The AP Model and Shannon Theory Show the Incompleteness of Darwin’s ToE

self | January 26, 2009 | Jean F. Drew

[betty boop]

The AP Model and Shannon Theory Show the Incompleteness of Darwin’s ToE

By Jean F. Drew

“The commonly cited case for intelligent design appeals to: (a) the irreducible complexity of (b) some aspects of life. But complex arguments invite complex refutations (valid or otherwise), and the claim that only some aspects of life are irreducibly complex implies that others are not, and so the average person remains unconvinced. Here I use another principle—autopoiesis (self-making)—to show that all aspects of life lie beyond the reach of naturalistic explanations. Autopoiesis provides a compelling case for intelligent design in three stages: (i) autopoiesis is universal in all living things, which makes it a pre-requisite for life, not an end product of natural selection; (ii) the inversely-causal, information-driven, structured hierarchy of autopoiesis is not reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry; and (iii) there is an unbridgeable abyss between the dirty, mass-action chemistry of the natural environmental and the perfectly-pure, single-molecule precision of biochemistry.”

So begins Alex Williams’ seminal article, Life’s Irreducible Structure — Autopoiesis, Part 1. In the article, Williams seeks to show that all living organisms are constituted by a five-level structured hierarchy that cannot be wholly accounted for in terms of naturalistic explanation. Rather, Williams’ model places primary emphasis on the successful transmission and communication of relevant biological information.

Note here that, so far, science has not identified any naturalistic source for “information” within the universe, biological or otherwise. And yet it appears that living organisms remain living only so long as they are “successfully communicating” information. When that process stops, the organism dies; i.e., becomes subject to the second law of thermodynamics — the consequences of which the now-deceased organism had managed to optimally distance itself from while alive.

Evidently Williams finds Michael Behe’s irreducible complexity arguments insufficiently general to explain biological complexity and organization, and so seeks a different explanation to generically characterize the living organism. Yet his proposed autopoietic model — of the “self-making,” i.e., self-maintaining or self-organizing and therefore living system — itself happens to be irreducibly complex. That is to say, on Williams’ model, any biological organism from microbe to man must be understood as a complete, functioning “whole,” transcending in the most profound way any definition of a particular organism as the “mere” sum of its constituting “material” parts.

Further, the idea of the “whole” must come prior to an understanding of the nature and function of the constituting parts. Williams terms this idea of the “whole” as inversely causal meta-information; as such, it is what determines the relations and organization of all the parts that constitute that “whole” of the living organism — a biological system in nature.

Just one further word before we turn to Williams’ autopoietic model. To begin with the supposition of “wholeness” flies in the face of methodological naturalism, the currently favored model of scientific investigation, and arguably the heart of Darwinist evolutionary theory. For methodological naturalism is classical and mechanistic (i.e., “Newtonian”) in its basic presuppositions: Among other things, it requires that all causation be “local.” Given this requirement, it makes sense to regard the “whole is merely the sum of its parts” as a valid statement — those parts being given to human understanding as the objects of direct observation of material events. The presumption here is that, given enough time, the piling up of the parts (i.e., of the “material events”) will eventually give you the description of the whole. Meanwhile, we all should just be patient. For centuries if need be, as a collaborator once suggested to me (in regard to abiogenesis. See more below).

Yet subsequent to classical physics came the astonishing revelations of relativity and quantum theory, both of which point to “non-local” causation. The transmission of information across widely spatially-separated regions (from the point of view of the biological organism as an extended body in time) so as to have causative effect in the emergence of biological life and its functions is decidedly a “non-local” phenomenon. Indeed, non-local causation seems ubiquitous, all-pervasive in the living state of biological organisms, as we shall see in what follows.

Williams’ Autopoietic Model
Williams lays out the five-level, autopoietic hierarchy specifying the living system this way (parenthetical notes added):

(i) components with perfectly pure composition (i.e., pure elements)
(ii) components with highly specific structure (i.e., molecules)
(iii) components that are functionally integrated (i.e., components work cooperatively toward achieving a purpose or goal)
(iv) comprehensively regulated information-driven processes (DNA, RNA)
(v) inversely-causal meta-informational strategies for individual and species survival (we’ll get to this in a minute)

Pictorially, the model lays out like this:

Figure 1 summarizes the five-level, hierarchical specification of any living organism, microbe to man. But how do we get a handle on what this hierarchy actually means?

An interesting way to look at the problem, it seems to me, is to look at the available potential “information content” of each of the five “levels” or “manifolds” of the hierarchy.

