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

[hosepipe]

[ For this people's heart is waxed gross, and [their] ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with [their] eyes, and hear with [their] ears, and should understand with [their] heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. But blessed [are] your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. – Matthew 13:13-16 ]

Now "thats" an interesting piece of data I've never really noticed before(bold).. A whole conversation could be had on that blurb alone.. Converted from what to what?.. I think.. Or even from what INTO what?.. Sounds like a metamorphosis.. does'nt it.. From utter blindness and dullness of heart to "something else".. I have several local "handles"(posters) in mind..

[betty boop]

I thought this was a thread that would discuss abiogenesis and whether it is possible without supernatural intervention.

Well, perhaps I'm just slow-witted or dull-minded, js1138. But nowhere do I recall you ever giving a definition of "supernatural intervention."

Exactly what do those words mean to you?

[js1138]

Exactly what do those words mean to you?

They don't mean anything specific to me, which is why I don't give the possibility much thought.

What I see on these threads is the claim that some phenomenon in biology cannot be the result of natural causes. The alternative is never specified, so I have little interest in pursuing the claim.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your outstanding essay-post, dearest sister in Christ!

Senescence is an interesting subject and makes for a fascinating sidebar.

Strictly speaking, age is the consequence of geometry - every "thing" travels a worldline in space/time. Moreover, the amount of time elapsed during the existence of a thing in space/time is relative. To a photon traveling at the speed of light, no time elapses (null path.) To a mortal human here on earth, his elapsed time might be 85 years. The tortoise would have a much longer elapsed time. The single cell organism, longer still.

But senescence (aging) of a cell or body is another matter directly related to successful communication of biological messages - e.g. the message to die now (apoptosis, programmed cell death), the antiapoptotic message (p35 gene), etc.

At post 440, js1138 raises another issue:

I don't want to step all over the thread with unwanted side issues, but when entropy is brought into a discussion of living things, there is an implication that things die because information is lost or degraded over time.

Again, information [successful communication] is the reduction of uncertainty [Shannon entropy] in the receiver [or molecular machine] as it goes from a before state to an after state. It is the action, not the message.

I suspect you are wondering if things die because the message [DNA or RNA] is lost or degraded over time, i.e. thermodynamic entropy.

Information [successful communication] is not physical. It is not subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

However the individual elements involved in information [successful communications] may indeed be physical - and if so, they are most certainly subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

The elements of the Shannon model are message, sender, encoding, channel, noise, decoding and receiver. When the communication is complete, the receiver has moved from one state of uncertainty [Shannon entropy] to another. Or to put it another way, he or it is informed. In the molecular machine, that is when the thermodynamic tab is paid by heat dissipating into the local environment.

It is possible for the sender's message to be altered (for good or ill) by noise (e.g. virus RNA). This is a primary pathway of genetic mutations.

But damages can also occur in the actual channel (e.g. prions introduced) which would either make the communication attempt unsuccessful or otherwise affect the received message, i.e. making it not the same as the message which was sent.

All such things could affect the lifespan of the organism. And they could also affect its senescence.

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOL! Indeed, we are both on a rabbit kick today!

Thank you so much for your encouragements, dearest sister in Christ!

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed. As you are wont to say, "Jesus: you must be born again."

[CottShop]

The only other alternative would be supernatural- if nature is incapable- then somethign beyond nature must be the answer- However, that has nothign to do with investigating the fingerprints left behind and presentign strong enough case to come to a reasonable understanding one way or the other..

There once was a fishing boy who fished all the day through, only to catch nothign. Day after day he went to hte same spot. An older person watched the younster trot merrily down to the river each day, only to end the day with a sad look on his face- Finally, the older person could take it no longer,and he too trotted down to the river,, looked around, and exclaimed “The reason you catch nothign here is because hte water is too shallow, too narrow, and too slow- try over there in the rapids- I bet there’s a nice fat trout just waiting for a good meal under that log over yonder.”

The boy stomped his foot and said “Nope! I nkow there’s a truot right where I’m fishing! Go away old man”

The old man hung his head, started back across the river, slipped on a rock, fell down and drowned.

Moral of hte story? Rocks are slippery

Sorry- I broke into parqbles for a minute I guess.

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOL!

[CottShop]

[[Information [successful communication] is not physical. It is not subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics.]]

[[It is the action, not the message.]]

