Is origin of life a fluke, physics… or just not a science question at present?

_{Denyse O'Leary

August 29, 2017

Information, Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life}

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From Ian O’Neill at LiveScience:

Understanding the origin of life is arguably one of the most compelling quests for humanity. This quest has inevitably moved beyond the puzzle of life on Earth to whether there’s life elsewhere in the universe. Is life on Earth a fluke? Or is life as natural as the universal laws of physics?

Jeremy England, a biophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is trying to answer these profound questions. In 2013, he formulated a hypothesis that physics may spontaneously trigger chemicals to organize themselves in ways that seed “life-like” qualities.

Now, new research by England and a colleague suggests that physics may naturally produce self-replicating chemical reactions, one of the first steps toward creating life from inanimate substances.

Aw, not this again. Jeremy England is the Hollywood summer pix idea of what a successful origin of life scientist should be. Assuming that his subject even is a science topic. In that case, in the ongoing war between it just happened and it had to happen, any blip is news.

Under certain initial conditions, he found that these chemicals may optimize the energy applied to the system by self-organizing and undergoing intense reactions to self-replicate. The chemicals fine-tuned themselves naturally. These reactions generate heat that obeys the second law of thermodynamics; entropy will always increase in the system and the chemicals would self-organize and exhibit the life-like behavior of self-replication. More.

About that, our physics color commentator Rob Sheldon noted earlier,

What Prigogine said (and many [including England] have repeated), is that for systems that have energy flow through them—think of a pot of water boiling on the stove—the system finds a structure that moves the most amount of heat and entropy the fastest. In the case of the pot, it is convection cells that form spontaneously.

Is this order?

Of a sort–the sort that maximizes disorder. It’s called the Maximum Entropy Production Principle. The “structure” that has England all excited, spontaneously forms to make things disorganized really fast. It’s what designs tornadoes, hurricanes, and mushroom clouds. This is not particularly useful for life, despite many hopeful scientists.

It is, however, useful for science stories at the tag end of the summer.

Also, to say that life somehow organizes or self-organizes is to miss the point. Snowflakes organize into complex patterns too and they don’t seek to avoid the shovel that smashes them. What differentiates life forms is their constant effort to remain in a high state of organization. Perhaps that effort is a driving force behind evolution. But it is treated as if it did not exist or is of philosophical interest only. Anyway, it is too much to recognize, especially for an idle summer’s tale. And maybe too much altogether.

Understanding the origin of life requires understanding the origin of information. But origin-of-life scientists keep orbiting the twin poles of Chance and Law, leaving out any plausible demonstration of how high levels of information can be generated. And why not? Their public is content with elegant, slightly dismissive essays in Quanta, Nautilus, or Aeon, ever hopeful about the ever hopeless.

The question looms: Is origin of life a degenerate science research program? Will the idle tales of Jeremy England and his confreres ever give way to serious investigation of the realities?

Note: Devolution sometimes works for life forms such as parasites, but it depends on other life forms retaining and possibly increasing complexity.

See also: Does nature just “naturally” produce life?

Can all the numbers for life’s origin just happen to fall into place?

Rob Sheldon: Sara Walker is criticizing Jeremy England for the wrong reasons

Chemist James Tour calls out Jeremy England’s origin of life claims – in a nice way

Chemist James Tour writes an open letter to his colleagues

Biophysicist [Jeremy England]: Order can arise from nothing! I have evidence! – Rob Sheldon replies

