What did it all started with?

Guy Threepwood

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its kinda strange really, it needed some sort of an intelligence to know theres air out there and to use it to carry things out of your body, but how could it know there was air, it sort of must have startet with some sort of an intelligence that wasnt really life yet but somehow knew everything still, perhaps it was just the thing that we`re all made up from, energy, some say it`s a little like something living, what do you think?

I'd agree; all the physics- chemistry- biology that makes life possible, requires information, and that this information is best accounted for by creative intelligence.

Can anything truly novel, ever come into existence without the creative power of a mind?
 
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Subduction Zone

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I'd agree; all the physics- chemistry- biology that makes life possible, requires information, and that this information is best accounted for by creative intelligence.

Can anything truly novel, ever come into existence without the creative power of a mind?
No, it does not require "information" at least not in the sense that you are using the term. No one on your side can find any evidence that supports that claim.
 
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Shemjaza

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I'd agree; all the physics- chemistry- biology that makes life possible, requires information, and that this information is best accounted for by creative intelligence.

Can anything truly novel, ever come into existence without the creative power of a mind?
Can you define what you mean by information and if there's any way to objectively measure it?

(That has been an ongoing issue with ID and similar belief systems).
 
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Neogaia777

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Can you define what you mean by information and if there's any way to objectively measure it?
To me it can mean patterns or order, or the beginnings of a program maybe, etc...

Information/intelligence can, etc...

And is there a distinguishable pattern or program to life or nature, or all of the natural and/or observable world (all around us), etc...?

To me I think there is, etc...

Nothing truly random, etc...

Or patterned randomly, etc...

God Bless!
 
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Shemjaza

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To me it can mean patterns or order, or the beginnings of a program maybe, etc...

Information/intelligence can, etc...

And is there a distinguishable pattern or program to life or nature, or all of the natural and/or observable world (all around us), etc...?

To me I think there is, etc...

Nothing truly random, etc...

Or patterned randomly, etc...

God Bless!
All sounds very reasonable as general uses of "information", but I was hoping for a objective description of the version that requires intelligence and is required as a basis for novel changes.
 
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Neogaia777

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All sounds very reasonable as general uses of "information", but I was hoping for a objective description of the version that requires intelligence and is required as a basis for novel changes.
It's more a matter of opinion more than anything else right now, if you most definitely see intelligence in it or not right now, etc...

And I am just saying that, for me, me thinks I most certainly do, etc...

God Bless!
 
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Shemjaza

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It's more a matter of opinion more than anything else right now, if you most definitely see intelligence in it or not right now, etc...

And I am just saying that, for me, me thinks I most certainly do, etc...

God Bless!

I can definitely understand that, the world is a mysterious place when you look very closely at it.

But some posters, like Guy Threepwood, appear to be of the opinion that things like information being both necessary for change and requiring intelligence can be demonstrated... and I've never seen that clearly demonstrated.
 
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Neogaia777

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I can definitely understand that, the world is a mysterious place when you look very closely at it.

But some posters, like Guy Threepwood, appear to be of the opinion that things like information being both necessary for change and requiring intelligence can be demonstrated... and I've never seen that clearly demonstrated.
I guess it depends on what you think "clearly demonstrated" means I guess...?

Because God says one look at Creation should tell someone, etc...

If not right away, then in time looking at it, etc...

In what was/is made, etc...

Information is a byte or a bit, and is from a pattern/fractal, etc, and could denote or point to intelligence maybe, etc...?

Again, depends on what you take "clearly demonstrated" to mean, etc...?

God Bless!
 
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Shemjaza

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I guess it depends on what you think "clearly demonstrated" means I guess...?

Because God says one look at Creation should tell someone, etc...

If not right away, then in time looking at it, etc...

In what was/is made, etc...

Information is a byte or a bit, and is from a pattern/fractal, etc, and could denote or point to intelligence maybe, etc...?

Again, depends on what you take "clearly demonstrated" to mean, etc...?

God Bless!
I'd like a metric for measuring information and an objective method of determining it.
 
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Neogaia777

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I'd like a metric for measuring information and an objective method of determining it.
That'd be nice huh...?

Because I guess it's really never ever really completely objective, right...?

I could tell you some of my "opinions" though, if you want though, etc...?

Anyway,

God Bless!
 
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Shemjaza

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That'd be nice huh...?

Because I guess it's really never ever really completely objective, right...?

I could tell you some of my "opinions" though, if you want though, etc...?

Anyway,

God Bless!
I'm always interested in people's reasoning.
 
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Neogaia777

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I'd like a metric for measuring information and an objective method of determining it.

I'm always interested in people's reasoning.

Well, OK then, what constitutes information and would would be an adequate objective method for determining it, etc...?

God Bless!
 
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Neogaia777

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Well, OK then, what constitutes information and would would be an adequate objective method for determining it, etc...?

God Bless!
@Shemjaza

One of my opinions is that, information, at it's most base and very most basic levels, consists of numbers and/or math, or speaks of something math, etc, the substance does, etc, and then the objective method of measuring or determining it in that case would be: if it's mathematical or not then, or can be determined/worked out mathematically or not then, etc...

Which is why I talked about patterns and fractals/shapes and the beginning of programs and the like, etc... And also nothing being truly random also, etc, etc, etc...

God Bless!
 
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Guy Threepwood

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No, it does not require "information" at least not in the sense that you are using the term. No one on your side can find any evidence that supports that claim.