You’ll note that Figure 1 depicts an ascending arrow on the left labeled “complexity.” For our present purposes, we’ll define this as “algorithmic complexity,” understood as a function that maximally yields “information content.” If we can find complexity measures to plug into the model, we might gain additional insight thereby.

Fortunately, algorithmic complexity measures have been obtained for certain levels of the hierarchy; i.e., Level (i) and Levels (iv) and possibly Level (v). For the latter two, the measures were taken with respect to the living human being. Figure 1 can thus be expanded as follows:

Notes to Figure 2:

¹ Gregory Chaitin: “My paper on physics was never published, only as an IBM report. In it I took: Newton’s laws, Maxwell’s laws, the Schrödinger equation, and Einstein’s field equations for curved spacetime near a black hole, and solved them numerically, giving ‘motion-picture’ solutions. The programs, which were written in an obsolete computer programming language APL2 at roughly the level of Mathematica, were all about half a page long, which is amazingly simple.”

On this basis, Chaitin has pointed out that the complexity we observe in living systems cannot be accounted for on the basis of the chemical and physical laws alone, owing to the paucity of their information content.

² George Gilder: “In each of the some 300 trillion cells in every human body, the words of life churn almost flawlessly through our flesh and nervous system at a speed that utterly dwarfs the data rates of all the world’s supercomputers. For example, just to assemble some 500 amino-acid units into each of the trillions of complex hemoglobin molecules that transfer oxygen from the lungs to bodily tissues takes a total of some 250 peta operations per second. (The word “peta” refers to the number ten to the 15th power — so this tiny process requires 250 x 10¹⁵ operations.)

A Word about Abiogenesis
Darwin’s evolutionary theory does not deal with the origin of life. It takes life for granted, and then asks how it speciates. Moreover, the theory does not elaborate a description of the constitution of the individual living organism, such as Williams’ irreducibly complex/autopoietic (“IC/AP”) model proposes.

It’s important to recognize that neither Darwin’s theory, nor Williams’ model, deals with the origin of life. It seems to me that evolution theory and ID are not necessarily mutually-exclusive. One deals with the species level, the other the biological structure of living individuals, the “building blocks” of species, as it were.

Yet there is tremendous hostility towards intelligent design on the part of many orthodox evolutionary biologists, which has gotten so bad in recent times that the more doctrinaire Darwinists have run to the courts for “protection” of their cherished beliefs (and interests personal and institutional), insisting that ID “is not science.” Judges are not scientists; in general they are ill-equipped to make judgments “on the merits” of scientific controversies. Yet they render judgments all the same, with profound implications for how science is to be taught. I fail to see how this redounds to the benefit of scientific progress.

If science is defined as materialist and naturalist in its fundamental presuppositions — the currently-favored methodological naturalism — then ID does not meet the test of “what is science?” For it does not restrict itself to the material, the physical, but extends its model to information science, which is immaterial. The problem for Darwinists seems to be that there is no known source of biological information within Nature as classically understood (i.e., as fundamentally Newtonian — materialist and mechanistic in three dimensions).

The problem of abiogenesis goes straight to the heart of this issue. Abiogensis is a hypothesis holding that life spontaneously arises from inert, non-living matter under as-yet unknown conditions. Although evolution theory does not deal with the problem of the origin of life, many evolutionary biologists are intrigued by the problem, and want to deal with it in a manner consistent with Darwinian methods; i.e., the presuppositions of methodological naturalism, boosted by random mutation and natural selection. That is, to assume that life “emerges” from the “bottom-up” — from resources available at Levels (i) and (ii) of the IC/AP model.

There have been numerous experiments, most of which have taken the form of laboratory simulations of “lightning strikes” on a properly prepared chemical “soup” (e.g., Urey, Miller, et al.). At least one such experiment managed to produce amino acids — fundamental building blocks of life (at the (ii) level of Williams’ hierarchy). But amino acids are not life. On Williams’ model, to be “life,” they’d need to have achieved at least the threshold of Level (iii).

For it is the presence of “functionally-integrated components” that makes life possible, that sustains the living organism in its very first “duty”: That it will, along the entire extension of its complete biological make-up (whether simple or highly complex), globally organize its component systems in such a way as to maximally maintain the total organism’s “distance” from thermodynamic entropy. An “organism” that couldn’t do that wouldn’t last as an “organism” for very long.

