Biological organisms are [i]primarily[/i] Software Defined Lifeforms. - Yes or No?

@Leadfoot,

The dismissal of your analogy is not a philosophical issue. The only phisophical issues arising here are your own simplistic usage of words like 'facts' and 'truth' which unlike religionists are held at arms length by philosoohers of science, some of whom (the Pragmatists) consider any 'realism' debate in science to be futile. Your demands for 'proof to the contrary' are exactly like demands for proof of 'the non existence of God'.....facile.
The utility of models comes and goes. Models persist for a time until the limits of their functionality are reached and they then delimited to sub contexts. We still use Newtonian mechanics, for example, to predict motion in many macro systems, despite its inapplicability at sub atomic levels or speeds approaching that of light. Truth and facticity are context bound and that context is defined by human's for human purposes.

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@fresco,

****, do I hate repeating myself.

It’s not an analogy.

The 'dismissal' is not the issue, the grounds that you use to dismiss are the issue. Yours are clearly philosophical.

Next, what is this 'truth' you say I’ve been bandying about?
Yes, the OP posits the hypothesis as fact. Guilty as charged.
Now if your personal preferences prevent you from dealing with or refuting the hypothesis on factual grounds, I can’t help you.

Give one factual reason why DNA is not fully and functionally equivalent to software if you would like to continue.

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@Leadfoot,

The fact (ho ho) that the concepts of 'codes' and 'programs' are utilised by geneticists is no more suggestive of the concepts of 'software' and 'hardware' than semaphore and naval battle plans are.

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@Leadfoot,

Quote:

Give one factual reason why DNA is not fully and functionally equivalent to software if you would like to continue.

I gave you several reasons, which you then twisted your way out of. I don't think any of your twisting is valid.

But, the main problem is that you can't answer the core question.

Who is the programmer, and what tools does he or she use to create new "programs" (sequences of DNA)?

It is clear that new humans are created by squirting a large number of sperm (about 100 milllion) onto a specific egg. Each sperm and each egg has unique DNA and the sequence that emerges is effected by all sorts of factors, including which day the parents decide to conceive. That is the way that new DNA sequences are created. Is this what you consider programming?

If you can't answer this question, your "analogy/metaphor/equivalency/whatever" is nonsense.

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IMHU metaphors are stylistic devices meant to highlight and give meaning to some event or chain of events. Unlike logical propositions they are not mutually exclusive nor technically ever 'false' or disproven.

So when Max very astutely pointed out that life has been compared to many other technologies before computers (fire, wheel, thread, etc.), I would agree but would not necessarily discard these tired metaphors as useless. It's still true that life is 'a sort of fire': biochemically almost all life depends on a sophisticated form of combustion to sustain itself; it means something very literal to say "burning calories". "Fire in the belly", being "burnt out" etc. usefully build on this metaphor. It's also true in a way that life is a cycle, or a series of cycles; and that life is hanging on but a thread (think DNA)... So all these metaphors are true in their own way.

Including the one about software and hardware proposed by Lead. It's a cool way to represent it. Of course it would be foly to think that life is literally about codes and hardware, or even that this particular metaphor exhausts the topic of life, which is of course far bigger and richer than just code, but it does include code.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

I gave you several reasons, which you then twisted your way out of. I don't think any of your twisting is valid.

If you mean how I showed each of your examples of software technology exactly matched the functional equivalent in DNA lifeforms, then yes I did.

Quote:

But, the main problem is that you can't answer the core question.

Who is the programmer, and what tools does he or she use to create new "programs" (sequences of DNA)?

This is your philosophical problem, not mine.
Here’s a true analogy to illustrate.

An archeologist claims to have discovered large buried ruins where according to known history none should be. He offers a few artifacts and photos as evidence.

Do his fellow archeologists poo poo it and say he's making it up because he cannot say who built the ruins? Do they say it is nonesense and not worth considering funding investigation until the builders are named?

That is what you and all others on the 'no' side have responded with so far.

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@Leadfoot,

Computer software is discrete from its hardware. It can and does exist independently. In its most basic form it's just a pattern of logic gates held in state by electricity.

Biological information is intrinsic to its hardware (DNA), so the code and the hardware are essentially one thing. When the DNA evolves over time due purely to natural physical rules, the information it carries is carried along with it. That's a pretty key difference.

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@Olivier5,

Good, something with a bit of substance.

Quote:

So when Max very astutely pointed out that life has been compared to many other technologies before computers (fire, wheel, thread, etc.), I would agree but would not necessarily discard these tired metaphors as useless. It's still true that life is 'a sort of fire': biochemically almost all life depends on a sophisticated form of combustion to sustain itself

Yep, the fire metaphor is pretty apt, and fires need tending. The biological organism is the most critically and carefully managed fire in existence, All under the control of amazingly complex software. Modern engine control software (the type I mostly wrote) is stone ax crude by comparison.

But over all I did not think the comparison of DNA to software was invalidated by past failed analogies.

Does the fact that a series of past hypotheses have failed mean that finding a valid one is impossible? Obviously one exists, no? If you fall victim to that logical error, the rest of the argument is a waste of time.

