Eric Hedin: Information and Nature

_{Eric Hedin

May 23, 2022

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In a short article posted recently at Reasons to Believe Scholars’ blog, I present some conceptual considerations of information, nature and life.

The question of the significance of human existence comes sharply into focus as we consider the origin of life itself. Do the laws of nature support the origin of life from nonlife, or do they argue against it? In order to address this question, it is helpful to consider a defining characteristic of all living things, namely their phenomenal information content. Naturalistic explanations attempting to reach the heights of information content found in even the simplest living thing have appealed to “dumb luck” or to some unobserved natural law. However, consideration of the known and observed laws of physics in conjunction with the finite limits of “chance” within our universe appear to rule out any natural origin of the vastly complex biomolecular metropolis found within the cells of life.

The information content of the universe exponentially increased with the formation of the first living organism. Since natural processes always work to lower the information content of any closed (or effectively closed) system over time, the origin of life represents an unnatural event in the history of our universe.
See full article at Reasons to Believe Scholars’ Blog

Comments

JVL:
Let’s say the asteroid that smacked into the Earth about 66 million years ago had missed.
Doesn't matter. Most, if not all, of the big dinosaurs were already gone.
That might have dramatically changed the way life developed on Earth.
Might not have. Could have been another global disaster.
That means different books and plays and paintings and buildings and other information carrying objects would have been created.
Not necessarily.
But all that is inherit in the system?
Absolutely. Just like all the matter and energy required are inherent in the system. Information is neither matter nor energy. So, it doesn't take up any space.ET_{May 24, 2022
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I've proposed a different view of information. I call it 'Comprehensive Information Theory (CIT)'. I posted a short (13-minute) video on YouTube to introduce CIT. Below is the link - please comment or PM me (jor27ge@cfl.rr.com). Thank you. Title of YouTube video is: A General Introduction to CIT Direct YouTube video link is: https://youtu.be/qBzzL0_pZf4 Jorge jor27ge@cfl.rr.comJorge_{May 24, 2022
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Bornagain77: OMG, I agree with what JVL wrote. Don't get used to that!! But I am curious to see what the response will be. Just because I can't wrap my head around these notions of information doesn't make them incorrect. I'd just like the thoughts spelled out a bit more. Is it possible that all possible information is already inherent in the system? Does that not argue against free will and creativity? If I'm wrong then tell me.JVL_{May 24, 2022
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OMG, I agree with most of what JVL wrote. That's scary! :)bornagain77_{May 24, 2022
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William J Murray: All information that has ever been, or ever will be, accessed or made “actual” in any way, necessarily already existed in potentia. Hang on, let me get my head around this . . . Let's say the asteroid that smacked into the Earth about 66 million years ago had missed. That might have dramatically changed the way life developed on Earth. That means different books and plays and paintings and buildings and other information carrying objects would have been created. But all that is inherit in the system? Considering that there are literally countless events that potentially changed the 'future' dramatically how much information can be potential in the system? It seems to me that you are saying there is virtually an infinite amount of potential information somewhat ready to go. That sounds suspiciously like a multiple universes view of things.JVL_{May 24, 2022
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Bornagain77:
So ET, to ask the obvious question, do you actually believe that Hamlet existed in this universe before it was written by Shakespeare?
Absolutely. We are not inventors. We are discoverers. We discovered math. We did not invent it. Everything math has always existed. Information cannot be created nor destroyed.ET_{May 24, 2022
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True. We can't create something from nothing. Information that we move from potential-to-actual has to come from a pre-existing source. We can adjust and rearrange information in new ways (like Hamlet) but it's not a creation from nothing -- all the information already existed in potentia or even as actualized information reused and rearranged.Silver Asiatic_{May 24, 2022
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ET @7: Absolutely correct. If the information doesn't already exist in the form of potential, it cannot be accessed or "drawn out" of potential into an observable state. All information that has ever been, or ever will be, accessed or made "actual" in any way, necessarily already existed in potentia.William J Murray_{May 24, 2022
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Bornagain77
ET
“All of the information we use and accept as information, already exists. And it existed before our arrival.”
So ET, to ask the obvious question, do you actually believe that Hamlet existed in this universe before it was written by Shakespeare?
Hamlet is the effect of imagination of a man.Lieutenant Commander Data_{May 24, 2022
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Nature is capable of making some highly organized and self-sustaining objects. Trying to distinguish life solely on the basis of organization isn't likely to get there. Example of a highly organized object tonight: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10158389990556599&set=a.10150148744166599 The distinction has to start with PURPOSEFUL NEGATIVE FEEDBACK. That's the ONLY thing present in all life and absent in all non-life.polistra_{May 23, 2022
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"All of the information we use and accept as information, already exists. And it existed before our arrival." So ET, to ask the obvious question, do you actually believe that Hamlet existed in this universe before it was written by Shakespeare?bornagain77_{May 23, 2022