And so in order for the materialist interpretation of abiogenesis to be true, the “chemical soup” experimental model would have to demonstrate how inorganic matter manages to “exempt” itself from one of the two most fundamental laws of Nature: the second law of thermodynamics.

From cells on up through species, all biological organisms — by virtue of their participation in Levels (i) and (ii) — are subject to the second law right from creation. Indeed, they are subject to it throughout their life spans. A friend points out that the second law is a big arguing point for Macroevolutionists, who try to argue that the second law is irrelevent, i.e., doesn’t apply to living systems, because “it only applies to closed systems and not to open ones.” Thus they say that living systems in nature are “open” systems. But what this line of reasoning does not tell us is what such systems are “open” to.

And yet we know that every cell is subject to the second law — simply by needing to fuel itself, it subjects itself to the effects of entropy, otherwise known as heat death. And although it can and does stave off such effects for a while, doing so requires the cell or species constantly to deal with maintaining distance from entropy in all its living functional components, organized globally. Entropy plays a big part in all life — from cells to completed species.

When the successful communication of meta-information begins to slow down and break down, cells and species then begin to succumb to the effects of entropy, to which they have been subjected all their entire life. This is because they can no longer combat, or stay ahead of the “entropy curve,” due to inefficient communication processes and, thus, degradation of the maintenance procedures communicated to the cells via the meta-information system that is specific to each particular biological entity and to each particular species. After all, any species description is necessarily an informed description.

Yet another origin-of-life approach — the Wimmer abiogenesis experiment — is highly instructive. He managed to “create” a polio virus. He did so by introducing RNA information into a “cell-free juice,” and the polio virus spontaneously resulted.

Wimmer used actual DNA to synthesize polio RNA based on information about the polio virus RNA which is widely available, even on the internet. The RNA information was truly “pulled” from the DNA, which “resides” at the next-higher level. He could not synthesize RNA directly; he first had to synthesize the DNA from the raw information and then synthesize the polio RNA from the synthetic DNA.

Yet RNA information, like all information, is immaterial. In terms of the Williams’ hierarchy, clearly Wimmer had obtained an organism functioning at about Level (iii) — because it had sufficient information to propel it to that level, as “pulled” by the information available at the next-higher level where DNA information “resides” — Level (iv).

Unlike biological organisms expressing all five levels of the Williams model, the polio virus, though fully autonomous as an information processor (leading to its “successful communication” in Wimmer’s laboratory), somehow still doesn’t have everything it needs to be fully “autonomous” as a living being. A virus, for instance, is dependent on a living host in order to execute its own life program. As such, it is a sort of “quasi-life.” Shannon Information Theory helps us to clarify such distinctions.

Before we turn to Shannon, it’s worth mentioning that, according to H. H. Pattee and Luis Rocha, the issue of autonomy (and semiosis — the language and the ability to encode/decode messages) is a huge stumbling block to abiogenesis theory. For that kind of complexity to emerge by self-organizing theory, in the RNA world, the organism would have to involuntarily toggle back and forth between non-autonomous and autonomous modes, first to gather, and then to make use of information content as an autonomous living entity. The question then becomes: What tells it how and when to “toggle?” Further, it appears the source of the information content that can toggle non-life into life remains undisclosed.

Shannon Information Theory
The DNA of any individual life form is exactly the same whether the organism is dead or alive. And we know this, for DNA is widely used and proved reliable in forensic tests of decedents in criminal courts of law. And so we propose:

Information is that which distinguishes life from non-life/death.

Information, paraphrased as “successful communication,” is the reduction of uncertainty (Shannon entropy) in a receiver or molecular machine in going from a before state to an after state. It is the action which facilitates any successfully completed communication. Thus Shannon’s model describes the universal “mechanism” of communication. That is, it distinguishes between the “content” of a message and its “conduit”: The model is indifferent to the actual message being communicated, which could be anything, from “Don’t forget to put your boots on today — it’s snowing,” to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The value or meaning of the message being transmitted has no bearing on the Shannon model, which is the same for all messages whatever. Pictorially, the Shannon communication conduit looks like this:

Information is further defined by its independence from physical determination:

“I came to see that the computer offers an insuperable obstacle to Darwinian materialism. In a computer, as information theory shows, the content is manifestly independent of its material substrate. No possible knowledge of a computer’s materials can yield any information whatsoever about the actual content of its computations. In the usual hierarchy of causation, they reflect the software or ‘source code’ used to program the device; and, like the design of the computer itself, the software is contrived by human intelligence.

