out to spell "yes", that is also information. Yes, it mimics real intended coded information. And that is the same thing that DNA does. You've just been tricked into thinking the mimicing is real. But here is the problem. The word "yes," can be accounted for statistically through the laws of probability. Not to mention the very favorable conditions of having a box full of intelligently designed letters to begin with. How about a complete sentense of 30 or so words? How about a complete paragraph of a few hundred words? This is why many scientists no longer hold to the chance or "happy frozen accident" hypothesis. As A. Graham Cairns-Smith says: "Blind chance is very limited. Blind chance can produce low levels of cooperation, exceedingly easily, the equivalent of letters and small words, but it becomes very quickly incompetent as the amount of organization increases. Very soon indeed long waiting periods and massive material resources become irrelevant."
CS writes: Word writes: Until you can make the distinction between information and coded information systems you will never understand what is being argued here Percy. Yes anything that happens gives off "information" just by it's very state. It tells us something about itself, or possibly something about what it may have encounted. But there is no code intended to be sent and decoded. No intended information. All the examples you continue to offer are only information about themselves or other things they have come in contact with in some fashion. There is no decoder that this information is intended for. This information means nothing until we assign meaning to it. The same thing goes for DNA. Not so. CS, in order for you to be an informed particpant in this discussion I suggest that you read the entire thread. Or at least all mine.
CS writes: Word writes: In DNA, there is real coded information, a real signal which is intended to be successfully decoded and implemented. Whoa... wait. Nuh-uh... you just made that up. Do you have any support for this assertion? And, who is the intended decoder for DNA? When the sperm reaches the egg and a new cell with it's DNA are formed following the rules of genetics we have encoding. When the cell devides and forms limbs and organs we have decoding.
That example is assigning meaning to the code post hoc, or in hind sight. It is assuming the conclusion in the premise. The whole argument is the logical fallacy Begging the Question. Please explain. -Word John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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Percy Member Posts: 22503 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
WordBeLogos writes: Bluejay writes: WordBeLogos writes: We now know functioning proteins require a lenghty and specific sequential arrangment of amino acids. We actually know that this is completely false: all proteins have literally hundreds (probably even thousands) of sequence variations that work perfectly well. Is there only one way to say something in the English language? "Let's go to my crib." "Let's go to my house." "Let's proceed to my crib." "Let's head to my house." Of course not, but in each case, they still require a specific sequential arrangment of English letters to produce functional meaningful text. You seem not to comprehend your own claim. You claimed that assembling functioning proteins was a very significant problem because the required sequences of amino acids were very specific and therefore very unlikely. When it was pointed out that hundreds of different sequences could create proteins that accomplish the same function, thereby falsifying your claim of high specificity and unlikelihood, you gladly concede as if that's what you had claimed in the first place. I'm happy that you concede the point, but you seem not to realize that the concession is fatal to your position.
From variations in the base-pair sequences that code for certain proteins. This idea that sequence specificity prohibits unguided natural processes from producing the genome is completely unfounded. I've never claimed that. Of course you've claimed it! I can easily believe you don't understand that you've claimed it if, as I suspect, you're still copy-n-pasting, only this time from one of Dembski's books instead of from online material, but you have most certainly claimed that high specificity removes natural processes as a possible origin. This position is fundamental to Dembski's claims of having proven that DNA could not have had a natural origin. Your Message 183 contains words that Dembski himself could have written:
WordBeLogos in Message 183 writes: The information contained in DNA is both specified and complex. ... As of now, observing that all naturalistic explanations have failed to explain the origin of biological information, intelligence stands alone as the *ONLY* known process to produce such information intense systems. Gee, what do you know, you did claim it! How about that! Word, seriously, there's no substitute for familiarizing yourself with the material before engaging in debate about it. I don't know whose words you're using now, but clearly you don't know what they mean. --Percy
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WordBeLogos Member (Idle past 5421 days) Posts: 103 From: Ohio Joined: |
Hello CS,
CS writes: Word writes: Is there only one way to say something in the English language? "Let's go to my crib." "Let's go to my house." "Let's proceed to my crib." "Let's head to my house." Of course not, but in each case, they still require a specific sequential arrangment of English letters to produce functional meaningful text. Acutlaly, you olny need the frsit and lsat leteres to be the smae to get the piont asrcos. You fail again. CS, I suggest you read pmarshalls discussion over at infidels. http://www.freeratio.org//showthread.php?t=135497&page=1
pmarshall writes: There is plenty of room for variation in written language, the fact that you can read the sentence THE PAOMNNEHAL PWEOR OF THE HMUAN MNID is a popular example. It’s completely misspelled but you can read it anyway. But when a code based system has tolerance for error, that requires a robust, self-correcting system (again, as Shapiro discusses in his paper) not a sloppily designed system. The fact that human language and cellular systems are fault tolerant simply demonstrates that they are more sophisticated and adaptive than computer codes and systems. Very very smart people rack their brains trying to figure out how to make computer systems as adaptive (able to deal with slop inputs) as biological systems, and these very smart people don’t just randomly mutate their code to achieve such results. It is highly misleading and anti-scientific to label this flexibility as slop. Again I refer to Shapiro’s discussion of the error correction mechanisms used in cellular reproduction. -Word p.s. Nice bike! I ride an 03 RM250 myself, just wish I had the nads i once had when it didn't hurt as bad! lol Peace. John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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onifre Member (Idle past 2979 days) Posts: 4854 From: Dark Side of the Moon Joined: |
All finite things have a cause. If all finite things have a cause, then it's ok to assume that DNA had a cause. The difference in your argument is that you invoke a supernatural causal agent, where as the rest of science invokes natural, chemical reactions. Let's assume that neither side has evidence for either position. What makes more sense to you, that natural chemical reactions that are known to exist, can be studied, can be verifed and checked, and experimented on, was the cause...? OR Some unknown force that can't be seen, studied, experimented on, that, mind you, breaks the laws of physics, and it itself has no known explanation, was the cause... Let me guess which one your heart tells you is the correct one?
