Codes?

[spongkulasisi]

The argument goes like this:

1. The pattern in DNA is a code (by definition)

2. All codes we know the origin of are designed (by observation)

Therefore we can explore five possible conclusions:

a) Humans designed DNA
b) Aliens designed DNA
c) DNA occurred randomly and spontaneously
d) There must be some undiscovered law of physics that creates information
e) DNA was Designed by a Superintelligence, i.e. God.

(a) requires time travel or infinite generations of humans.
(b) could well be true but only pushes the question back
in time. (c) may be a remote possibility, but it's not a scientific
explanation in that it doesn't refer to a systematic, repeatable
process. It's nothing more than an appeal to luck. (d) could be
true but no one can form a testable hypothesis until someone
observes a naturally occurring code. So the only systematic
explanation that remains is (e) a theological one.

Therefore:

3. To the extent that scientific reasoning can prove anything,
DNA is proof of a designer.

What do you think?

 

[Squawk]

Premise 1 fails, DNA is referred to as a code for ease of reference, but a code is simply an abstraction of the human mind, projected onto things for ease of analysis.

Since the premise fails, the rest of the argument is invalid.

##edit

It occurs to me that that might need further expansion. Consider a beach of sand. Is the precise location of each grain of sand important? If so, is a beach a code? It is, in the same way that DNA Is referred to as a code.

 

[Gnug215]

Premise 1 fails, DNA is referred to as a code for ease of reference, but a code is simply an abstraction of the human mind, projected onto things for ease of analysis.

Since the premise fails, the rest of the argument is invalid.

##edit

It occurs to me that that might need further expansion. Consider a beach of sand. Is the precise location of each grain of sand important? If so, is a beach a code? It is, in the same way that DNA Is referred to as a code.

The arrangement of atoms in a rock, or... everything... can be said to be a code, then, can't it?

 

[Case]

1. The pattern in DNA is a code (by definition)

DNA refers to the four aminoacids, not to any pattern.

The arrangement of atoms in a rock, or... everything... can be said to be a code, then, can't it?

As much as the arrangement of atoms in a rock, or... everything... can be said to be a painting.

 

[OGjimkenobi]

A) Humans developed the language (English) which describes DNA in terms of codes.
B) Your answer, you're just pushing the question back, works perfectly fine for this one.
C) Generally, complex things which are not designed by humans have developed into complexity over time, so "DNA occurred randomly and spontaneously" isn't even serious enough of an answer to make the list in the first place.
D)I doubt it
E) A super intelligence that does not come from our planet? That is the same as proposition "B", an alien. Whether you call it a God or an alien you are still just pushing the question back.

I mean think about it, an alien lands on planet Earth, captures a human female, lays it's eggs in her belly, out pops Jesus Christ.

F) We already have the answer to your question by the way, you just didn't include it in your woeful list of possibilities. Luckily for you there are people on these forums that eat and breath this kind of thing and I'm sure one of them will eventually pop in with a satisfactory explanation for you.

 

[Prolescum]

The argument goes like this:

1. The pattern in DNA is a fish (by definition)

2. All fish we know the origin of are designed (by obserfishion)

Therefore we can explore five possible conclusions:

a) Humans designed fish
b) Aliens designed fish
c) fish occurred randomly and spontaneously
d) There must be some undiscovered law of fish that creates fish
e) fish was Designed by a Superintelligence, i.e. Poseidon.

(a) requires time fish or infinite generations of fish.
(b) could well be true but only pushes the fish back
in time.
(c) may be a remote possibility, but it's not a scientific
explanation in that it doesn't refer to a systematic, repeatable
process. It's nothing more than an appeal to fish.
(d) could be true but no one can form a testable hypothesis until someone
observes a naturally occurring fish. So the only systematic
explanation that remains is
(e) a theological one.

Therefore:

3. To the extent that scientific reasoning can prove anything,
fish is proof of a designer.

What do you think?

Fixed.

 

[spongkulasisi]

The arrangement of atoms in a rock, or... everything... can be said to be a code, then, can't it?

Not everything can be considered as a code, let's take sunlight as an example. Sunlight is not a code because sunlight is just a stream of photons. There is no encoder in the sun. That photon does not symbolically represent some other thing. The sun does not send out digital streams of photons that obey the laws of a code. The photon IS sunlight, it does not SAY sunlight. It does not give instructions for making sunlight. It doesn't have any instructions at all. It's just a photon. It represents nothing other than itself.