“The failure of purely physical theories to describe or explain information reflects Shannon’s concept of entropy and his measure of ‘news.’ Information is defined by its independence from physical determination: If it is determined, it is predictable and thus by definition not information. Yet Darwinian science seemed to be reducing all nature to material causes.” — George Gilder, “Evolution and Me,” National Review, July 17, 2006, p. 29f.

Referring to the Shannon diagram above, we can interpret the various elements of the model in terms of biological utility, as follows:

Note the head, “noise.” Biologically speaking, with respect to the fully-integrated, five-leveled biological organism, “noise” in the channel might be introduced by certain biological “enigmas,” which broadly satisfy the requirements of Williams’ model and, thus, are living organisms. Shannon Information Theory describes such “enigmas” as follows:

Bacteria — typified by autonomous successful communication; bacteria are single-cell organisms. Because they are autonomous entities, communications follow the normal flow in Shannon theory — source, message, encoder/transmitter, channel, decoder/receiver. The bacteria’s messages are not “broadcast” to other nearby bacteria but are autonomous to the single-cell organism.

Bacterial Spores — typified by autonomous successful communication. Bacterial spores, such as anthrax, are like other bacteria except they can settle into a dormant state. Dormant bacterial spores begin regular successful communication under the Shannon model once an “interrupt” has occurred, for instance the presence of food. Anthrax, for instance, may lay dormant for years until breathed into a victim’s lungs, whereupon it actively begins its successful albeit destructive (to its host) communication, which often leads to the death of its host; i.e., the bacterium’s “food source.”

Mycoplasmas — typified as an autonomous bacterial model parasite successfully communicating. Mycoplasmas are akin to bacteria except they lack an outer membrane and so often attach to other cells, whereby they may cause such events as, for instance, the disease pneumonia. In the Shannon model, mycoplasmas are considered “autonomous” in that the communications are often restricted to the mycoplasma itself; e.g., self-reproduction. But because they also act like a parasite, they might alter the host’s properties and thus result in malfunctions in the autonomous communication of the host by, for instance, interfering with the channel.

Mimivirus — typified as an autonomous virus model parasite successfully communicating. Mimiviruses are gigantic viruses. They are viruses because they are parasites to their host, relying on the host for protein engineering. But the mimiviruses (unlike regular viruses) apparently do not need to be a parasite, and thus they are “autonomous” with regard to the Shannon model. But like the mycoplasmas, the presence of mimiviruses can alter properties of the host and thereby result in malfunctions in the autonomous communications of the host by, for instance, interfering with the channel.

Viroids — typified as non-autonomous virus-like noise/mutation contributing to successful/failed communication. Viroids have no protein coat. They are single strands of RNA that lack the protein coat of regular viruses. They are noise in the channel under the Shannon model; i.e., messages only that are not communicated autonomously within the viroids themselves. They can also be seen as “broadcast” messages, because viroids may cause their own message (RNA) to be introduced into the host.

Viruses — typified as non-autonomous virus noise/mutation contributing to successful/failed communication. Viruses feed genetic data to the host. They are strands of DNA or RNA that have a protein coat. Viruses are parasites to the host, relying on the host for communication; e.g., reproduction. In the Shannon model, viruses are either noise or broadcasts that are not autonomous in the virus and appear as noise messages to the host. It is possible that, unlike the polio virus which is destructive, there may be some viruses (and viroids) whose messages cause a beneficial adaptation in the host.

Prions — typified as non-autonomous protein noise/mutation contributing to successful/failed communication (protein crystallization). Prions are protein molecules that have neither DNA nor RNA. Currently, prions are the suspected cause of bovine spongiform encephalopathy — Mad Cow Disease. In the Shannon model, prions would be incoherent in the channel because they have no discernable message; that is, neither DNA nor RNA. Thus the prion would lead to channel or decoding malfunctions.

So far there is no known origin for information (successful communication) in space/time. This should be visualized as activity represented by the arrows on the above illustration. Possible origins include a universal vacuum field, harmonics, geometry.

Shannon’s mathematical theory of communications applied to molecular biology shows genuine promise of having some significant implications for the theory of natural selection in explaining the rise of information (successful communication), autonomy, and semiosis (language, encoding/decoding). — S. Venable, J. Drew, “Shannon Information and Complex Systems Theory,” Don’t Let Science Get You Down, Timothy, Lulu Press, 2006, p. 207f.

