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

[betty boop]

Could be there is much more to "see" and "hear" and even "feel" than the human body can experience.. The human experience seems to be so lineal.

Well sure it does, dear brother in Christ. But we also know from our own day-to-day experience that there's always ever so much more than "the human body can experience." Personally, I think the five senses are vastly overrated as "sources" of "truth." At best their reports are but a species of evidence that must be turned over to the critical judgment for analysis and interpretation. For such "reports" are given to our consciousness just as you say, in linear form. You can string beads all day long and still not come up with a respectable insight into the nature of things.

[Alamo-Girl]

Wow. What a beautiful essay-post, dearest sister in Christ! Thank you!!!

In short, biological functions (which are by definition purposeful, in that the function exists to secure a biological end or goal) that depend on successful communication of information (which seems to be all biological functions, including those at the level of single-celled entities) cannot be the product of an evolutionary development based on random mutation/natural selection (i.e., a gradualist, step-by-step process). Rather, evolutionary development is “drawn” from an information source, e.g., Williams’ concept of inversely-causal meta-information. If there is an information source, then it follows that its “information” is purposeful.

Precisely!!!

Behe: The end result of stubborn adherence to a simplistic division of nature into discoverable mechanics and undiscoverable purpose, I say, is nothing less than the official divorce of science from reason.

That's a great quote. And the examples he gave (wings, eyes) drove the point home. It is hardly coherent to speak of biological functions while at the same time denying purpose.

Just a couple observations. It is only by denying all consideration of teleology in physical nature that can man be “fully integrated” into the Darwinian biological picture. Of course, the denial of teleology in nature also means that man as a part of nature cannot be a self-conscious, goal-directed, intelligent actor in nature. And thus an extraordinarily important distinction regarding the actuality of the human person is lost thereby. And with it any recognition, let alone justification, of human free will.

So very true. Should an atheist take the exclusion of purpose from the boundaries of scientific inquiry as "proof" that purpose does not exist, I'd have to consider that reasoning as a symptom of some underlying mental illness.

It's funny that folks who would say that purpose in nature is only illusory could be so very confident about the definiteness and actuality of purpose they ascribe to their "adversaries," i.e., anyone who advances the proposition that intelligent design is a legitimate scientific hypothesis. (As if Darwinists never have purposes of their own.)

Great catch!

But I think the “real battle” is about whether final causes ought to be reintroduced into scientific thinking or not. Obviously, the Darwinists are saying “absolutely not.” The IDers are saying, “if you don’t, science becomes increasingly irrational and counterproductive.”

The irony of course is that the Darwinists have determined the purpose of ID is to be a Trojan Horse for Young Earth Creationism and therefore befouled and to be utterly condemned. If however some politically correct arm of the science establishment were to point out that biologists cannot speak of certain things (e.g. wings, eyes) without invoking their actual purpose - then perhaps they'd reconsider.

Also, your insights to Fr. Coyne’s discussion of the distinctions between “creation” and “origin” are very engaging. Certainly, the initiation of successful communication in living things is not a one time event.

Again, thank you so very much for your wonderful essay-post, dearest sister in Christ!

[Alamo-Girl]

What I do see is that some relation between mind and world obtains in nature. The details of this mystery have yet to be unraveled.

Indeed.

And I appreciate hosepipe's point. It is as if our vision and minds are limited to perceive four dimensions. By math physics and philosophy we can discern the real possibility of additional spatial or temporal dimensions - but generally speaking, we are not equipped 'sense' them.

Likewise, by math and physics we can discern and actually test general relativity, e.g. time dilation - be we are not equipped to 'sense' such things.

[hosepipe]

[ You can string beads all day long and still not come up with a respectable insight into the nature of things. ]

Now theres a piece of wisdom..

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed. Beautifully said!

[betty boop]

Oh, thank you so very much, dearest sister in Christ, for your kind words of encouragement!

I came across something in my reading yesterday that I thought you might enjoy. I found it hilarious. It's an excerpt from David Berlinski's Deniable Darwin that I found on the Access Research Network web site. In it, he has the eminent novelist Jorge Luis Borges apply Darwinian principles and reasoning to literary theory.

On the Derivation of Ulysses from Don Quixote

I imagine this story being told to me by Jorge Luis Borges one evening in a Buenos Aires cafe.

His voice dry and infinitely ironic, the aging, nearly blind literary master observes that "the Ulysses," mistakenly attributed to the Irishman James Joyce, is in fact derived from "the Quixote."

I raise my eyebrows.

Borges pauses to sip discreetly at the bitter coffee our waiter has placed in front of him, guiding his hands to the saucer.