The argument that I've presented to you is not mine but an argument that I found somewhere...
I just posted it up so I can see what everybody's thoughts are about it..

 

[Gnug215]

The arrangement of atoms in a rock, or... everything... can be said to be a code, then, can't it?

Not everything can be considered as a code, let's take sunlight as an example. Sunlight is not a code because sunlight is just a stream of photons. There is no encoder in the sun. That photon does not symbolically represent some other thing. The sun does not send out digital streams of photons that obey the laws of a code. The photon IS sunlight, it does not SAY sunlight. It does not give instructions for making sunlight. It doesn't have any instructions at all. It's just a photon. It represents nothing other than itself.

The argument that I've presented to you is not mine but an argument that I found somewhere...
I just posted it up so I can see what everybody's thoughts are about it..

But atoms, molecules and minerals can form structures, for which one could perhaps demand an intelligent designer. Does that not make it a kind of code, then? At least compared to DNA?

 

[Squawk]

Your hangup seems to be one of information, the notion that DNA contains information, but sunlight does not. My beach example was designed specifically to address such a misconception, I shall now illucidate further.

Information is a term that requires rigorous definition in order to be useful. typically we refer to one of two types of information, shannon information or kolmogorov information. I'm reluctant to go into massive amounts of detail here on the distinction simply because I don't deem it pertinent, but I will provide a little simply so we are on the same page.

The gist of it is that there is a fundamental difference between information storage and information transmission. It is entirely possible to increase one form of information while decreasing the other. A classic example would be a book. Lets say that I copy out a book, word for word, but I make a single mistake. I accidentally misspell a particular word, which changes the context of a sentence.

The information transmitted to the new copy has now decreased. However, the information content of the new book could be greater than the original. Depending on the statement in question it may have decreased, but it could equally have stayed the same, or it could even have increased.

You cited sunlight and suggested there is no information. On the contrary, there are masses of information. For starters there are thousands of inferences we can make about the origin of each particle based on it's energy content and wavelength. We can detect the frequency of photons to deduce things about the sun itself. There was of course no conscious agent sending the information, but the information is all there ready to be detected should we so choose. This is a classic case of information storage in a medium that most people would argue there is no information actually stored.


In the case of DNA we simply have a molecule consisting of nucleotide bases strung together. It's no different than any other molecule, chains of hydrocarbons in oil, for example, or indeed our photons of sunlight. We can refer to information stored in the DNA, but then we can also refer to information stored in the hydrocarbons or the sunlight. The information stored is simply the sum total of the locations of all the base pairs.

DNA gets copied, and thats where the difference between transmission and storage applies. DNA gets copied, and sometimes there are errors (think mutations). In terms of information transmission the information content, the message of the DNA if you will, decreased. The new copy is not identical to the old copy, some information stored in the old copy was lost.

However, the copying error might well have actually added new base pairs, so the total information stored in the new string of DNA has actually increased. We can only know if information decreased or increased when we know precisely what is meant by `information`. If we are dealing with information transmission then information must always decrease or remain constant during transmission. If dealing with storage then information is free to increase or decrease.

Sunlight is jam packed full of stored information, as is the beach, the sand, and indeed anything else you can think of.

 

[Case]

I just posted it up so I can see what everybody's thoughts are about it..

Should've noticed earlier. Yet another worldquest. Exactly what we needed.

 

[borrofburi]

I just posted it up so I can see what everybody's thoughts are about it..

Should've noticed earlier. Yet another worldquest. Exactly what we needed.

Mmmm he put it in pseudoscience, he might realize it has no merit. Of course, this is "the atheist's riddle", which I'm fairly certain already has a thread elsewhere on this forum (I come off as a jerk at first, but I like to think that in my second post, taken as a whole, I offer up a partial redemption; though I know better now, that even if I sacrifice all integrity and honesty, I can't necessarily win, evidence of that is Phi vs Aron). And here's another. I'm pretty sure there's at least one more... Oh wait, found it. There might even be one more, because I vaguely recall some posts on the subject that I don't see in any of those three threads. (not to mention Pulsar links to the old forum, a dead link now, but I think we have archives of the old forum as well, so there are those threads)

Looking at those threads reminds me of yet another problem with this: the evolution of language; language is not intelligently designed.