It seems worthwhile to note here that, under Shannon’s model, the thermodynamic “tab” is paid when the “molecular machine” goes from the before state to the after state. At that moment, it dissipates heat into the surroundings. Level (v) meta-information successfully communicated to the organism provides it with strategies to counter and compensate for local thermodynamic effects. Ultimately, when the organism reaches a state in which it is no longer successfully communicating, the entropy tab must be paid by ordinary means. And so eventually, the living organism dies.

Putting Williams’ IC/AP Model into Context
So far, the autopoietic model — though it provides an excellent description of the information flows necessary to establish and maintain an organism in a “living state” — seems to be a bit of an abstraction. Indeed, in order to be fully understood, the model needs to be placed into the context in which it occurs — that is, in Nature.

Each living entity as described by the model is a part and participant in a far greater “whole.” Niels Bohr put it this way: “A scientific analysis of parts cannot disclose the actual character of a living organism because that organism exists only in relation to the whole of biological life.” Including the species-specific meta-information unique to any particular species, which also controls and dictates how the entire biological system works as a “whole”; i.e., at the global level. And arguably, not only in relation to the entirety of biological life, but to the physical forces of nature, to inorganic entities, and to other biological beings, including the “enigmas” described above, which appear to be a sort of “quasi-life.” For even though they may be autonomous communicators, some of these “quasi-life” examples suggest an organic state that is somehow not “sufficiently informed” to stand on its own; i.e., they exemplify a state that needs to latch onto a fully-functioning biological entity in order to complete their own “program” for life — the very definition of a parasite.

The single most telling point that Williams’ model makes is that information is vital to the living state; that it flows “downward” from the “top” of his model — Level (v), meta-information — and not from the “bottom” of the model flowing “upwards” by the incremental means characterizing Levels (i) and (ii) — not to mention orthodox Darwinist expectation. On this model, Levels (i) and (ii) “do not know how to fit themselves” into the “biological picture.” For that, they need the information available at Levels (iii) to (v).

Many questions relevant to our exploration of the fundaments of biology have not been touched on in this article — e.g., what is the meaning of “emergence?” What is the manner in which “complexification” takes place in nature? What do we mean by “open” and “closed” systems? What do we mean by “self-ordered” or “self-organizing” systems in nature? (And what does the prefix “self” mean with respect to such questions?)

But since we’re out of time, we won’t be dealing with such problems here and now, though I hope we may return to them later. Instead, I’ll leave you, dear reader, with yet another depiction of Figure 1, this time elaborated to show the total context in which the irreducibly complex, autopoietic model is embedded:

Note the model now sits, not only with respect to its natural environment, but also with respect to the quantum domain of pure potentiality, and also with respect to a (proposed) extra-mundane source of biological information.

I think for the biological sciences to actually progress, a model such as Williams’ IC/AP model is worthy of serious consideration. Remember, Darwin’s theory is wholly classical, meaning dimensionally limited to 3-space, to local, mechanical, largely force-field-driven material causation. Relativity and quantum theory have both moved well beyond those precincts. It’s time for the Darwinian theory of evolution to “catch up” with the current state of scientific knowledge — and especially with the implications of information science.

©2009 Jean F. Drew

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOL!

[js1138]

...and more startling than that, that the message being communicated anticipates that which has not yet occurred.

Examples...?

[tpanther]

cottshop-—

This whole article exposes the fact that it is impossible for metainfo to arise from non life- it can’t happen-

js-—

That’s for experimenters to decide. If ID proponents and creationists want to make such claims they need to get some lab work done and publish some experimental data.

---

How very convenient, notice it’s the burden of creationists, and not evolutionists to “prove such claims”, even though everyone knows this is exactly what natural selection asserts.

Incredible isn’t it?

[CottShop]

That quote you gave does NOT refer to Demski’s assertion that CSI must exist first- and that he sees no way it could exist and be transfered in it’s entire complexity to a species- which is what we were discussing- not whther Demski beleives comunication can relay messages that have nothign to do with biology except to possibly help a species survive longer IF there is a master Red Rover annoucer instrucitng every species they are ‘gettign warmer’ or ‘colder’

[Alamo-Girl]

I'll just refer you back to the original article on the AP model:

Life's Irreducible Structure

Inversely causal meta-information

The Law of Cause and Effect is one of the most fundamental in all of science. Every scientific experiment is based upon the assumption that the end result of the experiment will be caused by something that happens during the experiment. If the experimenter is clever enough, then he/she might be able to identify that cause and describe how it produced that particular result or effect.