"The details of the remarkable series of events in question may be found at the University of Leiden," he says. "They were conveyed to me by the Freemason Alejandro Ferri in Montevideo."

Borges wipes his thin lips with a linen handkerchief that he has withdrawn from his breast pocket.

"As you know," he continues, "the original handwritten text of the Quixote was given to an order of French Cistercians in the autumn of 1576."

I hold up my hand to signify to our waiter that no further service is needed. "Curiously enough, for none of the brothers could read Spanish, the Order was charged by the Papal Nuncio, Hoyo dos Monterrey (a man of great refinement and implacable will), with the responsibility for copying the Quixote, the printing press having then gained no currency in the wilderness of what is now known as the department of Auvergne. Unable to speak or read Spanish, a language they not unreasonably detested, the brothers copied the Quixote over and over again, re-creating the text but, of course, compromising it as well, and so inadvertently discovering the true nature of authorship. Thus they created Fernando Lor's Los Hombres d'Estado in 1585 by means of a singular series of copying errors, and then in 1654 Juan Luis Samorza's remarkable epistolary novel Por Favor by the same means, and then in 1685, the errors having accumulated sufficiently to change Spanish into French, Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, their copying continuous and indefatigable, the work handed down from generation to generation as a sacred but secret trust, so that in time the brothers of the monastery, known only to members of the Bourbon house and, rumor has it, the Englishman and psychic Conan Doyle, copied into creation Stendhal's The Red and the Black and Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and then as a result of a particularly significant series of errors, in which French changed into Russian, Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Anna Karenina. Late in the last decade of the 19th century there suddenly emerged, in English, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, and then the brothers, their numbers reduced by an infectious disease of mysterious origin, finally copied the Ulysses into creation in 1902, the manuscript lying neglected for almost thirteen years and then mysteriously making its way to Paris in 1915, just months before the British attack on the Somme, a circumstance whose significance remains to be determined."

I sit there, amazed at what Borges has recounted. "Is it your understanding, then," I ask, "that every novel in the West was created in this way?"

"Of course," replies Borges imperturbably. Then he adds: "Although every novel is derived directly from another novel, there is really only one novel, the Quixote."

Evidently, not everybody appreciates Berlinski's sense of humor. Jeffrey Shallit trashes him here, calling him "king of poseurs."

But then again, stuck pigs have been know to squeal....

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOLOL! That article is absolutely hilarious in mocking the theory of evolution!

Only slightly less humorous is the indignation of Shallit - who evidently cannot handle wit.

Thank you oh so very much for bringing this one to the table, dearest sister in Christ!

[CottShop]

Thinking about this further, using a computer program such as TaxCut, it seems to me that the creator of Taxcut- the coder, acts as the metainfo in hte creation of hte software.

The coder NEEDS to know precreation how to code the program so that problems won’t arise, and he needs to carefully code to avoid problems. If he just simply threw out a bunch of ‘noise’, the program certainly wouldn’t work.

Now, let’s say a virus hits the program, and changes the info already present- let’s say it changes the #2 into 2.7 (We’ll get into ‘neautral changes in a moment- but for now, let’s focuss on changes that actually affect the program)

Every set of instructions that rely on the #2 is now goign to be affected- not only does the virus’ effect affect the #2, but it also affects every set of instrucitons that rely on the #2. No longer does 2+2=4, but it now now = 5.4. If, using normal software, we’re owed $200, using htis changed software, we’re goign to now get back a different maount. 5 times 2 is now going to = 13.5

Now, the coder CAN anticipate such viruses making htis particular change (again, the coder acting as the metainfo) and can include code to correct any such change, but again, this points to the absolute need of higher metainfo anticipating change and coding the program to deal with and handle and correct such a change before the change even takes place. IF the coder doesn’t predesign the software to deal with htis, the program is pretty much hosed.

Now, according to macroevolution, there are a number of neutral mutaitons in life, that simply just hang around and do nothign until another change somehow activates them in the correct sequences to bring bout change.

Further, these neutral changes - the ones that are supposedly goign to help move a species beyond their own kinds, are somehow compliant with the species own specific info, and supposedly won’t cause problems when they become activated via other changes, and start their ‘self assemblies’ sometime in the future.