and

What we know and don’t know about the origin of life

Comments

LarTanner:
You must see that I find the ID view fatally flawed.
And yet compared to evolutionism it is the only testable scenario. So you must see that we find evolutionism as still-born. You guys have all of the power and still can only manage special pleading and misconceptions about ID. If you and yours could only step up and demonstrate that natural selection is as advertised then ID would be a non-starter. All the universities and all those labs and you still have nothing to support evolutionism's grand claims.ET_{September 3, 2017
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LarTanner: Thank you for your thoughts. Yes, you get my ideas right enough. The chronological history of design interventions cannot be decided a priori: it must be inferred from facts, and I am confident that, as our understanding of the history of information development increases, we will be able to get more details about that aspect. One of the beautiful things of a design perspective is that it is wholly open to empirical inquiry. "But my question is, what do you think life on Earth would be like right now if the designer had built life initially but then had not intervened at all afterwards? In other words, I wonder how far you think life on this planet could have gotten on its own, and why." Tha answer is simple enough: without design interventions, life on this planet can go on on its own as much as its inherent information potential allows. So, if the design intervention had stopped at prokaryotes, we would have prokaryotes. Of course, some microevolutiom and differentiation and diversification is probably in the range of adaptation and of its inherent algorithms: for example, prokaryotes are very good at that. But the limit would be at any major chnge that requires huge quantities of new functional information. We would certainly not have eukaryotes: they are a major step requiring a huge jump in information, new concepts, new proteins, new networks. But probably, even the diversification in prokaryotes would ne much less than what has been in real history, where design interventions have certainly gone on at that level, as they have at other levels. Remember, we have 2000 protein superfamilies: I firmly believe that each one of them can be considered a specific design intervention. That is the minimal design inference we can start from. "You must see that I find the ID view fatally flawed." Of course, you are entitled to that! :) "The “ghost in the machine” interventions seem a highly problematic position to take. " Strange idea, coming from ghosts in the machine as we all are! :) "Why this or that population, and not a different one?" Have you ever thought that looking at the populations of cars, or computers, or simply to a bookshelf in a library? "Why this moment and not another — or why take so long at all?" Why did Shakespeare write Hamlet at that moment? Why did he wait so long? One thing that is obvious from the history of biological design is that the designer(s) is certainly acting under constraints: he is not acting as some omnipotent dictator who can do anything he likes, but rather as an artist who is trying to create something beautiful against all the difficulties coming form the outer world, from the limitations of the tools he can use, from time, and space, and so on. " I am not someone versed in the hard activity and data of evolutionary biology," That's probably one of the problems: you have to really know what we are seeing today, to understand that design is not just an option, it's the only realistic option left to honest thinking. "yet when I read people saying that evolution can’t do this or couldn’t have done that, I think of that famous quip attributed to John von Neumann —" Just think what is my reaction when I read people saying that evolution did this or that, without giving any support to the ludicrous statements they are making! "You insist that there is something that a machine can’t do. If you will tell me precisely what it is that a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that." Two points: a) Machines are a product of design, and only of design. They can certainly do what they have been designed to do. If I ask you to build a machine that can print the following sonnet from Shakespeare:
Why is my verse so barren of new pride, So far from variation or quick change? Why with the time do I not glance aside To new-found methods, and to compounds strange? Why write I still all one, ever the same, And keep invention in a noted weed, That every word doth almost tell my name, Showing their birth, and where they did proceed? O know, sweet love, I always write of you, And you and love are still my argument, So all my best is dressing old words new, Spending again what is already spent: For as the sun is daily new and old, So is my love still telling what is told.
It's very easy to do that. You just feed any simple printing software with the sonnet itself, and the deed is done! b) Of course there is something that no machine cand do: generate new original complex functional information: a new specification, new complexity linked to that specification. IOIWs, a machine cannot generate new original language beyond a very trivial level of complexity. Ask a machine to generate the above sonnet, or anything really equivalent, without feeding it to the machine, without simply remixing existing pieces of language or concepts. Ask a machine to generate a new complex software to do something that has never been inputted in the machine itself, neither directly nor indirectly. Any machine has huge limitations, because machine are not conscious: they understand nothing, they desire nothing. Understanding and purpose are subjective experiences, and machine do not have them. No original functional information beyond the limit of 500 bits can be generated without conscious intervention. It's as simple as that. Of course, any machine can output a lot of complex functional information, if that information has been, in some way, programmed in it. Another thing machines can easily do is compute new information which can be derived by necessity laws that have been embedded in the