Causality always happens in a very specific order—the cause always comes before the effect.27 That is, event A must always precede event B if A is to be considered as a possible cause of B. If we happened to observe that A occurred after B, then this would rule out A as a possible cause of B.

In living systems however, we see the universal occurrence of inverse causality. That is, an event A is the cause of event B, but A exists or occurs after B. It is easier to understand the biological situation if we refer to examples from human affairs. In economics, for example, it occurs when behaviour now, such as an investment decision, is influenced by some future event, such as an anticipated profit or loss. In psychology, a condition that exists now, such as anxiety or paranoia, may be caused by some anticipated future event, such as harm to one’s person. In the field of occupational health and safety, workplace and environmental hazards can exert direct toxic effects upon workers (normal causality), but the anticipation or fear of potential future harm can also have an independently toxic effect (inverse causality).

Darwinian philosopher of science Michael Ruse recently noted that inverse causality is a universal feature of life,28 and his example was that stegosaur plates begin forming in the embryo but only have a function in the adult—supposedly for temperature control. However most biologists avoid admitting such things because it suggests that life might have purpose (a future goal), and this is strictly forbidden to materialists.

The most important example of inverse causality in living organisms is, of course, autopoiesis. We still do not fully understand it, but we do understand the most important aspects. Fundamentally, it is meta-information—it is information about information. It is the information that you need to have in order to keep the information you want to have to stay alive, and to ensure the survival of your descendants and the perpetuation of your species.

This last statement is the crux of this whole paper, so to illustrate its validity lets go back to the vacuum cleaner analogy. Let’s imagine that one lineage of vacuum cleaners managed to reach the robotic, energy-independent stage, but lacked autopoiesis, while a second makes it all the way to autopoiesis. What is the difference between these vacuum cleaners? Both will function very well for a time. But as the Second Law of Thermodynamics begins to take its toll, components will begin to wear out, vibrations will loosen connections, dust will gather and short circuit the electronics, blockages in the suction passage will reduce cleaning efficiency, wheel axles will go rusty and make movement difficult, and so on. The former will eventually die and leave no descendants. The latter will repair itself, keep its components running smoothly and reproduce itself to ensure the perpetuation of its species.

But what happens if the environment changes and endangers the often-delicate metabolic cycles that real organisms depend upon? Differential reproduction is the solution. Evolutionists from Darwin to Dawkins have taken this amazing ability for granted, but it cannot be overlooked. There are elaborate systems in place—for example, the diploid to haploid transition in meiosis, the often extraordinary embellishments and rituals of sexual encounters, the huge number of permutations and combinations provided for in recombination mechanisms—to provide offspring with variations from their parents that might prove of survival value. To complement these potentially dangerous deviations from the tried-and-true there are also firm conservation measures in place to protect the essential processes of life (e.g. the ability to read the DNA code and to translate it into metabolic action). None of this should ever be taken for granted.

In summary, autopoiesis is the information—and associated abilities—that you need to have (repair, maintenance and differential reproduction) in order to keep the information that you want to have (e.g. vacuum cleaner functionality) alive and in good condition to ensure both your survival and that of your descendants. In a parallel way, my humanity is what I personally value, so my autopoietic capability is the repair, maintenance and differential reproductive capacity that I have to maintain my humanity and to share it with my descendants. The egg and sperm that produced me knew nothing of this, but the information was encoded there and only reached fruition six decades later as I sit here writing this—the inverse causality of autopoiesis.

[CottShop]

The exampekls are given in htis article and William’s original- When a change takes place within the parameters of species genetic info, this change affects not just the single cell, but MANY systems and subsystems much of hte time- When htese changes take place, certain elements in cells are isntructed to activate- to ‘turn on’, and htis clearly shows two things 1: Cells are DESIGNED to handle anticipated change, and 2: Metainfo is DESIGNED to anticipate and act upon change to facilitate species survival or fitness to hte best of it’s species specific ability- When htose parameters however are violated, and fall outside the species specific metainfo capabilites, we nkow from experiments and lab tests that it currupts and negatively affects the species.

[CottShop]

[[I have not made mistakes on this issue.]]

Neither you nor BB did make a mistake- Allmen is conflating hte issue, and making it seem as though you and BB were tryign to say something neither of you were- He/she went from arguing about hte containment of info, to the conveying of informaiton in an attempt ot make it look as though you said somethign you didn’t

[[They do have information content in that they are necessarily part of the channel, much like a land line would be to a phone conversation. But they are not the message, nor the successful communication of the message.]]