The argument goes like this:

1. The pattern in DNA is a code (by definition)

2. All codes we know the origin of are designed (by observation)

Therefore we can explore five possible conclusions:

a) Humans designed DNA
b) Aliens designed DNA
c) DNA occurred randomly and spontaneously
d) There must be some undiscovered law of physics that creates information
e) DNA was Designed by a Superintelligence, i.e. God.

Aside from the DNA is only a code by abstraction flaw, and the God might be Poseidon flaw, I want to add two more:

There is a sly fallacy here: "all codes we know the origin of are designed" is subtly used to conclude "therefore all codes have a designer", and this does not follow. Even if premise 1 is true (it's not), and even if premise 2 is true (it's not, I'll get to that later), it does not follow that DNA had to have a designer: just because all codes, other than DNA, that we know of are known to be designed, does not follow that all codes must have been designed. I'm sure someone will come along and make this clearer, because I'm sick and my mind is cloudy, but I think this mostly gets the idea across.

There is, however, another sly fallacy: "all codes we know the origin of are designed" is a tautology: by definition, if we know their origin, we know their designer. Even if we had knowledge of millions of codes, and only knew the origin of 10 of them, it would still be true that "all codes we know the origin of are designed". Unless, of course, you can posit the potential existence of a code whose origin we know that is not designed.

I apologize if this is not clear, I am not thinking perfectly clearly at the moment, and it's making articulation of these ideas difficult.



EDIT: upon reflection, this post is just a less communicable version of an older post of mine.

 

[Case]

the God might be Poseidon flaw

Poseidon > biblical god anyway.

 

[5810Singer]

You know,....when someone new shows up on your forum you don't have to remain in total ignorance about them, you can type their name into a google search and see what turns up.

Sometimes this is a fruitless activity, but usually it delivers some kind of insight.

I have googled Spongkulasisi's name, and what I have found leads me to believe, and very strongly believe, that some of you owe Spongkulasisi an apology.

Despite the fact that there is nothing to suggest that Spongkulasisi is a creation/ID-ist, or even a theist/deist, it would appear that posters in this thread have assumed as much and gone on the offensive.

I've noticed that new members who post on religious/creationist topics WITHOUT making it blindingly obvious that they are atheist, or anti-theist, tend to face a barrage of dismissive, and adversarial criticisms, apparently formed on the premise that "any new member who posts about religion without criticising it, must be religious."

It is starting to look to me like LoR IS becoming partisan,...and I have a feeling that some of the membership is perfectly happy with that.
I think that a recognisable section of the "atheist community", believe themselves engaged in a war against an enemy who has foregone the right to reasonable treatment, and who should be treated as second class citizens at best.
These partisan atheists also seem to want to bully, intimidate, and threaten other atheists to "get back in line" if at any point they seem to show basic human decency towards theists, or if they criticise atheists.

Unless I am much mistaken,....MUCH mistaken,.....some people in this thread have decided to take a condescending and aggressive tone based on the original post, they have ignored the caveats that the original poster gave, and as a result they have quite possibly run off someone who would be an asset to this forum.

In closing,....if you believe that people have to declare their religiosity or the lack thereof to you, before you decide how you will conduct yourself towards them, then you are a bully, if not a bigot.

 

[Case]

(Lengthy post) In closing,....if you believe that people have to declare their religiosity or the lack thereof to you, before you decide how you will conduct yourself towards them, then you are a bully, if not a bigot.

Let me give you a reasonably accurate summary of the posts so far:

OP: (quoting some logic argument) - "what do you think?"
Squawk: @OP: The presented logic argument fails. Here's an analogy with the same logic, which fails, too.
Gnug: I doubt your conclusion, Squawk.
Case: @OP: The terminology used is incorrect. @Gnug:I doubt your criticism of Squawk's conclusion is valid.
OG: The possible conclusions listed are unlikely to be true and you left out the answer most likely to be true, but I won't/can't tell you. I find proposition E ridiculous.
Prolescum: @OP: I find all presented premises and conclusions to be ridiculous. I will use an internet meme to make this clear.
OP: @Gnug: I interpret your doubting of Squawk's criticism to be a belief you hold - and I doubt it is a valid belief. I myself do not wish to disclose what I think of the presented logic argument, I just wish to free-associate about it.
Gnug: @OP: I doubt your dismissal of my doubting of Squawk's criticism of the logic argument is legitimate.
Squawk: @OP: The terminology you are using is too vague and you have made an erroneous statement in your post, which I will prove to be erroneous.
Case: @OP: I am discontent with the OP's lack of substantial contribution and his apparent wish to restrict himself to free-association. I prefer real discussions.
borrofburi: @Case: I doubt he only wants to free-associate. @OP: The logic argument you presented is wrong for the following reasons:...
Case: @borrofburi: I want to share a funny video with you which is related to something you said.