Good point- I wondre though if it is the info containers that die, or if both do? I suppose both would, or one - the container woudl die, and the info woudl just dissappear or cease to exist

I persoanlyl woudl liek to explore scenescene a bit more if JS and you and others might be up to a brief explanation of organisms that are able to ‘self-replenish’ to avoid death for a long time. If ya’ll rather not, that’s ok too- just think it’s fascinating- firts I’ve ever heard of it really.

[js1138]

All such things could affect the lifespan of the organism. And they could also affect its senescence

I'm confused. Is senescence on the table for discussion?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you both so much for your replies!

I do not know whether it is a good idea to let this thread veer off into a discussion of the phenomenon and mechanisms of aging. I brought it up to contrast the difference between age and aging – and to respond to js1138’s points about information [Shannon, successful communications] and aging.

Aging is a fascinating subject with illuminating sub-topics such as the rapid aging of salmon returning to spawn which includes a rapid aging of the brain and thereby gives us many insights to human aging. Another example is the disease progeria (rapid aging in children.)

All of these are directly related to “information theory and molecular biology” but they are not particularly illuminating in our discussion of the AP Model or abiogenesis except perhaps for the observation that higher organisms are programmed to physically die.

For instance, the disease progeria is caused by a bad message, a misspelled gene.

And the brain is to the higher organism’s physical body much like the central processor (e.g. motherboard) is to the computer. Like a physical body, there may be many, many processors in a computer dedicated to specific functions (e.g. inputs and outputs) – and some of them may suffer damage or wear out over time without causing the motherboard to fail, ceasing communications. IBM’s supercomputer has something like 18,000 processors. If well designed, such systems can suffer a lot of damage before the supercomputer is “dead.”

This is even more evident in the internet. Imagine what damage would be necessary to bring on the death of the internet – to stop successful communications on the internet altogether.

The physical body of a higher organism is much the same. When the brain is damaged or ages, communications degrade throughout the organism. When it no longer sustains successful communications (brain death) – the rest of the body quickly follows.

Conversely, using the computer metaphor again, some processors may be so vital that a malfunction there will eventually if not immediately cause the central processor (e.g. motherboard) to stop communicating altogether. Shoot a rabbit in the heart and brain death quickly follows.

In our dead rabbit v. live rabbit thought experiments (mine at post 370) - we explored the difference between life v. non-life/death in nature, that the difference is information (successful communication.)

The point what it “is” – not the cause of it. The rabbit could be dead by reason of being run over by a car, squashed by a falling piano, etc. – or it could have succumbed to physical degradation of bodily functions (old age.)

The point I was hoping to make is that information [Shannon, successful communication] is no more physical than pi. The circle you are observing, if physical, is clearly subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Pi is not.

Likewise, the radio station transmitting and receiving – or your computer – is physical and subject to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Information [successful communications] is not.

Biologically, there is a thermodynamic tab to be paid for successful communication – not because information is physical (it isn’t) but because the molecular machinery is. And that tab is paid when the receiver molecular machine becomes “informed” and dissipates heat into the immediate surroundings.

It is not that organism bypasses the thermodynamic tab, it doesn't - it pays the tab by successfully communicating. If it is not successfully communicating (death) it will succumb to entropy (achieve room temperature.)

Likewise, even though a specific computer requires a cooling fan and an energy source – information itself is not subject to the 2nd law. Like pi it is math, it is universal, non-physical. The 2nd law of thermodynamics itself is also universal, non-physical.

So getting back to the AP model and abiogenesis, we are looking for the rise of successful communication in nature - which also requires an origin for autonomy and semiosis (language or code.) Moreover, as previously observed on this thread, the code itself is inversely causal or temporally non-local, it must anticipate that which has not yet happened.

Such issues were raised by mathematicians and physicists who have been brought to the abiogenesis table (Yockey, Pattee, Rocha, etc.) And nothing we have seen in abiogenesis theory or experiments to date addresses those issues.

Wimmer, for instance, began with the message. When one starts with the message, bootstrapping life (in his case the polio virus) under laboratory conditions does not constitute a theory of abiogenesis.

[CottShop]

Hi Alamo- I thought perhaps discussing how species vary in their ability to ‘self-heal’ might further highlight the Shannon model is all. It seems to me that despite certain organisms ability to prolong life by replenishing their repair and mantainance abilities, there still seems to be a process of entropy at work. It would appear to actually be a strong case for metainfo inthat it woudl seem that a greater megainfo complexity is needed in order to control and prolong cell death. I think it also highlights the fact that you simply can’t get htis higher level of informaiton from Abiogensis- from chemical information, and I doubt that htis higher level of info could possibly come from a piling up of info due to mutaitons even if we were to try to concider life started out as biological simplicity rather than chemical.