It is clear from your posts previous that htis is exactly what you and Betty are stating-

[[Jeepers. I can’t believe I actually said it all over again.]]

Ther’es no need to explain- You both did fineeverythign you stated is correct- Allmen is now attemptign to confuse hte issue by claiming that

[js1138]

The quote is about the source of information in evolution. If you disagree, take it up with Dembski. The question is whether evolutionary algorithms can solve problems, such as what changes will be beneficial.

What Dembski has conceded is that evolutionary algorithms can accumulate information.

To be completely honest, he is also suggesting that evolutionary searches are not efficient enough to account for complex structures in the available time, but that’s really something to be addressed by experiment.

But the fundamental question of where the information comes from is clearly stated by Dembski.

[spunkets]

" Information is further defined by its independence from physical determination:

Information doesn't exist independent of the physcal machinery that gives rise to it, or holds it as a configuration of physical reality. One can not define the underlying physics out of any instance of reality. Any and every instance of information requires an underlying physical reality to support it. Without that underlying reality to support the instance, there can be no instance.

"In a computer, as information theory shows, the content is manifestly independent of its material substrate. No possible knowledge of a computer’s materials can yield any information whatsoever about the actual content of its computations. In the usual hierarchy of causation, they reflect the software or ‘source code’ used to program the device; and, like the design of the computer itself, the software is contrived by human intelligence.

Information theory relies on a generalized physical machine. You wrote down a diagram of that generalized physical machine, which is required for any and every instance of information to exist. The only independence there is here, is from any particular instance(s) of the underlying supporting physical machinery.

Note there's no point in mentioning that an examination of the computer's materials won't allow one to uncover any instance of information. The physical machinery of the computer can be examined though, and any instance of information that exists on it uncovered. The same goes for the machinery of mind that created the computer and any instantiaiton of software that exists, because of either machine.

"The failure of purely physical theories to describe or explain information reflects Shannon’s concept of entropy and his measure of ‘news.’

Physical theory covers the required underly pohysics of the machinery that makes possible any and every instance of information. Without the underlying physics, there can be no information.

"Information is defined by its independence from physical determination: If it is determined, it is predictable and thus by definition not information."

Reality can't be defined out of reality. If information is determined, it's simply determined. That says nothing about predictability.

" Yet Darwinian science seemed to be reducing all nature to material causes.” — George Gilder, “Evolution and Me,” National Review, July 17, 2006, p. 29f. "

The particulars of Biology covers the function, appearence and development of the physical machinery of the various organisms. All that's needed to know and understand Biology is contained in the underlying physics.

[js1138]

In living systems however, we see the universal occurrence of inverse causality. That is, an event A is the cause of event B, but A exists or occurs after B. It is easier to understand the biological situation if we refer to examples from human affairs. In economics, for example, it occurs when behaviour now, such as an investment decision, is influenced by some future event...

Behavior now is not influenced by future events. It may result from attempts to anticipate future events, but this is conceptually no different than anticipating the arc of a thrown object. Systems that learn or which are modified as a result of experience can anticipate regular phenomena, but they cannot foretell the future.

Both brains and genomes are modified by experience. Genomes are modified by the rather bloody method in which deleterious changes die or fail to reproduce.

Brains also employ this algorithm, though it only involves cells and synapses, and not the whole organism. As the saying goes, "Good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement."

[CottShop]

[[To be completely honest, he is also suggesting that evolutionary searches are not efficient enough to account for complex structures in the available time,]]

To be even more completely honest- he doubts that the whole of CSI IF it’s available in nature, can be transfered to species period.

[[But the fundamental question of where the information comes from is clearly stated by Dembski.]]

no it isn’t- He has stated that he’s not sure- whether it’s from outer space, or from nature or from soemwhere else undertmined. He can beleive anyhtign he likes, but reasonability does not indicate complete CSI can be transfered to genetic information- comunicaiton does NOT add infromaiton to cells- at best it can only ‘give an advantage’ to a species to allow the species an advantage IF nature works like the ‘hot warmer clode colder’ game he refers to. This should be obvious, but I guess he’s determined to explore this silly notion that nature is able to transfer info to biological systems via comunicaiton.

[js1138]

To be even more completely honest- he doubts that the whole of CSI IF it’s available in nature, can be transfered to species period.

OK, but no one in biology claims that anything like that happens. Populations change as a result of accumulated copy errors. That's pretty much all that's necessary.