But let’s examine htis more closely. First of all, we know that dleterious mutaitons far outnumber neutral ones, and it takes a trmeendous amount of deleterious mutations to gain one neutral mutaiton. The number of deleterious mutaitons that would HAVE to affect the program/species tryign to gain then umbers of neutral mutaitons macroevolutionsits tell us led to macroevolution, would simply overwhelm the program/species- Going back to the software, this would mean that there would HAVE to be an overwhelming number of deleterious changes before you got a single ‘neutral’ mutation, (5’s now= 5.9, 7’s now = 7.1, and so on and so forth) and hte software simply would not work. While the coder could in theory anticipate a bunch of changes, and code hte software to deal with htese changes, it woudl take a TREMENDOUS intelligence and foresight on their part to do so- making hte need for the intelligence behind the design of the metainformaiton that much greater.

However, we know from centuries of experimentation that species have unique species specific metainformation, inthat you can’t simply just throw a bunch of changes at the species and expect them to remain fit. adding changes that are not ‘coded for’ result in deleterious conditions, loss of info etc. just as it would in the software program IF the coder didn’t predesign hte program to handle certain changes.

I’ll have to expand htis further later, especiallyhte point about ‘neutral’ mutations acting on a living species- but examining predesign, it becoem quite evident that there is an absolute need for a controlling, directing, allowing/dissallowing predesigned metainfo already present to ensure fitness when faced with changes from outside forces acting on the lower information.

[betty boop]

Now, the coder CAN anticipate such viruses making this particular change (again, the coder acting as the metainfo) and can include code to correct any such change, but again, this points to the absolute need of higher metainfo anticipating change and coding the program to deal with and handle and correct such a change before the change even takes place. IF the coder doesn’t predesign the software to deal with this, the program is pretty much hosed.

Fascinating analysis, CottShop! I just have some observations and questions.

If one fills the role of "coder" with eternal, omniscient God, then certainly this coder can "anticipate" (since the coder is not time bound) each and every potentially deleterious development anywhere in creation and provide strategies in advance of its occurrence so that any potentially affected living creature can have means to deal with and "defend itself" against, e.g., the (usually bad) effects of genetic mutation, which is usually ascribed to a "random cause." (That term sounds like an oxymoron; but maybe it is not one. I'm keeping my mind open.)

But still I think this model generally would be wrong on two counts. In the first place, for the coder to work in this way (should he/she/it so choose it) would be tantamount to establishing determinism as the most fundamental rule of the universe.

While determinism is just dandy as a means for understanding the application of a rule and how it might play out in the world theoretically, it does nothing to explain the rise of novelty in nature, and therefore of the diversity of life. In the second place, developed from the first, any deterministic model of nature, being mechanistic in its foundational principles, is systematically blind to potential non-material, non-mechanistic contributions to natural causation. For any such finding would be self-defeating to the argument that nature is, at bottom, the sum of the random activity of "dumb" matter at any given point in time.

And yet the irony seems to be that, without the random in nature, novelty in nature cannot occur.

And if novelty cannot occur, then that means that the world of nature must be perfectly "static." Meaning: No change. No development. No "evolution."

And also as it seems to me: No human free will. In a determined world, human judgment and choice would be perfectly superfluous.

Must conclude for the time being without drawing any conclusions here, dear CottShop. I just figure that these problems are bigger than either of us, or both of us in combination. :^)

Thank you ever so much for pinging me to your excellent analysis/post!

[CottShop]

[[If one fills the role of “coder” with eternal, omniscient God, then certainly this coder can “anticipate” (since the coder is not time bound) each and every potentially deleterious development anywhere in creation and provide strategies in advance of its occurrence so that any potentially affected living creature can have means to deal with and “defend itself” against, e.g., the (usually bad) effects of genetic mutation, which is usually ascribed to a “random cause.” (That term sounds like an oxymoron; but maybe it is not one. I’m keeping my mind open.) ]]

Yep this was one point I was goign to bring up to show the absolute need, and reality of, predesign- which of course shows the metainfo as nothign short of the Omniscient’s anticipating foreknowledge handiwork, as well it shows that each species has their own set of species specific paramters since htis ‘coder’ foreknew which deleterious mutaitons would affect which species.

[[While determinism is just dandy as a means for understanding the application of a rule and how it might play out in the world theoretically, it does nothing to explain the rise of novelty in nature, and therefore of the diversity of life.]]

I see nothign wrong with this as the coder would foreknow novelty as well and could design each species specifically in such a manner as woudl benefit the species fitness as novel traits appear (I’m not sure the word novel shoudl be used as the traits are simply enhanced or reduced due ot mutaitons, and nothing really novel is taking place- species are simply undergoing what they were predesigned to endure really- any ‘different’ result is simply a result of predesign- a derterministically foreknown design I would htink)

[[And also as it seems to me: No human free will. In a determined world, human judgment and choice would be perfectly superfluous.]]