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The information is not deleted. It is just removed from a particular material substrate. All of the information we use and accept as information, already exists. And it existed before our arrival. In his book, "Why is a Fly Not a Horse?", Giuseppe Sermonti hints at this. And in "In the Beginning was Information", Werner Gitt makes that case.ET_{May 23, 2022
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Bornagain77, You need to write a book with all the citations you provide in your posts. God bless you!harry_{May 23, 2022
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ET at 3, I believe you are confusing quantum information with classical information. As the following article states, "In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed."
Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time - 2011 Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html
Moreover, even in 'conserved' quantum information theory, it is now shown that, "“The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,, quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,, Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution – May 2017 Excerpt: the 19th-century physicist James Clerk Maxwell put it, “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.” In recent years, a revolutionary understanding of thermodynamics has emerged that explains this subjectivity using quantum information theory — “a toddler among physical theories,” as del Rio and co-authors put it, that describes the spread of information through quantum systems. Just as thermodynamics initially grew out of trying to improve steam engines, today’s thermodynamicists are mulling over the workings of quantum machines. Shrinking technology — a single-ion engine and three-atom fridge were both experimentally realized for the first time within the past year — is forcing them to extend thermodynamics to the quantum realm, where notions like temperature and work lose their usual meanings, and the classical laws don’t necessarily apply. They’ve found new, quantum versions of the laws that scale up to the originals. Rewriting the theory from the bottom up has led experts to recast its basic concepts in terms of its subjective nature, and to unravel the deep and often surprising relationship between energy and information — the abstract 1s and 0s by which physical states are distinguished and knowledge is measured.,,, Renato Renner, a professor at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, described this as a radical shift in perspective. Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,, https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-thermodynamics-revolution/
And as this earlier article stated, "(in quantum information theory) an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer."
Quantum knowledge cools computers: New understanding of entropy – June 1, 2011 Excerpt: Recent research by a team of physicists,,, describe,,, how the deletion of data, under certain conditions, can create a cooling effect instead of generating heat. The cooling effect appears when the strange quantum phenomenon of entanglement is invoked.,,, The new study revisits Landauer’s principle for cases when the values of the bits to be deleted may be known. When the memory content is known, it should be possible to delete the bits in such a manner that it is theoretically possible to re-create them. It has previously been shown that such reversible deletion would generate no heat. In the new paper, the researchers go a step further. They show that when the bits to be deleted are quantum-mechanically entangled with the state of an observer, then the observer could even withdraw heat from the system while deleting the bits. Entanglement links the observer’s state to that of the computer in such a way that they know more about the memory than is possible in classical physics.,,, In measuring entropy, one should bear in mind that an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer. Applied to the example of deleting data, this means that if two individuals delete data in a memory and one has more knowledge of this data, she perceives the memory to have lower entropy and can then delete the memory using less energy.,,, No heat, even a cooling effect; In the case of perfect classical knowledge of a computer memory (zero entropy), deletion of the data requires in theory no energy at all. The researchers prove that “more than complete knowledge” from quantum entanglement with the memory (negative entropy) leads to deletion of the data being accompanied by removal of heat from the computer and its release as usable energy. This is the physical meaning of negative entropy. Renner emphasizes, however, “This doesn’t mean that we can develop a perpetual motion machine.” The data can only be deleted once, so there is no possibility to continue to generate energy. The process also destroys the entanglement, and it would take an input of energy to reset the system to its starting state. The equations are consistent with what’s known as the second law of thermodynamics: the idea that the entropy of the universe can never decrease. Vedral says “We’re working on the edge of the second law. If you go any further, you will break it.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110601134300.htm
As should be obvious, these findings within quantum information theory, of entropy being a property of the observer who describes the system, are VERY friendly to Intelligent Design presuppositions, even to Theistic presuppositions. Much more could be said about this subject, but I'll leave it there for now.
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
bornagain77_{May 23, 2022
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Consider the following imaginary scenario: I say to you “This will take a while but stick around and you will witness a miracle!” You agree to stay. I then proceed to flip a coin 1,024 times and you check my accuracy as I record at each coin toss whether it resulted in heads or tails. When I am done: Harry: You have just witnessed a stunning miracle. You: I'm not stunned at all. I couldn't be further from being stunned. So what should have stunned me? Harry: The odds of getting that particular series of heads and tails by chance are 1 in 2^1024, or, in base ten, 1.79769 * 10^308. It has never happened before by chance and it will never happen again by chance. You: I can easily perform the same “miracle” although it will be with a different series of heads and tails. All that you say of your results will true of mine. You haven't demonstrated anything miraculous. And you would be exactly right. Some result had to occur, the probability of which (before the event) was infinitesimal. But then I say “Okay, but remember, you watched as I recorded the coin toss results. Let's say heads equals zero and tails equals one, and then map the zeros and ones into 8-bit bytes, which we will decipher according to ASCII encoding of the English alphabet and punctuation.” We do that and it results in the text: HEADS IS EQUAL TO ZERO AND TAILS IS EQUAL TO ONE TRANSLATED INTO ASCII ENDODING OF THE ALPHABET RESULTS IN THIS TEXT. A MIRACLE! You would be quite justified in accusing me of somehow having control over whether each flip of the coin resulted in heads or tails. Your accusation might be articulated along these lines:
Give me a break! You cheated somehow. If the translation had resulted in a few short words spelled correctly among mostly gibberish, even though actually getting a couple of words spelled correctly would be unusual, that might still be believable, but your accidentally getting correctly spelled, coherent text that also resulted in a message related to the subject at hand is simply not believable. One might rationally believe, even though it would be quite unusual, that natural erosion had inscribed a pattern on a stone that looked somewhat like some kind of cryptic text; but believing that an inscription that turned out to be three versions of the same message written in two languages and three writing systems, as on the Rosetta Stone, was accidentally caused by erosion would be irrational – as it would be to believe your deciphered message was an accident. When multiple “miracles” are required, as in randomly arrived at zeros and ones the translation of which into ASCII character encoding results in words instead of gibberish, and those words just happen to be arranged such that a coherent thought was produced, and that thought also relates to the subject at hand, or, when scratch marks on a stone purportedly the result of mindless erosion are not only actual text, but also multiple versions of the same message in different writing systems and languages, then just assuming all that is a mindless accident, not the work of an intelligent agent, is irrational. The only rational thing to believe about your “miracle” is that it was the result of thoughtful planning on your part.
And that such an argument can and should be made is precisely the point. First, we had an extremely unlikely event in that the natural Universe emerged from nothingness. Next, in spite of it being a virtual impossibility, physical reality emerged from nothingness with low enough entropy that biological life would be a possibility, even if it was an extremely unlikely one; thirdly, even though the a priori probability of life actually emerging verged upon zero, life did indeed emerge. That's three extremely unlikely events in a row. The only rational thing to believe about that is that it was all the result of thoughtful planning, just as was the inscription on the Rosetta Stone and the message derived from coin tosses.harry_{May 23, 2022
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The information content of the universe exponentially increased with the formation of the first living organism.
In an Intelligently Designed universe that is false. Information cannot be created nor destroyed. It was always there, just untapped/ unused.ET_{May 23, 2022
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the origin of life represents an unnatural event in the history of our universe
Certainly, the four laws of nature are unable to create the information we see in life unless initial conditions were set up to somehow channel these forces into forming the necessary steps to produce life. This is what atheists and theistic evolutionists (TEs) believe happened though the TEs most probably never express it this way. Both just assume the physical forces in the right environment would lead to life which is the same thing as having the right initial conditions. Similarly both mainly believe Darwinian processes or some other natural process created complex life. Darwinian processes are self refuting in that they couldn’t achieve the necessary complexity/advanced characteristics without killing the ecologies they must exist in. But they would accept another processes if founded that didn’t have that shortcoming. There could have been some other initial conditions long since gone that could have channeled complex life to where we see it today. I’m sure they would accept this. There is always the ecology issue no matter what material mechanism formed complex life. But a major problem for theistic evolutionists is why create life this way and then have a creator who they believe interacts with this life. The TEs also believe the highest form of life was created/modified personally by the creator. In this way the TEs differ dramatically from atheists. But in a lot of ways they are very similar. People here at UD who are mainly Christians may find it hard to believe that most who go to church each Sunday are TEs. Granted they probably don’t think about it very much or very deeply. But it doesn’t bother them.jerry_{May 23, 2022
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as to:
"The information content of the universe exponentially increased with the formation of the first living organism. Since natural processes always work to lower the information content of any closed (or effectively closed) system over time, the origin of life represents an unnatural event in the history of our universe." - Eric Hedin - Ph.D. in Physics
To state the obvious, besides arguing against atheistic naturalism, this scientific evidence also argues against Deism (and/or Theistic evolution).
Return of the God Hypothesis – Stephen Meyer – book review Excerpt: theism provides a better overall explanation than deism of the three key facts about biological and cosmological origins under examination: (1) the material universe had a beginning; (2) the material universe has been finely tuned for life from the beginning; and (3) large discontinuous increases in functionally specified information have entered the biosphere since the beginning. Deism can explain the first two of those facts; theism can explain all three. https://returnofthegodhypothesis.com/book/preview/ Does Front-End Loading & Theistic Evolution Explain the Information in Life? – Stephen Meyer – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW0985W4rks Stephen Meyer - The Four Great Discoveries of Modern Science That Prove God Exists (‘competing worldviews’, 3:15 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hls6dawWQL0&t=194s
bornagain77_{May 23, 2022
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