[[The physical body of a higher organism is much the same. When the brain is damaged or ages, communications degrade throughout the organism. When it no longer sustains successful communications (brain death) – the rest of the body quickly follows.]]

This is intresting, as the body can still function somewhat if certain supports are put inplace which indicates that comunication also flows from other sources as well

[[Biologically, there is a thermodynamic tab to be paid for successful communication – not because information is physical (it isn’t) but because the molecular machinery is. And that tab is paid when the receiver molecular machine becomes “informed” and dissipates heat into the immediate surroundings.]]

True, and htis is an important point too- it’s the act of comunication that contributes to species succumbing to entropy, however, again, not to belabour hte point, but in the case of organisms prolonging death (They used to say these organism were ‘eternal’, now however I think opinion is changing on this) they are comunicating a message to replce repair and maintanance systems, however, I still think, knowing as little as I do about hte process, so I could be wrong, that this is simply a case of an organisms ability to prolong, not escape the effects of entropy.

[[Moreover, as previously observed on this thread, the code itself is inversely causal or temporally non-local, it must anticipate that which has not yet happened.]]

Which brings us to an interesting secondary possible counter-argument- it is claimed, and perhaps verified, that the reason for earlier and earlier succumbing to effects of entropy, is that species had to reproduce- the more htey reproduce, the quicker they die (Now I’m not sure if this applies to every system or just to a select few, but it brings up an interesting issue of where, how, and could it possibly occure, issue of reproduction ability. Could hte info required for the complex system of reproduction arise from mutaitons- however, this would take an incredible indepth annalysis of al lthe systems and comunicaitons that go ionto the pprocess, and probably should be a whole htread of it’s own, with just hte highlights posted in htis thread if it is found this comunicaiton of info for htis particular system of reproduciton can’t arise by simpel piling up of info fro mthe bottom up as Macroevolution demands.

[[Wimmer, for instance, began with the message. When one starts with the message, bootstrapping life (in his case the polio virus) under laboratory conditions does not constitute a theory of abiogenesis.]]

And htta is hte problem with every so called laboratory ‘example’ of ‘life’- they MUST start with hte info already present, and they MUST intelligently control and manipulate and create designer cells in order to create even the simplest of functions within hte cells, but then the very next step becoems exponentially more complex and difficult, and involves an even greater itnervention of intelligence to control and manipulate and protect in order to violate the natural laws which macroevolution MUST obey.

[CottShop]

[[I’m confused. Is senescence on the table for discussion?]]

I think it’s related, and certainly an interesting topic, but I think also it’s simply another example of the absolute necessity of metainfo needing to be inplace BEFORE and construction of cells and organisms could take place as it involves a greater complexity than most species exibit at the molecular informaiton level.

I’m not sure variances in species ability to endure entropy effects though adds much in the way of a coutner-arrgument to what is being discussed herei n this thread unless you have reasonable examples for how the info needed for increased ability to endure the effects of entropy could arise in a purely naturalistic manner.

[hosepipe]

On the otherhand is ageing itself... physical damage?..
Meaning is physical damage observed by ageing..
or not damaged at all but like a worm, prepared for transformation..

That; even when quite healthy flesh ages.. and dies..
but not dies a death, but dies to itself..
Not sometimes but quite literally all the time..

Maybe; flesh metamorphoses into spirit..
That flesh is the cocoon of the spirit..

In that case "human death" is an illusion/allusion of evolutionists..
That no human actually dies a death..
Same could be true of many or most animals...

Could be that human arrogance and vanity invented human death..

"Charles Darwin".... eat your heart out..
My mental concoction is as good as yours..
The Bible is about the human worm, eating salad(and a bit of chicken) for a few decades..
Then transforming into another creature..

OK... (tapping foot).. wheres MY... Nobel Prize..

[CottShop]

Whiel that is getting into theological realm, let’s add that info doesn’t dissappear when hte cell dies, the info is passed along to hte spirit/ the soul to be carried upward and heavenward to exist as a spiritual manifestation of our former selves until we can be reuinited with our earthly bodies created anew on resurrection day, when at such time, al lthe info floating in our spiritual manifestation will once again be transferred to the new flesh bodies of our ofrmer selves.