This is a tough one, and one I’ve struggled with over hte years- I think God’s foreknowledge determined His perfect plans, but also shaped His allowed plans as well, and hwile one could mount an argument that if God already foreknew every thought, action etc, then free will does not exist, but I think the answer lies in the fact that we do infact have free will, and that God knew every thought and action etc, beforehand, and shaped His allowed will well before hte foudnations of hte earth were laid down (Perhaps these wills were ternally present- but that’s another discussion).

We can still have free will even with a God who is deterministic, and nothign we do or say will change how He knows everyhtign is goign to turn out- even if we’re presented with a 1000 choices, and htrough reasoning and contemplation we choose one ‘trying to trick God’ as it were, God already knew our descision and adjusted His allowed will accordingly before hand

This is a deep deep subject, and oen that can drive ya batty if we’re not careful, but I’ll have to dissagree abotu God not beign able to be deterministic. At least till I hear more coutnerargument

[[coder can “anticipate” (since the coder is not time bound) each and every potentially deleterious development anywhere in creation and provide strategies in advance of its occurrence so that any potentially affected living creature can have means to deal with and “defend itself” against,]]

One point here- The coder can as well determine whether He wants a particular species to be able to defend or not- He created man eternal to begin with, then through our sin, we became corrupted, so God is capable obviously of both, and our sins have caused us to become susceptible to things were were never originally designed to be- Man i nthe garden, before the sin, was living God’s perfect will- and after hte sin, was forced to live God’s allowed will, which was inferior to His perfect will.

I’m pretty big on predestination, and a shocker of a book on predestination was from an old time preacher named Pink- I’ll see if I can find hte link to the online copy of his book- His book contains a few mistakes I beleive, but the majority of it is quite sound, but shocking (After the first itme reading it I became so angry at predestination I went on a drinking binge and nearly died- the concepts in the book are a bit alarming, but once you get over the intitial shock of just what predestination really means, especially for hte unsaved, it really starts to hit home and make us face the reality of our salvation and what a gift it really is.

[CottShop]

Here’s the hwole online book called: THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD

by A.W. Pink

http://www.sovereign-grace.com/pink/0-index.htm

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you both so very much for this fascinating sidebar and your beautiful essays!

Truly, error correction is a hallmark of good coding and redundancy is often used for speedy recovery in vital systems. Cyclic redundancy checks are often used to assure error-free data streams. These of course require an intelligent designer. And notably, we observe similar solutions in biological systems.

I find it particularly compelling that the biological versions of error correction and redundancy have been around since virtually the beginning of life in nature - whereas man had not yet discovered them (or invented them, if one is an Aristotlean) until the late 1960's.

On the predestination v. free will issue, I would only point out that it need not be an either/or situation. Scriptures include prophecy (predestination) and commandments (free will) - and show prophecies fulfilled and commandments obeyed and disobeyed with consequences.

For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For [as] the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. – Isaiah 55:8-9

To God be the glory!

[CottShop]

[[redundancy is often used for speedy recovery in vital systems.]]

Which was another aspect I was goign to noodle over today- but perhaps tomorrow now

[[Scriptures include prophecy (predestination) and commandments (free will) - and show prophecies fulfilled and commandments obeyed and disobeyed with consequences.]]

I think htough this can be argued both ways still. I don’t take a final stand on predestinaiton, but it is somethign I’ve familiarized myself with a little, as some churches are big on preachign it, while others stress free will- I think if I were to label myself religion wise, it woudl be Baptist first, and with some Calvanism to boot, which is why the subject interests me- but again, not goign to hitch my wagon to either really as it’s simply a hteological issue (which might have pretty serious implications about hte reality of Salvation/non salvation though, but whether free will, or directed,, the most important hting is that eternity is secured for me and my family, and that’s enough for me- other realities are just interests to me really)

[CottShop]

Have you by any chance read that book I linked to? Here’s some snippits that really got to me when I first read it:

“Behold therefore the goodness and the severity of God” Rom. 11:22.

In the last chapter when treating of the Sovereignty of God the Father in Salvation, we examined seven passages which represent him as making a choice from among the children of men, and predestinating certain ones to be conformed to the image of his Son. The thoughtful reader will naturally ask, And what of those who were not “ordained to eternal life?” The answer which is usually returned to this question, even by those who profess to believe what the Scriptures teach concerning God’s sovereignty, is, that God passes by the non-elect, leaves them alone to go their own way, and in the end casts them into the Lake of Fire because they refused his way, and rejected the Saviour of his providing. But this is only a part of the truth; the other part — that which is most offensive to the carnal mind — is either ignored or denied.

Stating it in its baldest form the point now to be considered is, has God foreordained certain ones to damnation?...”