machine itself. My example is generally a software which can compute the decimal figures of pi. After a certain number of computations, the output can potentially be more complex than the software itself, and it is specified. But the problem is: it's only "apparently" so. Indeed, the Kolmogorov complexity of the output tops at the complexity of the machine itself: IOWs, it is the complexity of the tool that can compute it. But computation cannot generate any original language. It cannot generate any original software. Computation is necessity, or at most necessity plus randomness. Complex functional information is not the result of mechanical computation, or of randomness. It is not the product of both. It is the result of conscious processes guided by understanding, by desires that produce new functions and define them, and by represented meanings that can find a way to get what the agent desires. No machine can do that. The simple trick in von Neumann'statement is in that simple word: "precisely". "If you will tell me precisely what it is that a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that." IOWs, if you tell me what is the information you want to achieve, then it's easy for me to put that information in the machine, and the deed is done! Well, I have told you what a machine cannot do, what no machine in the world will ever be able to do: writing the equivalent of the sonnet I gave above. Dawkins will be good at finding some software that can generate it painstakingly through random variation and intelligent selection: that's useless work, there is an easier way to do that, just copy it! If you have the sonnet as an oracle, you can do whatever you want. If you haven't it, you will never get it! However, as I said, you are entitled to your opinions, just like anyone else. But, if you go on asking, I will go on answering! :)gpuccio_{September 3, 2017
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gpuccio -- I have read your three most recent posts. Thank you for these. I cannot say confidently that I grasp every detail and argument, but I think I have the broad outline. You have answered my questions. If I could shift focus, I want to summarize my understanding of your view, which is that you see the appearance and development of life on Earth as a series of moments (or is it periods) where the designer directly interacted with certain organic populations at the micro-biological level. Connecting these moments are millions and millions of years where genetic populations interacted, competed to persist, adjusted to environmental disruptions, and also evolved at a small scale. Assuming I have the story straight, this raises a question for me. If you are tired of my questions, please don't answer. It's OK, and I would not fault you or anyone. But my question is, what do you think life on Earth would be like right now if the designer had built life initially but then had not intervened at all afterwards? In other words, I wonder how far you think life on this planet could have gotten on its own, and why. You must see that I find the ID view fatally flawed. The "ghost in the machine" interventions seem a highly problematic position to take. Why this or that population, and not a different one? Why this moment and not another -- or why take so long at all? I am not someone versed in the hard activity and data of evolutionary biology, yet when I read people saying that evolution can't do this or couldn't have done that, I think of that famous quip attributed to John von Neumann --
You insist that there is something that a machine can't do. If you will tell me precisely what it is that a machine cannot do, then I can always make a machine which will do just that.
LarTanner_{September 3, 2017
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LarTanner: Would you have a look at my comment here: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/are-there-really-22-genes-associated-with-intelligence/ (comment #1) just to get an idea of what I mean? Or to my posts here: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-amazing-level-of-engineering-in-the-transition-to-the-vertebrate-proteome-a-global-analysis/ and here: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/interesting-proteins-dna-binding-proteins-satb1-and-satb2/ for a more detailed analysis.gpuccio_{September 3, 2017
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LarTanner: The second question is: How did the biological designer act to generate the functional information in biological objects? Remember, my last point about the requisites of a designer was: "An agent capable of interaction with the object to be designed." That is specially important, because if we admit that the biological designer could not have a physical body, the question naturally arises: how can he interact with matter? Luckily, we are not left to mere conjectures about that. We have, indeed, a very promising potential model to understand more about that. That model is us. Human beings. Indeed, if we admit, even as a tentative hypothesis, that our consciousness is not a byproduct of our brains (and, as I have tried to explain, there are many serious reasons why we should seriously consider that possibility), then we have in human a very good model where a non physical consciousness interacts, constantly and in both direction, with biological physical matter. Now, I am personally very much in favor of a quantum interface between human consciousness and mind and the human brain. In the sense pioneered by Eccles, and debated by many others, including Penrose. I understand that this field is at present highly conjectural, but this is certainly something about which we can acquire better understanding as science goes on. I am very confident about that. Now, if our consciousness can interact with the biological brain by some quantum interface, why shouldn't some other conscious being be capable of interacting with biological matter through a similar quantum interface? It is certainly a possibility. OK, so what do we see in the history of biological information on our planet? We see a lot of rather sudden jumps in information, where tons of new functional information appear in biological beings in the form of