NvC-1: What is the premise of Naturalism in Biology?

quote:

---

The physical information of hydrogen and oxygen is exactly different from the genetic information. The genetic information is an ordered sequence of symbols from an alphabet, A/C/G/T for DNA or A/C/G/U for RNA. Does the physical information of hydrogen and oxygen have an alphabet and present as an ordered sequence of symbols from the alphabet? No. Therefore, your conclusion Natural laws are doing that is not supported by evidence or arguments.

---

The symbols are the bases, and it is their chemical properties that determine their interactions. Your last sentence denies that - it even denies that we have argued that. If you insist they the bases are inert symbols, that their chemical properties are irrelevant then it is for you to provide evidence.

quote:

---

PaulK(Message 287) asked me what this means? My questions are, in the Figure of Taq (Message 277), why must the anticodon be three bases instead of two? Why does the anticodon loop determine the acceptor stem by the natural laws? In other words, why is the Genetic Code as we see it now? Can the laws of nature explain it? I suggest you read a review article:

​

Koonin, EV. and Novozhilov, AS., 2009. Origin and evolution of the genetic code: The universal enigma. International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Life, 61, 99-111.

---

I suggest that you read my prior posts, but I’ll repeat my point. All we can say is that a simplistic application of natural law without adequate knowledge Of the circumstances is insufficient to explain it. As our knowledge and understanding grows progress may be made. As the authors would agree.

quote:

---

I find that you deny that rules other than natural laws work in the world. Isn’t it?

---

If you want to introduce other laws - and show that they are not natural laws or supervenient on natural law - it’s up to you to provide the evidence. The point you are responding to is a fact. The circuits of a cellphone function according to natural law. If you want to argue otherwise it’s for you to provide evidence.

quote:

---

There is no doubt that all the processes of life, including human beings, can be decomposed into a series of physical/chemical processes, which follow the natural laws, but this does not mean that there are no other rules in the world except the natural laws.

---

But it does mean that any other laws in the processes of life will be supervenient on natural law.

quote:

---

The translation process obeys the Genetic Code, not the natural laws.

---

A false dichotomy as you have implicitly admitted in your previous point. The translation process works according to natural law to follow the genetic code.

quote:

---

The natural laws cannot design those electronic circuits in smartphone.
The natural laws cannot decide how you plan your travel.
The natural laws cannot tell you how to write your message.
There are many rules in the world besides the natural laws! Our society is governed by law, not by the natural laws. Law is the product of intellectual activity, not the natural laws.

---

It’s funny how you said that you wanted to focus on genetic information but you keep talking about the mind instead. I don’t propose to argue about that here since it is contentious and neither side can prove it’s case.However, I will point out that law in the legal sense is quite different from natural law and confusing the two is folly and nothing more,Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

But you skip my question in RLW([msq=298]) As you wrote As our knowledge and understanding grows progress may be made, many of today’s mysteries will have answers. For example, I expect that in the future, human being will interpret the dark matter and dark energy by natural laws, since this is natural phenomena.But the natural laws cannot explain information processes, or bioinformatic processes in biology, because information obeys its own rules. Information needs material as its carrier. Info-carrier follows the natural laws. Therefore, the natural laws can explain how information processes are executed, but not the meaning of information.You, Taq and PaulK both emphasize is that the EXECUTION of information processes follows the natural laws, but the natural laws cannot explain why 1+1=2.Neurochemistry follows the natural laws, but neuro-informatic process does not follow the natural laws: the natural laws cannot explain how the math rule 1+1=2 works in the brain.Suppose that I download an English eBook Hamlet to my smartphone by wireless. At this time, the carrier is electromagnetic wave containing countless 0s and 1s codes. The transmission of electromagnetic wave is controlled by Maxwell equation of electromagnetic field. However, how these 0s and 1s codes express Hamlet depends on encoding rule, English vocabulary and grammar, and has nothing to do with Maxwell equation of electromagnetic field. Information and information-carrier obey different rules.Back to the Genetic Code. The natural laws cannot explain it, because it is a bioinformatic process, as the word CODE shows. My English is very poor, I often use Google translate to translate English to Chinese or Chinese to English, when I write my replies. The natural laws determine the EXECUSION of the translation processes, but it cannot decide how to translate English to Chinese or Chinese to English.PaulK, sometimes my discussion might be too far away from genetic information which should be my focus. I will pay attention on it.

quote:

---

But you skip my question in RLW(Message 298)

---

Your question was a response to an assertion made by someone else. It’s hardly relevant to my points.Since you fail to produce any evidence that the bases of DNA are merely inert symbols, or that translation is not accomplished by processes following natural law, I presume that you have none,

quote:

---

As you wrote As our knowledge and understanding grows progress may be made, many of today’s mysteries will have answers. For example, I expect that in the future, human being will interpret the dark matter and dark energy by natural laws, since this is natural phenomena.

