DNA and the 'Code of Life'

Aedes

The cosmos doesn't make statements. "1+1=2" is a statement that WE make. But whether it's true or not is not because of its natural cosmological truth, but only because that is how we've defined those symbols.

First of all, if you got from that statement of mine to "you claimed that Philosophy invented language"

...then you have completely proven my point that language is imprecise, because I said absolutely nothing to even imply that.

Symbolic logic is a formal domain of philosophy, developed by logicians like Frege and Russell, chiefly to express logical arguments using the most precise possible terminology. The only way to do that was to eliminate words and use agreed-upon symbols instead.

I have no idea where you're going with this cosmos making statements. The cosmos doesn't make statements.

"1+1=2" is a statement that WE make. But whether it's true or not is not because of its natural cosmological truth, but only because that is how we've defined those symbols.

We understand that our numbers are abstractions, but that doesn't mean we can't make truth out of them, does it?

QuinticNon

And I'm still confused as to your perspective of my views. You seem to determine me as thinking only with the "classical logic ice pick" of materialism. Yet my Info principle refutes the hard materialist. I don't get it. The "Laws of Logic" themselves are even immaterial.

Yes I misread you. That's the beauty of language, we can ask for clarification. I did not want to assume. My problem is that I interchange "symbolic logic" and "language" and "code" synonymously. I should not suppose others do. That's why I asked.

Yes, I misread you. But how is an "agreed-upon symbol" not a word? That's what words are... agreed upon symbols. And no matter what the symbol, it always represents the thought from a mind... does it not?

That's a point I was leading to. Every time we encode, we make truth. Even if what we have said is false, incorrect, or just plain deceptive. If that be the case, then it would be True that what we have said is Truly false, Truly incorrect, or just plain Truly deceptive.

Every thing we speak in language is not always true, even if we're truly speaking in language.

...the purpose is to cut down the level of ambiguity. And it accomplishes this task. Just like mathematics does.

You are correct. Is it not True, that Truly statements are ultimately supportable by Truth statements?

Yes and as poetry cannot. Yet poetry accomplishes tasks that symbolic logic and mathematics could not hope to achieve.

Are they all not tools of human?

get it?

you do seem to interpret peoples posts from your own ego centric and passionate perspective.

if you really want to understand what people are 'intending' to say (information theory???) then try reading them within their own perspective in their own right.

On several occasions (eg me and aedes) you have completely misinterpreted what we intended to communicate.

Not least because you are so passionately committed to your own way of interpreting the world. (eg information is necessarily immaterial) that you 'read' us differently to how we intended.

This phenomenon incidentally is recognised as 'inevitable' within the philosophical movement of postmodernism ie happens in human communication all the time.

To have any chance of moving outside your own narrative understanding and reading a post in a way such that it was intended, then you have to try and get into the narrative understanding of the writer.

Isn't this right?

Do you disagree?

You mean it has no direct correspondance with reality. Such as the truth that water is composed of H2O does, right?

But does that make it not a truth? It is still true that 1+1=2, is it not? We understand that our numbers are abstractions, but that doesn't mean we can't make truth out of them, does it?

But how is an "agreed-upon symbol" not a word?

Then how could DNA have been encoded by the cosmos, or any other "natural" means?

Coding requires a capacity for making statements.

But DNA/RNA has it's own definitions within a closed loop system.

Here's a truth for you:

{$}# + ^^$%} = $RQ$@#$

That is because I have defined this as a true statement. It's just as true as 1+1=2, only the message hasn't caught on quite so well.

Yes. A form of affirmation of expression. "Nature loves courage". Why would she not love courage on her behalf? You spoke upon her behalf, and from her behalf, she returned your invitation with the affirmation of others who... got it.

A tickle and a laugh. What could be better?

{$}# + ^^$%} = $RQ$@#$

DNA just is. So are rocks. That's how we know about DNA -- we looked for it and we found it. You can't say the same thing about something metaphysical.

Show me the proof that that is true for nucleic acids.

I do not agree that it is closed. It is factually incorrect to speak of DNA's sequence as somehow divorced from the regulatory things that govern if and how its language is even read at all.

Right, but just because you devised the system, it does not mean that the truth here is any less of a truth than anything else you discover is true. Imagine language as a devised system, and "H", "O", and the number "2" as devised symbols. If I say water is composed of H2O, isn't this true, and not less of a truth, just because I'm using a system of communication?

You're not the creator of that truth, you see. The truth was already there. You just discovered it by a devising of symbols.

Did someone presuppose it existed before it was discovered?

If so, during that time of "looking", would it not be held as a purely metaphysical notion until the molecule we were "looking" for was actually found to exist in physicality and beyond hypothesis?

If necleic acid is encoded, then a statement has been made.

From the Double Helix through to the Protein, the entire genetic mechanism is a closed loop communication protocol.

But in the case of H and O, it can be demonstrated without those symbols. There are ways to demonstrate that there is such a thing as that which we call H and that which we call O; and it can be demonstrated that the substance we refer to as water is composed of molecules that have two represenatives of that which we call H bound to that which we call O.

In that case, let me be the first to announce that I've discovered the truth that 1+1 =/= 2, and I have discovered this pre-existing truth by a devising of symbols.

a ridiculous assumption

Wrong!!!

I certainly don't want to believe or spread ridiculous assumptions. So please correct me as to how the process of code (mapping probability space A to probability space B) is not a process of making a statement.

How is DNA/RNA transcription not a closed loop communication protocol?

jeeprs

To be very clear about my position, it seems unarguable to me that (1) Crick and Watson do make this claim and (2) that therefore, information systems theory can be applied to living systems.

Besides, even leaving aside all the philosophy, I would have thought that the application of information systems to molecular biology might be a very fascinating new field of endeavour.

"Making a statement" is a phrase that I have never before seen used without preconceived reference to a human's intentions. So why on earth should I assume this about DNA?

Because if, when, how, and under what circumstances it happens is subject to innumerable external direct influences.

i agree it is potentially fascinating, but information theory was developed from communication theory. It is mathematics and engineering based. Therein those terms is shown a potential narrative bias. ie communication and engineering. Thus, applied to molecular genetics on a metaphysical level, dna is evidence of 'communication' and 'engineering'. One implies more than one sentient being (re wittgenstein), the other implies at least one sentient being (intelligent design). The other bias is that information theory is independent of the medium.