Although this has problems inthat some of hte info only works in connection with cells- however, perhaps the soul has ethreal cell duplicates for housing our info until flesh cells can replace them later.

[hosepipe]

[ until we can be reuinited with our earthly bodies created anew on resurrection day, when at such time, al lthe info floating in our spiritual manifestation will once again be transferred to the new flesh bodies of our ofrmer selves. ]

The butterfly never returns to the worm.. but is transformed..
The next question is does the butterfly miss the worm?..
Does the butterfly pine for the worm?..
Or does the butterfly appreciate its new appearance..
According to the metaphor.. flying is better than crawling..

No I think the butterfly glories in its new appearance..
and would never pine for being a worm again..

Please try to keep up.. (hands on hips, glasses pulled down on the nose)..

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for your reply, for sharing your insights!

I thought perhaps discussing how species vary in their ability to ‘self-heal’ might further highlight the Shannon model is all. It seems to me that despite certain organisms ability to prolong life by replenishing their repair and mantainance abilities, there still seems to be a process of entropy at work. It would appear to actually be a strong case for metainfo inthat it woudl seem that a greater megainfo complexity is needed in order to control and prolong cell death. I think it also highlights the fact that you simply can’t get htis higher level of informaiton from Abiogensis- from chemical information, and I doubt that htis higher level of info could possibly come from a piling up of info due to mutaitons even if we were to try to concider life started out as biological simplicity rather than chemical.

I very strongly agree that maintenance and repair information (successful communication) should be discussed. It is the primary example given in the AP Model for inverse causality – or anticipating the need for something that hasn’t yet occurred.

At the lower level, the organism cannot know the need for repair and maintenance exists. It is not aware. It must be “informed” of this need.

Another even more fundamental example was brought up on this thread by Diamond as I recall. Namely that coding itself requires agreement on language between sender and receiver. The receiver must be able to decode an encoded transmission. Again, this is inversely causal (or as I prefer, temporally non-local.)

And at the very bottom of the abiogenesis ladder is the issue of where autonomy came from in the first place. At that theoretical level it is all a “soup.” Any message sent in its direction would be a broadcast to the soup. Things would have to become autonomous within that theoretical soup for successful communications to occur as we observe it today – otherwise there would still only be that theoretical soup.

me: [[The physical body of a higher organism is much the same. When the brain is damaged or ages, communications degrade throughout the organism. When it no longer sustains successful communications (brain death) – the rest of the body quickly follows.]]

you: This is intresting, as the body can still function somewhat if certain supports are put inplace which indicates that comunication also flows from other sources as well

Precisely so! The point I was trying to make is that the higher organism (e.g. man) is very complex indeed. It is not just a single processor – or the controlling processor – but more like a supercomputer with a controlling processor (brain) and many sub-processors (e.g. cardiovascular.) A brain dead person can be kept ‘alive’ to later harvest organs by physically simulating the receipt of the brain's control message: inhale, exhale.

True, and htis is an important point too- it’s the act of comunication that contributes to species succumbing to entropy, however, again, not to belabour hte point, but in the case of organisms prolonging death (They used to say these organism were ‘eternal’, now however I think opinion is changing on this) they are comunicating a message to replce repair and maintanance systems, however, I still think, knowing as little as I do about hte process, so I could be wrong, that this is simply a case of an organisms ability to prolong, not escape the effects of entropy.

Indeed, there is a double-edged sword in information theory and molecular biology. On the one hand, the successful communications keeps maintenance and repair going. On the other hand, it also sends messages for “programmed cell death.”

But the bottom line for me, is that no matter what message is being sent – the organism is alive while it is successfully communicating. Once communication comes to an end, the organism is physically dead.

By the way, for those Lurkers following the spiritual or theological side of this discussion – information (successful communication) is not physical. It does not die a physical death like the molecular machinery which facilitates successful communication in biological life or like the computers we are using will eventually succumb to entropy.