"we know that genes themselves, within their minute internal structure, are long strings of pure digital information. What is more, they are truly digital, in the full and strong sense of computers and compact disks, not in the weak sense of the nervous system. [] The machine code of the genes is uncannily computerlike. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular-biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer-engineering journal. . . ."

Richard Dawkins. (not on 'my side'!)
 
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Guy Threepwood

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I can definitely understand that, the world is a mysterious place when you look very closely at it.

But some posters, like Guy Threepwood, appear to be of the opinion that things like information being both necessary for change and requiring intelligence can be demonstrated... and I've never seen that clearly demonstrated.

To evolve a single celled bacteria-like organism into a human being, new information is required, in the form of quaternary digital code- that part is hardly controversial is it?. Where that information comes from.. it is always difficult to entirely rule out random chance, as we cannot rule out a gambler playing 4 royal flushes in a row by chance . But I'd say there are less mathematically improbable explanations.
 
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Subduction Zone

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"we know that genes themselves, within their minute internal structure, are long strings of pure digital information. What is more, they are truly digital, in the full and strong sense of computers and compact disks, not in the weak sense of the nervous system. [] The machine code of the genes is uncannily computerlike. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular-biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer-engineering journal. . . ."

Richard Dawkins. (not on 'my side'!)
Sorry, quote mines do not help. This is an equivocation fallacy on your part. You would need to show that Dawkins was using the same definition as you used.
 
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Guy Threepwood

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Sorry, quote mines do not help. This is an equivocation fallacy on your part. You would need to show that Dawkins was using the same definition as you used.

Well Dawkins is not a computer programmer and I am not an evolutionary biologist, yet we both agree on a lot from different perspectives- parallel lines of evidence if you will.

I also define genetic information as truly digital, in the strong sense- it's not a mere analogy, it is objectively and definitively a hierarchical digital information system. I see uncanny similarities between our digital information systems and DNA also.

Dawkins and I also agree that biological systems, on the face of it, appear as if they were designed. The only difference is that I don't believe this appearance is an illusion, I believe, as many scientists do, that biology looks designed simply because it was designed.
 
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Hans Blaster

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I also define genetic information as truly digital, in the strong sense- it's not a mere analogy, it is objectively and definitively a hierarchical digital information system. I see uncanny similarities between our digital information systems and DNA also.

I what way is the "digital information" of DNA hierarchical?

Please explain your thinking on this.
 
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Guy Threepwood

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I what way is the "digital information" of DNA hierarchical?

Please explain your thinking on this.

As opposed to the information in a book flowing continuously in one direction from beginning to end.

The digital information running this forum software is organized in a hierarchy, some code functions to activate other specific sections of code, which is what essentially gives the software it's dynamic flexibility- allows it to perform more than one task

One example of this is CSS = 'cascading style sheets' governing different styles of presentation

'gene cascades' are so named for the same reason, the gene regulatory network also uses genetic code to activate other sections of code much like subroutines in software.

That's one simplistic description but again- not a particularly controversial observation.

Another simple example would be codons- in the quaternary digital code of DNA you have only 4 bases to describe the 20 essential amino acids. So groups of 3 bases are used to provide 4x4x4= 64 possible combinations, and this code in turn describes which amino acid comes next in the sequence.

Again we use the same hierarchical technique, 2 bases in binary digital code are grouped into 8 bits/ a byte- giving 256 combinations used to express the 26 letters of the alphabet + symbols and controls.
 
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Hans Blaster

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As opposed to the information in a book flowing continuously in one direction from beginning to end.

The digital information running this forum software is organized in a hierarchy, some code functions to activate other specific sections of code, which is what essentially gives the software it's dynamic flexibility- allows it to perform more than one task

Yep, that's how software is hierarchical. One routine calls another by making choices (logical expressions) with inputs, etc., etc., etc.

One example of this is CSS = 'cascading style sheets' governing different styles of presentation

Now you veering dangerously close to the "I make web pages, therefore I program" fallacy. :) But I digress...

'gene cascades' are so named for the same reason, the gene regulatory network also uses genetic code to activate other sections of code much like subroutines in software.

That's one simplistic description but again- not a particularly controversial observation.

Except gene regulation and expression use various chemicals. They require a molecule of a particular type (say some sort of regulator component) to attach to something that allows or stops something from happening.

Computer programs don't work that way. I don't press a button that makes a bunch of mini "post reply" programs that float about in memory until they find an open "post-reply" receptor on the web page "gene" and then it activates the function and my post is posted. Instead there is an active program monitoring my mouse being run by the program scheduler. When it detects my mouse click it transmits a message to the window manager that determines it was over the "Post Reply" button in this web page and sends a signal to the browser to activate that code and the the web page activates the code that sends my post to the CF server.

I don't think the "program" metaphor works relative to DNA and cells.

Another simple example would be codons- in the quaternary digital code of DNA you have only 4 bases to describe the 20 essential amino acids. So groups of 3 bases are used to provide 4x4x4= 64 possible combinations, and this code in turn describes which amino acid comes next in the sequence.

This is a very different kind of "code", and encoding in this case of a protein sequence. It is a much closer analogy to coding in computers than the program "code" and I think generally apt. It is similar to...

Again we use the same hierarchical technique, 2 bases in binary digital code are grouped into 8 bits/ a byte- giving 256 combinations used to express the 26 letters of the alphabet + symbols and controls.

I remember the day when you only needed 7-bits to encode keyboard output...
 
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