I see nothing even close to what you described. Which post exactly do you think demands apology and why?

 

[Gnug215]

You know,....when someone new shows up on your forum you don't have to remain in total ignorance about them, you can type their name into a google search and see what turns up.

[...]

In closing,....if you believe that people have to declare their religiosity or the lack thereof to you, before you decide how you will conduct yourself towards them, then you are a bully, if not a bigot.

I think you're being somewhat harsh and unfair here, although I do degree that some people seemed to respond to the person somewhat negatively.

But I think most of us stuck to dealing with the argument.

However, there is a tendency here (and most places online, really) to jump on people a bit - but it is somewhat understandable, since the collective position on this board on some issues should be well known. But then, I think I assume that people coming here have an idea of what they're getting into - they should, though.

 

[Gnug215]

(Lengthy post) In closing,....if you believe that people have to declare their religiosity or the lack thereof to you, before you decide how you will conduct yourself towards them, then you are a bully, if not a bigot.

Let me give you a reasonably accurate summary of the posts so far:

OP: (quoting some logic argument) - "what do you think?"
Squawk: @OP: The presented logic argument fails. Here's an analogy with the same logic, which fails, too.
Gnug: I doubt your conclusion, Squawk.
Case: @OP: The terminology used is incorrect. @Gnug:I doubt your criticism of Squawk's conclusion is valid.
OG: The possible conclusions listed are unlikely to be true and you left out the answer most likely to be true, but I won't/can't tell you. I find proposition E ridiculous.
Prolescum: @OP: I find all presented premises and conclusions to be ridiculous. I will use an internet meme to make this clear.
OP: @Gnug: I interpret your doubting of Squawk's criticism to be a belief you hold - and I doubt it is a valid belief. I myself do not wish to disclose what I think of the presented logic argument, I just wish to free-associate about it.
Gnug: @OP: I doubt your dismissal of my doubting of Squawk's criticism of the logic argument is legitimate.
Squawk: @OP: The terminology you are using is too vague and you have made an erroneous statement in your post, which I will prove to be erroneous.
Case: @OP: I am discontent with the OP's lack of substantial contribution and his apparent wish to restrict himself to free-association. I prefer real discussions.
borrofburi: @Case: I doubt he only wants to free-associate. @OP: The logic argument you presented is wrong for the following reasons:...
Case: @borrofburi: I want to share a funny video with you which is related to something you said.

I see nothing even close to what you described. Which post exactly do you think demands apology and why?

Hehe, fun post... would be cool to see more translations like this.

But anyway... I may not have made myself clear, but I didn't actually disagree with Squawk. I was expanding on his example, saying that most things in nature might be construed as code, because they take shapes, guided by natural forces.

Something like that.

 

[butterbattle]

a) Humans designed DNA
b) Aliens designed DNA
c) DNA occurred randomly and spontaneously
d) There must be some undiscovered law of physics that creates information
e) DNA was Designed by a Superintelligence, i.e. God.

Heh. Of course, it's none of the above. DNA evolved from natural processes, but it wasn't random or spontaneous, and information is undefined, so d) is essentially meaningless.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

1. The pattern in DNA is a code (by definition)

There is a serious problem with this statement, if you are going to assert that DNA is code by definition then I'm going to have to ask you to demonstrate it, you are going to have to post the definition of "Code" then the definition of "DNA" then you must show that DNA falls under code by definition of code, only then you can say that statement. Because if there is something that I take issue is that DNA is not a code, and it strikes me as evident that the parenthesis "by definition" is only there as a failed attempt to avoid this. Riddle me this, what information is being encoded? If you say instructions to make a person or an animal, then who is making the informing and who is on the receiving end of that information?
But then you can say "well I am using a enhanced definition of code that would include non-informative processes", then I would have to take issue with number 2.

