DNA, Where did the code come from?

@maxdancona,

Can you give me one non-biological example of such information?

The handful of known forces in nature do not count if our definitions are the same. Crystals, chemical compounds, elements born in a nova, etc are easily explained by those forces and so are not examples of Information.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

Structured information can be generated through a process of natural selection.

Max, think for a minute, willya? Natural selection "generates" nothing. It creates nothing. It merely "selects" from that which has previously been generated or created.

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@Leadfoot,

If only you could provide as much evidence as you demand....*cough*

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@Leadfoot,

Any set of numbers in random order is information. These are being generated all of time. The arrangement of rocks on mars is information. The electromagnetic waves from a star are information. The arrangement of the stars is information.

I was given a lottery ticket for Christmas. Somewhere they randomly picked 6 balls out of a spinning drum. I don't know if you consider this "non-biological", but I eagerly looked up this information generated as part of a random process.

I don't know what definition of "information" you are using, but the Universe is full of information that isn't from a biological source.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

Any set of numbers in random order is information.

Can we avoid the fallacious equivocation, Max. The word "information" can be broadly defined such that there aint no existing thing which AINT information. In which case the term is essentially meaningless.

That aint the definition of "information" we're talking about here.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

Any set of numbers in random order is information.

OK, just checking. We're using very different definitions.

Would it make any difference if I said 'functional information' or information that is specific to some function - as seen in biology?

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@layman,

So maybe the term is meaningless.

Think of human DNA as a winning lottery ticket. The "information" was just random (with help from the process of natural selection to limit the possible winning numbers). There are lots of ways these things can be arranged, and most of them don't lead to life.

But one ticket was a winner, and here we are.

That doesn't mean that there was any designer.... just a way to make random choices and a whole lot of lottery tickets.

The point is that God isn't necessary. This doesn't prove that he doesn't exist, but it doesn't prove that he does either.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

The terms symbolic information and physical information are used here to distinguish between two fundamentally different concepts of information. The common, everyday use of the term information typically refers to some form of symbolic information....Physical information is more specialized and technical, and refers to the concept of information that is generally assumed with the mathematical models of information used in physics. Recognizing the differences between the two concepts of information is critical for understanding the unique properties and uses of information.

http://science.jeksite.org/info1/pages/page2.htm

This is a lengthy article which elaborates on this difference in great detail. But, using this terminology, we're talking about symbolic information here, not physical information.

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@layman,

So, when I look at a graph of a spectrum of a nearby star taken through a telescope, is this symbolic information I am getting from this star?

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

So, when I look at a spectral graph taken through a telescope looking at a nearby star, is this symbolic information?

No, that would be physical information. Read the article.

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@layman,

So DNA is also physical information then.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

Think of human DNA as a winning lottery ticket. The "information" was just random (with help from the process of natural selection to limit the possible winning numbers). There are lots of ways these things can be arranged, and most of them don't lead to life.

That is a plausible explanation but it is subject to mathematical analysis.

I once went through the calculation for the odds of the simplest known self reproducing organism's DNA code arising by accident. I couldn't arrive at the exact number because my computer could not represent numbers that large or small, depending on how you look at it. I had to cut the complexity of the DNA by well over half to get results. The answer was something on the order of 1 chance in 2.3 x 10^500.

Doesn't prove anything, no accounting for luck, but it didn't look all that likely to me. But the give away that scientists don't really believe random chance explains it is that they insist that 'Life is inevitable anywhere there is water on a rocky planet in the goldilocks zone around a star. (Statistically there are LOTS of them ) Maybe Earth got unbelievably lucky, but all of them??? Utter nonsense if you believe in the random chance theory.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

Physicists often use the term information to indicate conditions in the universe that do not involve symbols, media, and an interpretational infrastructure. For example, the geologic strata in rocks and sediments indicate the geological history of an area. One can argue that these strata are information...

Scientific discussions of information frequently fail to distinguish between symbolic and physical information. This oversight too often results in (a) attributing properties of symbolic information processing and life to nonliving processes, (b) an inadequate appreciation of the active role and complexity of the interpretational infrastructure, and (c) not recognizing the creative aspects of symbolic information processing. Examples are given in later sections.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

So DNA is also physical information then.

Naw, it aint. A molecule is physical information, but it is not symbolic information.

DNA contains, but is not itself, symbolic information.

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@layman,

I'll repeat this post for you Max. Can you see the distinction?

layman wrote:

Some people think that the information transmitted by a written letter is in the paper. Or maybe the ink. Or maybe in the messenger who delivers the letter.

Fraid not. It don't boil down to some material thing or some agent of transmission.

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@Leadfoot,

But it makes perfect sense to attribute it all to an invisible, undetectable guy-in-the-sky, despite having no evidence at all that such a thing even exists outside the human imagination and mythology. Nice.

http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb192/DinahFyre/read.gif

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@layman,

You aren't making sense to me, but I also don't think it matters.

The information in DNA can be explained by a process of a bunch of molecules happening to be in the same place and hooking together randomly until one lucky combination started reproducing.

The point is that there is no need for a creator. All you need is randomness, and a process of natural selection.

We are a winning lottery ticket... you might think we were incredibly lucky... but with the number of tickets in the Universe one of them had to be a winner.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

You aren't making sense to me,

That figures.

Quote:

but I also don't think it matters.

It does matter, for the purposes of intelligently discussing the issue. But, you're right, it doesn't matter one bit if your sole contribution is to state an unexplained conclusion (as, I have learned, is your favored M.O.).

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@layman,

Quote:

If it aint self-replicatin, then it aint nuthin. It will just die off of "old age," and that will be the end of that, eh?

Environments containing a mixture of "prebiotic" or "pre prebiotic" compounds can be generated by the bazillions without "self-replication"
You are certain that life had to be self replicating at the outset? Hmmm, You realize that opinions differ by equally heavvy coneheads?

Prhaps life spent most of its time on lipids solutions that (absent "Self replication techniques" just managed to proliferate by normal chemical reactions, surface reactions, and linkage mechanisms

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@layman,

layman wrote:

I'll repeat this post for you Max. Can you see the distinction?

layman wrote:

Some people think that the information transmitted by a written letter is in the paper. Or maybe the ink. Or maybe in the messenger who delivers the letter.

Fraid not. It don't boil down to some material thing or some agent of transmission.

Suppose I write you a letter saying "I will meet you on Friday at the train station."

The words (symbols) convey information.
The piece of paper doesn't convey anything. It is just a medium. The words are ON paper, but they are not the paper. Nor are the words the information. They are just symbols.

That said, the type of information being conveyed is symbolic information, not physical information. It is being conveyed via symbols.

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DNA, Where did the code come from?

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