​

But the natural laws cannot explain information processes, or bioinformatic processes in biology, because information obeys its own rules

---

So you say, but your evidence is lacking.

quote:

---

Information needs material as its carrier. Info-carrier follows the natural laws. Therefore, the natural laws can explain how information processes are executed, but not the meaning of information

---

If we are talking about genetic information, that does not concern us. Only when we get to language - and then, again, we are talking about the mind. I will anticipate your point below by pointing out that Google Translate has a more difficult task than DNA translation because it must preserve meaning - and cope with idiom and other aspects of natural language that make it difficult (and it does so imperfectly, in my experience). A human translator can do better than Google Translate, but DNA translation is too mechanical for humans to have an advantage there,

quote:

---

Back to the Genetic Code. The natural laws cannot explain it, because it is a bioinformatic process, as the word CODE shows. My English is very poor, I often use Google translate to translate English to Chinese or Chinese to English, when I write my replies. The natural laws determine the EXECUSION of the translation processes, but it cannot decide how to translate English to Chinese or Chinese to English.

---

We cannot currently explain it in terms of natural law, but that does not mean that it is impossible in principle. We should not expect to understand an immensely complex history with many unknown contingencies - at least not without a huge amount of work.Nevertheless in the cases where we can study and do have good knowledge we do not see any sign that your claims are true of genetic information. Genetic information is changed and added by natural processes obeying natural law.

Where is your evidence for any of these claims? You seem to just assert them as true without anything to back them up. Again, where is your evidence that thought processes violate natural laws? Gravity obeys different rules than electromagnetism, but they are both natural processes that follow natural laws. Humans obey all natural laws when constructing all of those files and computers.

Now, we are discussing the core of whether naturalism is correct or not: the natural laws govern the info-carrier, not the info-content. Such evidence is everywhere that the natural laws don’t work when it comes to info-content.Very simple, the natural laws cannot explain why 1+1=2.The natural laws cannot explain why the liquid in river is called as WATER in English, but EAU in French. The natural laws cannot explain why pain means uncomfortable feeling in English, while in French it means Bread, a food made of wheat flour; and the English word "gift" means "poison" in German.For the translation bioinformatic process, the natural laws work for the info-carriers: the H-bond between codon on mRNA and anticodon on tRNA, the binding between acceptor stem and amino acid; but the natural laws cannot explain the info-content: why a tRNA with the anticodon UUU is linked to an amino acid Lys.For tRNA, scientists know exactly the molecular structure and interaction, and can perform any computational and experimental research they want. Quantum mechanics includes all the theories of molecular structure. Density functional theory provides an accurate and fast method for the calculation of molecular structure. The tRNA molecule contains less than 100 nucleotides and can be easily calculated without using supercomputer. The development of science and technology in the future cannot provide any new concepts, theories or experimental means. A simple fact is that tRNA contains the info-content: the translation from genetic-information to amino-acid-information, which is not governed by the natural laws, as same as 1+1=2.No matter how science and technology develop in future, the natural laws cannot explain these questions, even the simplest formula 1+1=2.Can your guys provide just one example of how the natural laws control info-content?

quote:

---

Now, we are discussing the core of whether naturalism is correct or not: the natural laws govern the info-carrier, not the info-content. Such evidence is everywhere that the natural laws don’t work when it comes to info-content.

---

On the contrary, the evidence is wholly lacking.

quote:

---

The natural laws cannot explain why the liquid in river is called as WATER in English, but EAU in French. The natural laws cannot explain why pain means uncomfortable feeling in English, while in French it means Bread, a food made of wheat flour; and the English word "gift" means "poison" in German.

---

I note again that you are not talking about genetic information at all.
Nevertheless the fact that historical contingencies play a major role is not sufficient to prove a violation of natural law.

quote:

---

For the translation bioinformatic process, the natural laws work for the info-carriers: the H-bond between codon on mRNA and anticodon on tRNA, the binding between acceptor stem and amino acid; but the natural laws cannot explain the info-content: why a tRNA with the anticodon UUU is linked to an amino acid Lys.

---

I have already addressed this point. While it cannot be explained by a simplistic application of natural laws, made without adequate understanding of history and circumstances, that does not mean that it is beyond natural law.I don’t need to address the following paragraph other than to note that it confirms that you are referring to exactly the simplistic application of natural law that I reject as obviously inadequate.

quote:

---

Can your guys provide just one example of how the natural laws control info-content?

---

Mutations occur by natural law, and it is mutations that change and add to the info-content.