2. All codes we know the origin of are designed (by observation)

Well... not exactly, some codes maybe just a natural consequence of the system being used by default and in a way there aren't designed, but for the sake of argument let's ignore this.
All codes we know are designed if the code must encode information being willingly transmitted between sender and receiver, and the fact that there is an intention to transmit makes it necessarily designed otherwise (like in the case of the usage of an enhanced definition of code) it isn't.

Therefore we can explore five possible conclusions:

Why just 5? Can you show that there are only 5 and only this 5?

a) Humans designed DNA
("¦)(a) requires time travel or infinite generations of humans.

I would say it would be impossible unless there are humans without DNA and in that case it is no longer a problem. Granting for the sake of argument that there are no humans without DNA then if humans had actively engaged in an endeavor to create DNA (for no matter the short of time) DNA would require to exist before that so that they would be humans in the first place which would violate the causal relation. The time travel scenario forward doesn't cut it because even if I granted that it was possible (which I contest that it isn't) there would be no inconsistency of humans never existing and therefore never traveling back in time to create DNA to create themselves and therefore never existing, since time flows from ancient to young and since the universe doesn't take sides means that if you required yourself to travel back in time to create yourself then you will not exist the end.

b) Aliens designed DNA
("¦)(b) could well be true but only pushes the question back in time.

Wrong! If they invented it then would mean that it didn't exist prior to it and therefore if that was the scenario they could have to come about by another mean altogether which doesn't involve DNA and there is nothing inconsistent about that (other than we do know of any such process, excluding also RNA).

c) DNA occurred randomly and spontaneously
("¦)(c) may be a remote possibility, but it's not a scientific explanation in that it doesn't refer to a systematic, repeatable process. It's nothing more than an appeal to luck.

Individual DNA molecules can come about spontaneously however the configuration by which they arrange themselves may vary stochastically, even tough for here it isn't much of a stretch that in proper condition a simple self replicating functional strand can statistically form. However it would be disingenuous of me to claim that this was probably the case, because the most likely candidate is rather RNA (which is much simpler molecule) which has passed through such a process and later developed to synthesize DNA.
There are several natural processes by which functional DNA (better yet RNA) could have come about, we are not entirely sure how we came about not because there are no know processes by which it could happen but rather because there are several competitive explanations and we can't tell which one took place (if not another alternative altogether that we haven't yet taught of).

d) There must be some undiscovered law of physics that creates information
e) DNA was Designed by a Superintelligence, i.e. God.
("¦)
(d) could be true but no one can form a testable hypothesis until someone observes a naturally occurring code. So the only systematic explanation that remains is
(e) a theological one.

As far as I'm concerned what was said of d) could be said of e), i.e. until we have any observation of God any speculation about it is straight out of the rectum.
Pedaling back to d), what is the problem there? There is nothing in science that says that we must always have an explanation, if we don't have a good explanation it doesn't mean that any explanation (even if it is unconformed) is the right one.
Going back to e), Gods are not scientific explanations for anything and they never will be, this is due to a unwritten rule that the physically impossible is not the right answer (furthermore it explains absolutely nothing), and Gods to be Gods must be physically impossible or otherwise they would just be undistinguishable from any other being. And this is the part where people seem to have a problem, if your God exist then it is either not God or it can't be proven by science even if it is true. And this is why every attempt to try a prove God by means of scientific evidence is fundamentally doomed to fail; it is just a matter of recognizing the errors. It sounds nice but it has no meaning.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

The arrangement of atoms in a rock, or... everything... can be said to be a code, then, can't it?

Not everything can be considered as a code, let's take sunlight as an example. Sunlight is not a code because sunlight is just a stream of photons. There is no encoder in the sun. That photon does not symbolically represent some other thing. The sun does not send out digital streams of photons that obey the laws of a code. The photon IS sunlight, it does not SAY sunlight. It does not give instructions for making sunlight. It doesn't have any instructions at all. It's just a photon. It represents nothing other than itself.

The argument that I've presented to you is not mine but an argument that I found somewhere...
I just posted it up so I can see what everybody's thoughts are about it..

Ummm... a single photon is just light, but a stream of them relay information about the sun's temperature, size, chemical composition, possibly the age of the sun... all things that could be called a "code" in the sense that DNA is a code.

 

[MRaverz]

Yes, DNA is a code of sorts - but a code doesn't infer design.