[allmendream]

Apparently you absolutely missed or wish to ignore the fact that DNA “information” is also not actually “information” in any sense except in the context of proteins that contain as well as convey information.

[CottShop]

[[Behavior now is not influenced by future events.]]

You are misunderstanding the issue- it is being argued that Naturally caused systems can not forsee future events and ‘select for’ changes which will ‘activate’ when future events are eventually realized. However, Metainfo can and does as evidenced by hte fact that cells contain info that can be activated to coordinate with other cell info when a change occures, and the metainfo conducts, directs, and controls this whole process to preserve hte fitness of hte species as best as possible. This is forward looking DESIGN, and it’s soemthing nature is incapable of creating- ESPECIALLY in myriad cases and at hte compelxity levels that myriad changes woudl produce.

[js1138]

no it isn’t- He has stated that he’s not sure- whether it’s from outer space, or from nature or from soemwhere else undertmined. He can beleive anyhtign he likes, but reasonability does not indicate complete CSI can be transfered to genetic information- comunicaiton does NOT add infromaiton to cells

Well let's see what Dembski actiually says, as opposed to what you claim he says:

In evolutionary search, a large number offspring is often generated, and the more fit offspring are selected for the next generation. When some offspring are correctly announced as more fit than others, external knowledge is being applied to the search giving rise to active information. As with the child’s game of finding a hidden object, we are being told with respect to the solution whether we are getting ”colder” or ”warmer” to the target.

[js1138]

Metainfo can and does as evidenced by hte fact that cells contain info that can be activated to coordinate with other cell info when a change occures, and the metainfo conducts, directs, and controls this whole process to preserve hte fitness of hte species as best as possible.

Show me your experimental data. There are abundant laboratory examples of adaptations occurring without foresight.

[allmendream]

You said it all again because that is all you have.

When all you have is a hammer, problems look like nails.

What is the “message” of DNA if not a functioning protein? What else does DNA actually do functionally other than regulate and allow for the production of proteins?

Your wording IS sloppy as well as in error.

“Prions are protein molecules that have neither DNA nor RNA.”

Indeed ALL protein molecules have neither DNA nor RNA. You made a distinction that wasn't distinct and confuses the subject.

“Currently, prions are the suspected cause of bovine spongiform encephalopathy — Mad Cow Disease. In the Shannon model, prions would be incoherent in the channel because they have no discernible message; that is, neither DNA nor RNA.”

Proteins are perfectly capable of having a discernible message. The process of protein signal transduction shows that proteins can both contain, alter, and convey information.

“Thus the prion would lead to channel or decoding malfunctions.”

It is not the lack of DNA or RNA or the lack of a message that leads to prions causing malfunction. It is a 3-D conformation that conveys the ‘information’ to other prion proteins to ‘fold THIS way, not THAT way’.

The way you wrote the paragraph ALL proteins would lead to channel or decoding malfunctions because ALL proteins “have no discernible message; that is, neither DNA nor RNA”, if one erroneously limits “discernible message” to only DNA or RNA.

[tpanther]

As with the child’s game of finding a hidden object, we are being told with respect to the solution whether we are getting ”colder” or ”warmer” to the target.

And now think of all those times we've been lectured from the evo crowd that creationists don't talk about science in scientific terms...:)

[js1138]

And now think of all those times we've been lectured from the evo crowd that creationists don't talk about science in scientific terms...:)

Pay attention. I am quoting Bill Dembski, one of the two or three most respected ID theorists, and the mathematician responsible for most of the criticisms of evolution.

[CottShop]

[[” Information is further defined by its independence from physical determination:

Information doesn’t exist independent of the physcal machinery that gives rise to it,]]

That’s not what is being stated- it is beign stated that info exists independent of outside determinations- it exists without being acted upon

[[”The failure of purely physical theories to describe or explain information reflects Shannon’s concept of entropy and his measure of ‘news.”

Physical theory covers the required underly pohysics of the machinery that makes possible any and every instance of information. Without the underlying physics, there can be no information.]]

Again, it is NOT the contqianment issue the statements refer to- the containment doesn’t act upon the information- it simply contains it- it takes outside infromaiton acting upon contained info to activate that info- Nature can not explain how either info can arise however, and htis is the cenrtral issue- not whether there needs to be a containment or not.

[[All that’s needed to know and understand Biology is contained in the underlying physics.]]

That’s a fien and noble undertaking, but it doesn’t explain how info can arise- especially hte metainfo being discussed.