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Posted on 05/01/2025 12:35:03 PM PDT by Heartlander
Researchers have long recognized information (CSI) as a prime descriptor of living systems, in comparison to the low levels of information in non-living systems. Skeptics, however, seem to have remained convinced that natural processes can gradually ratchet up information, even in opposition to established laws of physics and observable operations of nature.
Recently, researchers have put forward a corollary attribute of living systems, namely that living organisms process and manipulate information. Decision-making based on information processing appears as a ubiquitous biosignature.
Unlike non-living systems, living systems actively acquire, process, and use information about their environments to respond to changing conditions, sustain themselves, and achieve other intrinsic goals.
Life’s ability to process and use information to achieve specific goals constitutes a greater divide between living organisms and non-living states of matter. The universality of information processing as a distinguishing sign of life leads researchers to propose that this biosignature may even serve to identify the existence of extraterrestrial life.
…information processing is a universal feature of living systems, extending plausibly to extraterrestrial life. Two central facets of this capability are the abilities to sense and transmit information.
David Coppedge recently reported on research highlighting decision-making processes within the biomolecular functions of a living cell. From a video animation of this process, he comments,
We see four varieties of enzymes deciding what to do when traveling along DNA strands and running into each other. We sympathize with these molecular actors, envisioning construction workers trying to work past each other in a narrow corridor. Somehow, they figure out the challenge and carry on. Later…, we zoom out and see that all these interactions blend into a magnificent ballet, resulting in precise folding of DNA into the familiar X-shaped chromosomes.
Regarding the decision-making processes inherent in the biomolecular activities within the cell, Coppedge asks the question that deserves more than a trite dismissal with reference to evolution.
If a cell is merely a “fortuitous concourse of atoms,” how is this possible?
In contrast to non-living matter, in which “the atoms simply follow physical laws without regard to consequences or function,” Coppedge concludes,
Life is different. It solves problems for a purpose. It makes decisions.
Even simple organisms that we typically regard as mere biochemical operations, devoid of “thought,” seem to exhibit behaviors that have pushed some researchers to suggest that individual cells may possess a rudimentary consciousness or cognition. In another recent article, Brian Miller reports on a team of three scientists who posit that,
…biology is directed by cognition — the capacity to make genuine choices and act creatively in responding to environmental cues to pursue goals.
Now if the acquisition of raw, encyclopedic information in living systems, such as in the coded genome of DNA, lacks a rigorous scientific explanation, the purpose-driven responsiveness of living systems to information appears as a truly confounding enigma for naturalistic explanations. The study of the physics of nature has made one thing very obvious: matter, energy, and forces do not make goal-directed choices, they simply follow the rules.
If information processing is a distinguishing feature uniquely identified with life, then its activity evidences an unnatural origin of life.
While particles compulsively follow the laws of nature, conscious beings make genuine choices. Borrowing an illustration from my recent article, a living ballerina can choose to perform a limitless variety of movements in dance. A non-living equivalent amount of matter would unimpressively follow the law of gravity, collapsing into a lump on the floor.
Faced with the non-natural behavior of living creatures, scientists have two choices. One is to propose a new law of nature that endows specific complex arrangements of organic molecules with cognition, consciousness, decision-making power, and the will to live. Proposals for new laws of nature are limited, however, in that they must not contradict already established laws. The other option is to acknowledge that the behavior of living things defies the laws of nature and provides evidence for the intervention of a transcendent source of life into the realm of nature.
We are not claiming that metabolic processes that release energy and cause muscle contraction to move a creature’s limb violate any of the laws of nature. But, in keeping with the theme of this article, we assert that the information processing every living creature continuously employs, leading to real-time decision-making and genuine choices, is a non-natural attribute of life.
Examples of information processing abound in living things. Even within our own bodies, we find systems involving complex decision-making, based on information sensed and processed — all happening at a level below our conscious awareness.
We certainly recognize our ability to cognitively acquire and process information, and we value its importance for conscious decision-making. But apart from this, our bodies and brains continuously sense and respond unconsciously to internal and external information in ways that are vital to our survival.
A fascinating example of utilizing information in the process of monitoring and responding to our environment, involving both unconscious and conscious control, is found in all humans and is known as the limbic system.
The limbic system helps control your emotions and behaviors. It manages your actions based on what it learns from your environment. It takes in information, processes it, learns from it and reacts.
The description of the limbic system closely matches the characteristics of information processing that researchers identify as unique to living systems. However, the evolutionary paradigm maintains that the limbic system is an evolutionary relic, developed when humans needed unconscious regulation to perform essential behaviors for survival, such as eating, drinking, procreating, nurturing their children, and fighting or fleeing various threats.
The challenge for evolution is to explain how information-processing and genuine decision-making, whether consciously or unconsciously accomplished, can have originated at all, utilizing only the rigid rules of nature applied to a random mix of atoms. Concerning the example of the limbic system, rather than viewing such a complex system of sense and response as primitive, we could more accurately describe it as essential, and to be precise, unnatural.
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“gradually ratchet up information”? now I’m wondering how long it would take for my dog to understand basic geometry. or maybe my neighbor’s pet lizard to understand the dick and jane primer he reads to the lizard every evening. to be fair, his 7 y.o. is listening too.
It is great to know that inanimate objects don't process or use data in any fashion. Who would have guessed? Do I need a sarcasm tag?
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