new genes, new proteins, new protein domains, new regulatory networks, and so on. We already know, from ID theory, that there is no "non design" explanation for that. Therefore, the functional information must come from the guidance of some conscious intelligent being. How can that happen? Again, we have to rely on facts. And on the human model of design. Indeed, the whole idea is that the biological designer has been implementing biological engineering, exactly as we humans do today, but probably much better. So, what are the tools of human protein engineering? We can use top down methods, or bottom up methods. We can use random mutations followed by intelligent selection. Or just guided intelligent mutations. Facts can tell us a lot about the strategies used by the biological designer(s). At present, I believe that a lot of available facts point to an important role for guided mutations, and in particular guided mutations through guided transposon activity. That is very reasonable, because the random activity of transposons is a very good candidate to be an interface for guided quantum events, exactly as neuronal synaptic activity is a good candidate for the interface between human mind and human brain. OK, that's really a general discussion to try to answer your questions, Mere conjectures will bring us nowhere (after all, we are not darwinists!). So, we must rely on facts and on the good interpretation of scientific evidence to get answers to our deeper questions. The point is: if biological objects are really designed, as all evidence suggests, it will be impossible to pursue an explanation of their origin based on a completely wrong theory like neo-darwinism or, for that, on any other non design scenario.gpuccio_{September 2, 2017
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LarTanner: Thank you for your comments and good questions. Now, you essentially ask two different things: 1) Who is the designer or designers of biological information? 2) How did he act to generate that information in biological objects? I will address point 1 first, also because that includes a discussion of your specific question about humans. First of all, I want to clarify that my answer is given only from a scientific point of view, and in no way depends on a particular world-view. So, I will try to rely on facts. The question is: considering the model of the design process that we can derive from human design, what can we infer of the biological designer? To understand that, we must try to look better at the properties of a human designer that allow him to design. If we observe with attention the human process of design, we can understand better what design is, and define it with some precision. That's what I have tried to do in my first OP here: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/defining-design/ You can read that OP for further reference, but I will try to sum up my definition of design here:
Design is a process where a conscious agent subjectively represents in his own consciousness some form and then purposefully outputs that form, more or less efficiently, to some material object. We call the process “design”. We call the conscious agent who subjectively represents the initial form “designer”. We call the material object, after the process has taken place, “designed object”.
The basic point is: in all design processes, the final configuration of the designed object derives, more or less directly, from conscious representations of the designer. That brings us to the first basic requirement for any designer: a) A designer must necessarily be a conscious being, capable of conscious representations. But that's not enough. The act of design is a purposeful act. There must be a desire to output the represented form into matter. That brings us to the second basic property of a designer: b) A designer must necessarily be capable of conscious purpose. But that is still not enough. While many processes of design are rather simple, many of them, as we have already seen, can generate very complex specific configurations of matter: language, software, machines, works of art. Indeed, the complexity of the specific information is exactly what allows us to infer a design process even when we have no direct knowledge of the process itself, just by observing the designed object. That brings us to the third basic property that any designer must have: c) A designer must necessarily be capable of conscious understanding, IOWs he must have the conscious experience of meaning. That's very important, because it's this cognitive experience that allows the designer, together with his purposeful desire, to find, understand, try, shape the information that has to be outputted to the final object. So, to sum up, we can certainly say that the biological designer, being a designer, must necessarily be: d) Some conscious being, capable of conscious representations that include the understanding of meaning and the experience of purpose. Of course, there is a final point. To implement the design, the designer must also be: e) An agent capable of interaction with the object to be designed. IOWs, he must be able, in some way, to output his representations to the designed object. OK, that is all that we can say, in principle, and with certainty, of the biological designer. If we accept the design inference, we must also accept that the designer is a designer, and therefore must have those basic requisites. But you ask: can we infer that the biological designer must be human? And the answer is: no, not at all. Being human is not a requisite to be a designer, even if all the designed artifact that we can observe, of whose origin we are certain, are human artifacts. Why? Because we have no reason to believe that only humans can be conscious intelligent purposeful beings. First of all, some animals certainly display some level of conscious and purposeful intelligence. That can not be enough to generate complex designs, but in principle it is there. But, even more important, we can easily imagine (and indeed most people do imagine) that in other parts of the universe other conscious intelligent purposeful beings may exist, who are not humans at all. Let's call them "aliens". So, if