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@Leadfoot,

Quote:

An archeologist claims to have discovered large buried ruins where according to known history none should be. He offers a few artifacts and photos as evidence.

Do his fellow archeologists poo poo it and say he's making it up because he cannot say who built the ruins?

This is a rehash of the watchmakers analogy. This analogy (as an alleged proof for God) has been around since at least 1686.

It wasn't software... it was a watch. Of course the argument is bogus and has been debunked. There is now a perfectly good explanation of how complex life arose from basic proteins without needing a watchmaker or a programmer or any other technology.

I have personally participated in the act of squirting sperm toward a waiting egg. It works just fine with no deity required (exclamations of the woman involved notwithstanding).

The biological process of creating new DNA based life works just fine... and it has nothing to do with programming.

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@maxdancona,

I can speak as a professional software engineer with a science degree (although my degree is in Physics I have taken classes on biology). I see no evidence of a sentient programmer in DNA. I think most biologists, and most software engineers, and most biologist/software engineers agree with me.

If you are starting with a belief in God, and then fervently hoping to find evidence, it is not surprising that you have found some. Most people who look objectively don't see it.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

Computer software is discrete from its hardware. It can and does exist independently. In its most basic form it's just a pattern of logic gates held in state by electricity.

once again you support my case. This is exactly the same as in biological software. The material matrix, nucleotides, etc making up DNA are never used for anything other than the information it contains. Even in fertilization, the DNA is not used as building material, but only as blueprint. This is of course true of computer software.

Quote:

Biological information is intrinsic to its hardware (DNA), so the code and the hardware are essentially one thing.

When the DNA evolves over time due purely to natural physical rules, the information it carries is carried along with it. That's a pretty key difference.

No, they are demonstrably separate entities. The experiment to transplant DNA (software) into a different cell (the hardware) is done routinely. The cell develops into whatever the DNA dictated, the hardware did as it was instructed. This is the factual concept behind the idea of bringing back dinosaurs. If the software were not separate from the hardware the concept would be fiction too. But it’s not.

Haven’t you read all the stories about storing data on DNA? It’s just so good at doing it they are seriously doing research on it.

Your example of mutations being carried along with the DNA goes right along with computer software as well. Have you ever read through the source code of an old piece of software? Man, the history you can read there. Windows 3.1 to Windows 10 would take you a lifetime to read. And as Gates said, that’s primitive compared to DNA.
The bio equivalents to computer viruses and worms is another direct analogy but I won’t belabor the point.

I know you a little from the years we’ve read each other’s posts, I can’t believe you dont already know everything I’ve replied here to be true.
Can you honestly defend your statement that software and hardware are not separate entities in biological life?

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

The biological process of creating new DNA based life works just fine... and it has nothing to do with programming.

Yeah! Add reducto ad adsurdum to the mix!

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@Olivier5,

Metaphors are not hypothesis, though. They are neither true nor false for instance, just illustrative or not. And they have clear limits. It's possible to 'stretch metaphors' for instance.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

If you are starting with a belief in God, and then fervently hoping to find evidence, it is not surprising that you have found some. Most people who look objectively don't see it.

Sorry, I let it go the first time but the introduction of the 'G' word automatically disqualifies your argument.

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@Leadfoot,

You are suggesting that there is a "Programmer" right?

If not... this seems really futile.

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@maxdancona,

bingo. His means of debate usually leans to that direction. Im going to wait for his paper, bet its gonna be like Bill Dembski's contributions, lotsa jargon, little real analytical thought.

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It is worth noting that the argument from design has been around from more than 2000 years. In his book on the nature of the gods (circa 45 BCE), Cicero wrote: When you see a sundial or a water-clock, you see that it tells the time by design and not by chance. How then can you imagine that the universe as a whole is devoid of purpose and intelligence, when it embraces everything, including these artifacts themselves and their artificers? It was bullsh*t then, and it's bullsh*t now. It's a failed analogy because a sundial or water clock is not analogous to the cosmos, and in the specific case of LF's topic here, biological genomes are not analogous to software.

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@maxdancona,

The genesis of this thread started with farmer and a couple others saying, why don’t you lay out your evidence for what they call ID and I call simple deductive logic. The ground rules were, no references to religion, God, philosophy, name calling discouraged, etc. the idea was to stay with factual data. First one to mention a God or religion loses.

This thread was the result. Note that I wasn’t the first to drop the 'G' bomb.

But overall I’m happy with it.

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Ah, moving the goal posts, not only after the game has begun, but after the half-time show. There was no mention in the OP of the categories of discussion or criticism which you claim are excluded.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

It is worth noting that the argument from design has been around from more than 2000 years.

Well of course it has, but more like at least 3000.

But Despite and because of the quantum leap in scientific progress, the design hypothesis is still just as viable as ever. I’m sure you’ll say that it never was but science has given at least as much support to design as it has refuted it.
If the design hypothesis were as empty as you imply, don’t you think it would be buried by now?

Yeah, I know what's coming.

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Biological organisms are [i]primarily[/i] Software Defined Lifeforms. - Yes or No?

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