And it goes on to make the case I never imagined possible & which really kinda shook me. Here’s the link to that passage at least if oyu wanna take a look-see as to what he has to say: http://www.sovereign-grace.com/pink/chapter05.htm

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for sharing your testimony, dear brother in Christ!

Of a truth, God's Name I AM is my guide. Thus any man-as-the-observer time-relative theological debate is foreign to me.

And no, I haven't read the linked book yet but I did scan the passage you mentioned. The argument is familiar probably because the debate never ends on this forum.

I use this metaphor a lot, but it applies here as well. It is as if we Christians are looking at the same seven-faceted diamond but from different facets. What one sees in the diamond - the words of God - may be a bit different than the other guy, but it is the same diamond and the same Light.

Some who see the predestination facet would say all men are hopelessly depraved and condemned already, that God is not choosing them for that fate but rather choosing to save those He wills.

Some who see the free will facet would say that God wants "whosoever will" to be saved, that a man may accept or reject the gift. Each man is a blank slate, his fate the result of his free will.

Again, I do not see predestination v free will as an either/or. But in the same breath, I would not say that all men have "equal spiritual opportunity." Nor would I say that man's sense of justice, equality, righteousness, time, etc. should ever be used to measure God.

Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? - Matthew 20:15

Man is not the measure of God.

To God be the glory, not man, never man.

[hosepipe]

[ Truly, error correction is a hallmark of good coding and redundancy is often used for speedy recovery in vital systems. Cyclic redundancy checks are often used to assure error-free data streams. These of course require an intelligent designer. And notably, we observe similar solutions in biological systems. ]

As a manager of coders and other types of intelligent designers for many years.. I learned that proper planning looked for redundancy and variations of redundancy that is in all systems.. Intelligent System design is almost completely a matter of recognizing redundancy.. and dealing with it creatively.. Jealous management of things that happen over and over was very important when 50,000 bytes of Ram memory was a lot, much less than that was usually the rule..

I appreciated then, and do now that God does not make Bluebirds.. he made Bluebirds that make Bluebirds... The logic of that is incredibly creative and efficient.. The sub-routine of life.. There is a talent to recognizing redundancy.. and another different talent to dealing with it as "an asset".. not "a liability"..

[TXnMA]

"... but whether free will, or directed,, the most important hting is that eternity is secured for me and my family, and that’s enough for me- other realities are just interests to me really..."

Nicely put! Same here.

Aside from the occasional exercise in head-butting with the likes of GGG, (who is guilty of daily spamming FR's "News" forum with multiple posts of editorials from [mainly three] YEC websites) I frequent these threads for the fellowship of like-minded believers who are thinking beyond Ussher's 1600s screed -- and Darwin's inadequate description of biological development...

I simply can't count the number of blessings God has sent me though the thoughtful and insightful words of folks like BB & A-G!

Too bad GGG claims that he/she no longer reads my posts. Otherwise I would have pinged him/her to this one -- instead of "talking about him/her behind his/her back"...

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for sharing your insights!

Jealous management of things that happen over and over was very important when 50,000 bytes of Ram memory was a lot, much less than that was usually the rule..

Indeed. Subroutines are quite efficient - and I suspect we'd see a lot of subroutines in DNA encoding much earlier than we mortals discovered their efficiency in software programming.

I appreciated then, and do now that God does not make Bluebirds.. he made Bluebirds that make Bluebirds... The logic of that is incredibly creative and efficient.. The sub-routine of life.. There is a talent to recognizing redundancy.. and another different talent to dealing with it as "an asset".. not "a liability"..

Indeed - duplication of the organism. And even within a cell, the DNA strands are duplicated as if for a backup copy. Likewise both database and program required efficient backup systems - and the most vital control systems running in real time required duplicate systems so if one failed, the other could pick it up without breaking stride. Someone once told me that onboard airplane data processing was backed up 5 levels deep due to the risk.

And many think they were "innovators" to come up which such things in the 1960's. LOLOL!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you oh so very much for your kind words of encouragement! You are a blessing to me too, dear brother in Christ!

[hosepipe]

[ And even within a cell, the DNA strands are duplicated as if for a backup copy. ]

Hmmmm... now theres a take on mitosis I have never considered...

Studying data compression is a mental trip to take..
I studied data compression for a number of years..

The ways to actually compress data (meaning putting 3 pounds of data into a 2 pound bag or smaller..) should be mandatory study for DNA researchers.. Because that is exactely what DNA is.. IS God compressing information.. DNA is data compression.. not like data compression but exactely data/information compression..

Maybe computer data compressor engineers should study DNA as well..
Could be they'd learn something.. Ya think!...