aliens can be conscious and intelligent and purposeful, as most would happily admit, why shouldn't they be able to design? For example, to build languages, software, machines, works of art? So, I would definitely say that being humans does not seem to be a requisite to be a designer. But there is more. The theory that aliens can be the designers of biological information is a perfectly appropriate ID theory, but frankly I am not a fan of it, for many reasons that I will not detail now. I think that all that we know makes much more likely the idea that the biological designer(s) should be some conscious intelligent purposeful agent that has not a physical body as we usually conceive it. Does that mean God? Not necessarily. Remember, I am reasoning only from a scientific point of view, from facts. What we know of the history of out planet does not suggest the continuous present of specific physical beings, so it seems more likely that the biological designer is not of that kind. So, the correct question is: have we any evidence that only physical beings as we know them are capable of consciousness and of conscious processes? I strongly believe that we have no evidence of that. I could argue that we have a lot of evidence of the contrary, but that would bring us to discussions which cannot be really solved with the scientific understanding we have now. In the meantime, it is a fact that humans are conscious. Can science explain why they are? Absolutely not. Science cannot explain in any way the existence of subjective experiences. That's exactly what Chalmers means with the hard problem of consciousness. I am certainly not alone in believing that the hard problem has not been solved at all, least of all by Chalmers himself. There is no doubt that human consciousness is expressed by a physical brain, and is strongly linked to it and constrained by it. But does that mean that it originates from it, and that without a physical brain no consciousness is possible? I certainly believe differently. But my point here is not that anyone should believe what I believe: it is simply that there is no objective reason to believe that consciousness always needs a physical body to exist. I think you will agree that many human beings, in the past and now, have believed or believe that the opposite is true. The vast debate about NDEs is just an example of how support to the existence of non physical conscious experiences can come from scientific observations of facts, and not only from philosophical or religious convictions. But again, I will not go into details of that. My point is: only a dogmatic position can state that we have answers to that kind of question, least of all that those answers come from scientific facts. So, my answer to your first question is: We can safely say that the biological designer(s) must be a conscious being, capable of intelligent and purposeful experiences and representations. IMO, we should seriously consider the hypothesis that the biological designer is not a physical being as we usually conceive it. OK, that answers the first question. I don't think we can say much more about that, form the scientific point of view, with the facts we have today. But, of course, science goes on, and probably in some time we will have a better understanding of some of these problems. In my next post, I will try to answer your second question, and to show how some of that further understanding could be gained.gpuccio_{September 2, 2017
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LarTanner: Sorry if I missed it, but I am looking for an explanation of how specified information originates.
If GPuccio were to say 'specified information originates from intelligence' would you consider your question to be answered? If not, what is it that you are asking?Origenes_{September 2, 2017
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LarTanner @ 52: Good comment. As an IDer, I am content with not fully understanding how the design was implemented or even who/what the Designer is. I have my ideas about both, but those ideas are philosophical and faith-based, extending beyond the empirical evidence. The only difference between my journey and the a/mat journey is that my "inference to the best explanation" results in a Designer, theirs results in natural causes. Both of us have ideas that extend beyond the empirical evidence. Both of us have faith in something unseen, unproven, and perhaps unprovable. I can't explain how the Designer created things any more than a/mats can explain the singularity, abiogenesis, or the Cambrian explosion (just to name a few). It all comes down to where we place our faith.Truth Will Set You Free_{September 2, 2017
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If — by observation — specified information only comes from design, and design — by observation — only comes from humans, is it fair to infer that the designer is a human being?
And if it could not have been a human being we infer it was some other intelligent agency. What we do not do is assume mother nature magically got the capability to do it. Is that difficult to understand?ET_{September 2, 2017
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gpuccio @48 and 49-- While I appreciate the explanation of specified information, it appears that the question is unanswered: "generally speaking, how does information originate?” Sorry if I missed it, but I am looking for an explanation of how specified information originates. This is, of course, the very same question we ask of evolutionary biology. I get that ID "infers" a designer, but that avoids the question of how the information originated in biological objects, which as you say are "the object of our debate." By analogy, in a murder case, we infer a murderer but what we are interested in is what the perpetrator did to cause the fatal injuries. That's roughly like what I am asking you when I request to know how specified information originated in biological objects. And, again, the question is the same as the one ID asks evolutionary biology to answer. Based on your comment in #38 (and other comments), I take it that you believe it is settled that a designer produced the specified information in biological objects. Therefore, you should now be free to address the 'separate' questions of the designer's identity and means of production. One argument is curious to me:
c) Now, very briefly, the main point of ID theory is: any object that exhibits dFSI beyond some appropriate threshold (in general, 500 or 1000 bits), linked to some explicitly defined function (any explicitly defined function will do), originates from a design process. This is not a logical statement: it is an empirical observation. No object in the whole universe is known that exhibits dFSI in a complex form (let’s say mote than 500 bits) and is not designed. Indeed, the only known objects which exhibit those levels of DFSI are human artifatcs.
If -- by observation -- specified information only comes from design, and design -- by observation -- only comes from humans, is it fair to infer that the designer is a human being? It may seem like a strange question, but I am trying to understand how the design inference is being applied. It seems rather arbitrary to use it to affirm a designer but then not also employ the other essential feature --i.e., humans -- of the observation.LarTanner_{September 2, 2017
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Does somebody here know the answer to the question @36?Dionisio_{September 1, 2017
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> It appears that the question of what an agent must do to execute their design has been dropped. He just didn't have the tools to deal with it.Mung_{September 1, 2017
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LarTanner: So, now we have defined Specified Information. Here, the information related to one specification can be expressed as -log2 of the probability p of finding one instance of the target space by a random search. For example, in the case discussed before, that probability is 2:2^n, which is always of the order of magnitude of n bits. The problem with Specified Information is that it is rather heterogeneous in regard to the type of specification we can use. For example, the specification we used before is based on some kind of order: a string made only of 0s is more ordered than most strings. Therefore, ordered strings can be the result of design, but they can also be the result of necessity. For example, if we toss a coin that can only give 0, because it is not fair, we will get an ordered string all the time or most of the time. With regard to the application of ID to the biological world, it is better to restrict the reasonings to a specific subset of specified information, Functionally Specified Information. Here is the definition: b) Functionally Specified Information, for some digital string, is the subset of the search space (all possible strings of that type and length) which is part of a specific “target space” created by an explicitly defined function which generates a binary partition on the set of all possible strings. IOWs, the target space is defined as the set of all the strings of that type and length that can implement the function as defined, and the complementary set is made of all the other strings. The information linked to that function is, again, -log2 of the probability (target space/search space). Let's call this subset FSI, and in particular dFSI (because we have restricted the discussion to digital strings). Now, the point is that dFSI is perfectly appropriate to discuss biology, because most biological information of which we are aware (genes, proteins) is in that form: it is digital, and it implements specific functions. c) Now, very briefly, the main point of ID theory is: any object that exhibits dFSI beyond some appropriate threshold (in general, 500 or 1000 bits), linked to some explicitly defined function (any explicitly defined function will do), originates from a design process. This is not a logical statement: it is an empirical observation. No object in the whole universe is known that exhibits dFSI in a complex form (let's say mote than 500 bits) and is not designed. Indeed, the only known objects which exhibit those levels of DFSI are human artifatcs. Except, of course, biological objects. Whose origin is the object of our debate. So, we infer design for biological objects because only design, in the whole universe, seems to have the capacity to generate dFSI which is really complex. The reason for that is simple: only the conscious experiences of understanding meaning and having purpose can guide to the implementation of highly complex functional configurations of matter. That is not only empirically true, but also perfectly reasonable: natural processes have not the probabilistic resources to generate that kind of information by random search, and there is no known necessity law that can generate that kind of information. Of course, neo-darwinism is the only theory which states the opposite. Unfortunately, it is a theory which is both unreasonable and unsupported by any fact. This is a very, very brief summary. I am available to discuss in detail any specific aspect, as I have always done here.gpuccio_{September 1, 2017
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LarTanner: "Based on this, is it fair to say that you (1) believe the ultimate origin of proteins is an intentional, creative act by one or more designers; " Yes. "and (2) conclude not only that modern evolutionary biology avoids addressing the origin of proteins but also that modern evolutionary biology cannot explain the origin, even in principle?" Yes. Absolutely. "Also, you seem to be knowledgeable in the topic of information, so I want to ask: generally speaking, how does information originate?" OK, in brief. The concept which is appropriate for ID theory is not "information" in general (which is, indeed, a vague and misleading word, IMO), but rather Specified Information. In particular, I have always used in my reasonings a specific subset of Specified Information, that is Functionally Specified Information, and a specific sub-subset of it, that is Digital Functionally Specified Information. To be more clear, let's stick to digital forms of information, that is information stored as a sequence of digital values. Let's say we have a string which is a sequence of n values in some alphabet, for