The only logical conclusion is, that there must ultimately be some original Uncaused (eternal) cause of all finite things which themselves have been caused. This would some-what make sense if DNA was the first known thing, element, chemical, to exist. As I pointed out to you in the post you ignored, the elements that make up DNA came way before DNA; so did the elements ALSO need a creator, or is it OK to go with nucleosynthesis? In other words, if DNA required devine intervention, then everything before it that makes up DNA must also require devine intervention. Because if not, what you are saying is that this unknown causing entity waited billions of years for all the elements to emerge naturally from the core of stars, waited til the stars went supernova, waited for a specific planet to contain all of the required elements in it's environment THEN said "you know what, let me arrange these few elements together to create something that I will then just leave alone to evolve." Sorry, dude, but that sounds crazy! Stars form, elements form within it, they go supernova, planets form, planets contain these elemnets and through the same natural order that gave us everything leading up to it, DNA forms from a more basic RNA. All this other stuff about "intelligence being the only thing that brings about codes" is just nonsense that you've fed yourself to justify a belief in God, that, while it works to satisfy your belief, fails miserably as a scientific hypothesis.
Because DNA is finite. You forget that DNA is also made up of smaller components. Elements, which have their origin in stars, who have their origin in hydrogen gas, which has it's origin at the Big Bang, which has it's origin in... DNA is finite in and of itself, but what makes it up is not. It regresses back all the way to the origin of our universe. Equally, you are finite as "Word", but your origin can also regress all the way back to the origin of the universe. Carl Sagan, man, "we are all star stuff"...not "supernatural stuff". - Oni Edited by onifre, : cleaned up post a bit Edited by onifre, : No reason given. Petition to Bailout Comedy The Laugh Factory is imploring Congress to immediately fund what owner Jamie Masada calls an "Economic Cheer-Up." If Congress fails to act quickly, the Laugh Factory comedians are planning to march to Washington and plea to President Obama.
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WordBeLogos Member (Idle past 5421 days) Posts: 103 From: Ohio Joined: |
Hi Percy,
Real quick before I go, I think your forgetting that I'm not arguing codes can't change, *ONCE* they exist in the first place. Peace. -Word John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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Parasomnium Member Posts: 2224 Joined: |
WordBeLogos,
Basically, your point can be summarized in the following syllogism: Premise 1: DNA is a code;Premise 2: All codes come from conscious minds; Conclusion: DNA comes from a conscious mind. Seems watertight, doesn't it? Well, not to me. If the premises of a syllogism are not true, then neither is its conclusion. In this case both premises leave something to be desired. First of all, DNA may look like a code but that might be an illusion. You could also view DNA as just the beginning of a very complex physico-chemical chain of causes and effects that ends in the formation of proteins. Certain triplets of bases in a piece of tRNA happen to bond with just one or a few different amino acids. Amino acids happen to be able to form polypeptides. Certain polypeptide chains happen to fold in a certain way during their formation. The resulting three-dimensional structure of certain proteins happens to catalyse certain chemical reactions. Just like it is unnecessary to assume a flow of information in the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen to form water, there is no need for such an assumption in the more complex chemistry of DNA and proteins. Second, it's a bit parochial to think that since we humans have never observed a code other than those originating from conscious minds, such codes from non-conscious origin cannot exist at all. We have hardly looked everywhere, have we? Let's say I tell you that in all cases of my observation of mammals, 100% of them, they can always fly. (Say I live on a small island in the Pacific where the only mammals are bats.) Does that mean that flightless mammals cannot exist? To me, your logic is akin to this: Premise 1: An alligator is a mammal;Premise 2: All mammals can fly; Conclusion: Alligators can fly. "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin. Did you know that most of the time your computer is doing nothing? What if you could make it do something really useful? Like helping scientists understand diseases? Your computer could even be instrumental in finding a cure for HIV/AIDS. Wouldn't that be something? If you agree, then join World Community Grid now and download a simple, free tool that lets you and your computer do your share in helping humanity. After all, you are part of it, so why not take part in it?
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