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. – John 6:63

That of course would be another sidebar or fodder for a new thread, i.e. discussing and contrasting the Holy Spirit, spirit, soul and biological life. So I'll return to the subject of the AP Model and abiogenesis:

me: [[Moreover, as previously observed on this thread, the code itself is inversely causal or temporally non-local, it must anticipate that which has not yet happened.]]

you: Which brings us to an interesting secondary possible counter-argument- it is claimed, and perhaps verified, that the reason for earlier and earlier succumbing to effects of entropy, is that species had to reproduce- the more htey reproduce, the quicker they die (Now I’m not sure if this applies to every system or just to a select few, but it brings up an interesting issue of where, how, and could it possibly occure, issue of reproduction ability. Could hte info required for the complex system of reproduction arise from mutaitons- however, this would take an incredible indepth annalysis of al lthe systems and comunicaitons that go ionto the pprocess, and probably should be a whole htread of it’s own, with just hte highlights posted in htis thread if it is found this comunicaiton of info for htis particular system of reproduciton can’t arise by simpel piling up of info fro mthe bottom up as Macroevolution demands.

Indeed, this raises many interesting points as you said, e.g. concerning reproduction. And it also raises the origin of programmed cell death. Such things are relevant to a general discussion of the theory of evolution - at the earliest levels above abiogenesis or biogenesis.

And I agree such subjects would involve a lot of research and postings and thus might be good fodder for a new thread.

me: [[Wimmer, for instance, began with the message. When one starts with the message, bootstrapping life (in his case the polio virus) under laboratory conditions does not constitute a theory of abiogenesis.]]

you: And htta is hte problem with every so called laboratory ‘example’ of ‘life’- they MUST start with hte info already present, and they MUST intelligently control and manipulate and create designer cells in order to create even the simplest of functions within hte cells, but then the very next step becoems exponentially more complex and difficult, and involves an even greater itnervention of intelligence to control and manipulate and protect in order to violate the natural laws which macroevolution MUST obey.

Indeed, the investigator in these experiments is providing the necessary foreknowledge.

[CottShop]

[[Please try to keep up.. (hands on hips, glasses pulled down on the nose)..]]

Oh I’m keeping up- infact two steps ahead dear teach...

The butterfly doesn’t pine for hte worm again because the worm is still in it’s lower corruptible form. When we are ruinited with our earthly bodies, they will be in the form of a transformed to hte likeness of Christ bodies- never to die, suffer, sneeze or cough again -clearing htroats and blowing boogars will be a thing of hte past as our glorified former selves will be passed away to be replced with boogarless new bodies, yet we’ll retain our present bodies inthat we’ll still be who we are- just more better (not that htat’s really possible with me- but I spose it’s worth a hsot trying to improve on perfection)

[CottShop]

[[Another even more fundamental example was brought up on this thread by Diamond as I recall. Namely that coding itself requires agreement on language between sender and receiver. The receiver must be able to decode an encoded transmission. Again, this is inversely causal (or as I prefer, temporally non-local.)]]

Excellent point- I must have missed this- this shows predesigned compliance between the two- one can not exist without being predesigned to recieve from the other. Not sure htough if an argument can be made that this agreement ‘could arise’ in stepwise fashion- I strongly doubt it, but mym ind is too tired today to noodle this over much.

[[And at the very bottom of the abiogenesis ladder is the issue of where autonomy came from in the first place. At that theoretical level it is all a “soup.” Any message sent in its direction would be a broadcast to the soup. Things would have to become autonomous within that theoretical soup for successful communications to occur as we observe it today – otherwise there would still only be that theoretical soup.]]

Rhis rules out biological (which didn’t exist in the first place) to chemical comunication for sure- and although we have chemical to biolgical ‘creation’, what was created had nothign needed for sucessful comunication within itself in order to move to more complexity via billions of years of mutations.

[[But the bottom line for me, is that no matter what message is being sent – the organism is alive while it is successfully communicating. Once communication comes to an end, the organism is physically dead.]]

I fully agree withhtis- the sideargument though is that ID says everythign is subject to entropy, and since htere are organisms that prolong this loss of comunicaiton for very long times, then apparently not everythign is subject to effects of entropy (although they would have to prove these organisms are eternal) But again, I aghree, the issues of htis thread are abotu whether complex cominicatiosn can arise naturally, and not abotu how species vary in resisting cell comunicaiton death timelines.

[hosepipe]

[ When we are ruinited with our earthly bodies, they will be in the form of a transformed to the likeness of Christ bodies ]

You could be wrong.. there is no evidence this will happen in this way.. (I Cor 2;9)
But then, I suppose "some" still love the flesh..
Romans 8 argues against that, I think..

On the otherhand the parable of the talents implys that this could be true "for some".. not true for others..