example a binary alphabet. In this case, the information potential of the string is by definition 2^n, which is usually expressed as the exponent, that is n bits. That is the maximum information we can store in such a string. It is also the total number of states the string can have. In this sense, as Dembski has clarified just from the beginning of his reasonings, giving a specific string is information in the sense that we specify one instance among 2^n possible instances. In that general sense, as in Shannon's theory, information is a reduction of uncertainty. That also corresponds to the probability of finding the string by a random search in the search space of 2^n strings of that type, which is 1:2^n, or 2^-n, IOWs, the information potential is -log2 of the probability, which is consistent with Shannon's ideas. But, again, that is not what ID is dealing with, even if those concepts are necessary to go on with the discussion. So, let's go on with some simple definitions: a) Specified information, for some digital string, is the subset of the search space (all possible strings of that type and length) which is part of a "target space". A target space is any specific search space generated by some explicit binary partition on the set of all possible strings. So, let's say that we have a search space of all binary strings of length 100. The search space is therefore 2^100, 100 bits. Now, we give an explicit specification: for example: "All strings which are made of only one value". That specification generates a binary partition in the search space. Now, we have two different subsets in it: 1) The target space, made of 2 strings, one with 100 0s and one with 100 1s. 2) The complementary set, made of all the other strings (2^100 - 2). More in next post.gpuccio_{September 1, 2017
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It appears that the question of what an agent must do to execute their design has been dropped.Upright BiPed_{September 1, 2017
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Based on this, is it fair to say that you (1) believe the ultimate origin of proteins is an intentional, creative act by one or more designers; and (2) conclude not only that modern evolutionary biology avoids addressing the origin of proteins but also that modern evolutionary biology cannot explain the origin, even in principle?
Modern evolutionary biology doesn't deal with origins. Biology is the study of the living. So modern evolutionary biology doesn't address the question, even in principle. But that doesn't mean that no one can try to address the origins of proteins and living organisms. I would think that in order to fully understand evolution you would have to know how it all started. ;)ET_{September 1, 2017
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Umm using the thing properly demonstrates an understanding of it. Knowing what it is for and all uses of it demonstrates a deeper understanding of it. So being able to use tools properly and fully, knowing how they work such that you can repair it if needed, demonstrates a full understanding of the tools without knowing who designed it nor how it was manufactured. You would have such an understanding of it that you could duplicate it, again without knowing who and how it originally came to be.ET_{September 1, 2017
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gpuccio @37: Thanks for your explanation. Based on this, is it fair to say that you (1) believe the ultimate origin of proteins is an intentional, creative act by one or more designers; and (2) conclude not only that modern evolutionary biology avoids addressing the origin of proteins but also that modern evolutionary biology cannot explain the origin, even in principle? Also, you seem to be knowledgeable in the topic of information, so I want to ask: generally speaking, how does information originate? ET @ 42:
So carpenters have to know who designed their tools and how they were manufactured before they can fully understand them? Really?
Sure. A full understanding of a hammer's design should include knowing the designer and manufacturer. With such knowledge, you could see why it's dimensions are just so, how it's materials were forged together, and how it relates to other hammers available in the marketplace. This knowledge may not help you wield the hammer, of course, but we are talking about understanding the design, not using the thing.LarTanner_{September 1, 2017
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Mung: "So? Why can’t they have belief without evidence?" You know well that I am not criticizing them, just describing what goes on! :) Lucky them, that they have you who defend their human rights! :)gpuccio_{September 1, 2017
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LarTanner:
Would you agree that a full understanding of design in nature includes knowing something of the designer(s) and the process(es) they use?
So carpenters have to know who designed their tools and how they were manufactured before they can fully understand them? Really? Do auto mechanics have to know who designed the cars and how they were manufactured before they understand how cars operate and how to repair them? Perhaps your "full understanding" isn't required.ET_{September 1, 2017
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The model of RV + NS requires a deconstruction of the information into steps that are simple enough to be in the range of what a natural random system can achieve, and that are, each of them, naturally selectable. Such a pathway has never been shown for any complex protein, least of all for aminoacyl tRNA synthetases.
"poof" + NS + "poof" + NS + "poof" + NS -> AN EYE!Mung_{September 1, 2017
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Lar Tanner:
Would you agree that a full understanding of design in nature includes knowing something of the designer(s) and the process(es) they use?
I would agree with that.Mung_{September 1, 2017
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Of course, darwinists believe that the system arose in some way from simpler systems, by some gradual evolutionary process. They believe it. But it is mere belief, without any support from facts, and without any reasonable, or even imaginary, pathway for the supposed process itself.