Based on what evidence? So natural laws can not explain why you can add 1 gram to 1 gram and get 2 grams at the end? Pretty sure natural laws can explain that. Why can't natural laws explain that? Why can't natural laws explain that?Here is a simple example. The rocks below have different chemical and physical structures. How are they all different? They each experienced different conditions during their formation, and natural laws governed the formation of all the rocks even though they had different outcomes. The same applies to everything you are discussing. History plays out differently in different places and times, and this results in different outcomes, and all of it is governed by natural laws. tRNAs could have been different if conditions and historical contingencies were different, but that doesn't exclude natural laws from the process that formed them to begin with.

Abstract reasoning like math, language, art and all other symbolic representations are creations born of the human mind. That human mind is an emergent property of the physics of the brain.Of course everything you mentioned is the product of, is controlled by and is ultimately subject to all physical laws. There are no exceptions anyone can show without reaching into the absurd.Your arguments are becoming absurd, Richard. This is not working for you.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

So is your position that the laws of mathematics are supernatural? God does our homework? What are you trying to say?

Of course, I focus on biology and genetic information. However, we first need to understand information in general, then we can understand genetic information in special. We all have experiences in math, language, etc., so it is easy for us to discuss the general properties of information from these aspects.Apart from the natural laws, you even dare not even mention any other rules that exist in the world. The bioinformatic processes are usually controlled by regulations rather than natural laws. These regulations are discovered by biologists (I believe most of them are traditional biologists). But you don't dare even to mention these regulations.You didn’t explain anything, because the natural laws cannot answer these questions.You mentioned that mutations occur by natural laws. This is a good topic, we can discuss later.

The rocks’ photo has nothing to do with what we discussed about. Rocks are made up only of matter, while life is made up of matter and non-material elements such as genetic information.You wrote Pretty sure natural laws can explain that. Why can't natural laws explain that? and Why can't natural laws explain that? Well, please explain one of my questions, for example, 1+1=2, or The natural laws cannot explain why the liquid in river is called as WATER in English, but EAU in French.

As for that natural laws cannot govern info-content, I copy a paragraph of RLW(Message 303) here: Suppose that I download an English eBook Hamlet to my smartphone by wireless. At this time, the carrier is electromagnetic wave containing countless 0s and 1s codes. The transmission of electromagnetic wave is controlled by Maxwell equation of electromagnetic field. However, how these 0s and 1s codes express Hamlet depends on encoding rule, English vocabulary and grammar, and has nothing to do with Maxwell equation of electromagnetic field. Information and information-carrier obey different rules.As for that natural laws cannot produce info-content, here I just point out that natural forces are purposeless, while all organisms live on purpose for surviving and reproducing. Rocks in the photo of Taq(Message 308) are made up only of matter and live without purpose. Organisms live on purpose due to that they contain non-material elements. How does the purposeless natural forces lead to purposeful non-material elements such as genetic information? This is impossible in logic.The key is to distinguish info-carrier and info-content.

The conclusion is drawn from the analyses of facts. My conclusion is that God created life on Earth and gave life the ability to survive and evolve. There is a long way to go before reaching the conclusion.

quote:

---

Of course, I focus on biology and genetic information.

---

Of course you don’t.

quote:

---

However, we first need to understand information in general, then we can understand genetic information in special. We all have experiences in math, language, etc., so it is easy for us to discuss the general properties of information from these aspects.

---

No, we don’t. In fact these topics actively obscure the issues. The operation of the mind is contentious and not adequately understood. [quote]

quote:

---

Of course, I focus on biology and genetic information.

---

Of course you don’t.

quote:

---

However, we first need to understand information in general, then we can understand genetic information in special. We all have experiences in math, language, etc., so it is easy for us to discuss the general properties of information from these aspects.

---

No, we don’t. In fact these topics actively obscure the issues. The operation of the mind is contentious and not adequately understood.

quote:

---

Apart from the natural laws, you even dare not even mention any other rules that exist in the world. The bioinformatic processes are usually controlled by regulations rather than natural laws. These regulations are discovered by biologists (I believe most of them are traditional biologists). But you don't dare even to mention these regulations.

---

Why aren’t you mentioning them? Apart from the absurd idea that legislation is the same as natural law you haven’t exactly been forthcoming. And wouldn’t all those rules in biology ultimately rely on natural law anyway?

quote:

---

You didn’t explain anything, because the natural laws cannot answer these questions.

---

Well they can’t answer them in the simplistic way you want to do it. But as I did explain we shouldn’t expect them to, nor should we expect to know the actual answers yet. But you don’t address that point.

quote:

---

You mentioned that mutations occur by natural laws. This is a good topic, we can discuss later.

---

It would seem to be an essential point if you actually wanted to discuss genetic information. But then you are largely avoiding that topic.