So? Why can't they have belief without evidence?Mung_{September 1, 2017
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ET: "“Once specified complexity tells us that something is designed, there is nothing to stop us from inquiring into its production. A design inference therefore does not avoid the problem of how a designing intelligence might have produced an object. It simply makes it a separate question.”– Wm. Dembski- pg 112 of No Free Lunch" Exactly my point. Thank you! :)gpuccio_{September 1, 2017
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LarTanner: "How can the natural history of proteins not also be the history of the information in them?" There is a big difference between history and explanation. History just tells us that some protein, with its information, appeared at some time, and then changed more or less through time, while retaining its function. That's what we know of many proteins. That's what darwinists, or in general evolutionary biologists, do. They trace the connections between proteins, some of the differences or similarities. They build trees, that's all. But they never explain how the information came into existence. Take ATP synthase, for example. We know, as I have debated many times, that the alpha and beta chains have been conserved for billion of years for great part of their sequence. There are hundreds of AA identities between bacteria and humans. Other components of the molecule have changed more. So, we can safely say that those conserved sequences were already present in the common ancestor of bacteria and humans, billions of years ago. Any evolutionary biologist would agree on that. OK, so we have reconstructed some of the natural history of the protein, no doubt about that. But have we explained in any way how that information came into existence billions of years ago? Not at all. That's the difference between history and explanation. That information had to be designed in the beginning. There is absolutely no chance that it could come into existence by chance. Now, for the 20 aa tRNA synthetases, the problem is much bigger: a) First of all, it's not one protein, but a set of 20 proteins. Each of them very big. Each of them different. b) Second, each of them is necessary for translation, because each protein is the depository of one symbolic association, of pone specific aminoacid with its specific codon. The whole set of proteins is the depository of the genetic code symbolism, nothing less. c) Third, and this is the incredibly strong chichen and egg problem, each of those 20 proteins is a protein. IOWs, the information for each protein comes from a gene, though the process of transcription and translation. Exactly the process for which the 20 proteins are necessary. Is that clear? Without the 20 proteins, no genetic code can work. Without them, no translation can happen. And yet, the information for those proteins is encoded in genes, by the genetic code, and genes and the genetic code have no meaning or utility or function unless there is the translation apparatus working. Unless the symbolic coupling is deposited physically somehwere. And the neo-darwinist theory tells us that the information for a protein, for any protein, must evolve through random variation and natural selection in the genetic material, that is in the gene, in the nucleotide sequence. The same sequence that has no meaning and no utility unless the 20 proteins are working. Is that clear? Do you understand why I say that we have no trace of an explanation of how the 20 proteins came into existence by non design processes? Can you find in that paper, pr in any other paper, any explanation about that that is not completely imaginary and absolutely vague or contradictory?gpuccio_{September 1, 2017
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Where did the first RNA polymerase come from?Dionisio_{August 31, 2017
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The conversation has moved on. Sorry for having to bail out. LT, you say that you are “rather genuinely curious as to what ID supposes designers actually did in executing their design work.” A design proponent would want to describe that evidence in a way that is empirically verifiable to anyone. So I wonder if your curiosity extends to understanding and acknowledging the way that an agent must arrange matter in order to achieve the effect – i.e. to establish a prescriptive, open-ended self-replicating system, the basic unit of life. Unless you take the position that the unique organization required by life is irrelevant, then understanding that organization suggests what an agent had to accomplish. It suggests that an agent had to establish a medium of information and organize the semantic closure required to start the system.Upright BiPed_{August 31, 2017
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“Once specified complexity tells us that something is designed, there is nothing to stop us from inquiring into its production. A design inference therefore does not avoid the problem of how a designing intelligence might have produced an object. It simply makes it a separate question.”-- Wm. Dembski- pg 112 of No Free Lunch
ET_{August 31, 2017
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Would you agree that a full understanding of design in nature includes knowing something of the designer(s) and the process(es) they use?
And yet we don't have that for all artifacts or crimes. Yet we know they are artifacts and crimes. We do what we can with what we are given.
In fact, I don’t think you actually can say definitively that design has been detected unless you also say something about the designer and design process.
And yet we do. As a natter of course the who and how come well after design has been determined,ET_{August 31, 2017
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gpuccio,
Reconstructing the natural history of proteins is in no way an explanatory pathway of how the information in those proteins arose.
How can the natural history of proteins not also be the history of the information in them?LarTanner_{August 31, 2017
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