Posted on 01/27/2009 6:59:07 AM PST by betty boop
Edited on 01/27/2009 7:16:52 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
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.Referring to the Shannon diagram above, we can interpret the various elements of the model in terms of biological utility, as follows:“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.
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
Wooops mod- You’ve missed a number of posts i nthis htread that have done exactly what you falsely accused me of doing- I see you decided to also biasedly nuke my posts which called you out for doing exactly what you accused me of falsely doing- Well done- keep up the hypocrisy so htese threads go accordign to your master plan! you’d also better have me banned, because I’m just goign to keep exposing your hypocritical trumped up charges.
Betty Boop AlamoGirl- The mod took it upon themself to nuke my post apologizing to you for engagin in the mods derailment attempts when htey attempted to exhert hteir will on this thread by trumping up a charge against me by presuming to make it personal by reading my mind and presuming to know my intent for calling JS out for feigning ingornace on KINDS and Baraminology when I’ve PERSONALLY told him many many times, and so have personal knowledge that JS DOES infact know full well- This mod is a FACT, it is NOT ‘reading his mind’.
mod, you and JS can play your little miss innocent routines all you like, and you can keep nuking my posts to hide hte fact that you were wrong for stepping in and making a mountain out of an issue where no moutnain existed, nor was there one called for- but you took it upon yourself to direct the thread i nthe direction you wished, and you can continue subjectively ignoring others in htis htread who DID infact assume to read others minds, and hwo DID infact ‘make it personal’ many times in past posts all you like- but if you’re NOT goign to objectively enforce the ‘rules’, then I’m goign to keep exposing your uncalled for subjectivity in these htese threads.
If you wish to apologize publicly for screwing up, and wish to go back through each post and objectively nuke those posts that ‘made it personal’, then I’ll accept your apology- but if you just wish to keep subjectively controlling how htis htread goes, and wish to keep subjectively nuking posts you don’t like while subjectively allowing others to do the exact think you falsely accused me of doing- then by golly you’d better have me banned- because I’m not goign to put up with that CRAP. JS DOES know full because and I know this for a FACt because I PERSONALLY have told him many many times- I stand by my post, and if you don’t like me calling him on it- then you’d better either have me banned, or continue your basied nikings- but don’t expect me to just let you get away with that crap without exposing oyu for it! If you wish to control these threads in such a manner that suits your fancy- then you’re going to have a long day ahead of you unless you have me banned- which is fien by me- I’ll not put up with your crap subjective moderation.
Hi BB,
I didn’t post this at first because Alex Williams said he couldn’t participate. But after a while I figured you would at least be interested in his reply, so I decided to send it to you as a PM. All the best—GGG
Hi GGG,
Thanks for the message.
While the referenced article is interesting, it misses the main point. It is the irreducibility of the autopoietic hierarchy that provides the compelling evidence for design. That is, none of the levels of the hierarchy can be explained in terms of the properties of the level below it. Higher levels are not ‘emergent properties’ of the lower levels.
Two other major points are:
· the lowest level of the hierarchy is not ‘pure elements’, as Jean Drew says, but molecules—the homochiral proteins and sugars (and thus DNA and RNA) and the other pure molecular components, in contrast to the dirty mixtures of the natural environment.
· Shannon information theory deliberately ignores the meaning of the information and only deals with the statistics of the code. It is thus more than useless in biology (where meaning is central) because it diverts attention away from meaning.
I published three further papers on this general theme in Journal of Creation 22(2) 2008.
· How Life Works, pp.85–91
· Molecular Limits to Natural Variation, pp.97–104
· Mutations: evolution’s engine becomes evolution’s end, pp.60–66.
I am currently engaged in writing a popular level book on How Life Works. It is proving very demanding, even though I already have the main material all together. I am trying to make it as simple as possible and well illustrated so that everyone can understand it.
Unfortunately, I suffer from numerous health problems (including a degenerative nerve condition) which prevent me from doing anything much on a regular basis, so I don’t do anything that I don’t have to do.
I am willing to answer emails but I do not participate in web-based discussions.
Keep up the good work.
Kind regards,
Alex Williams
I can’t believe I just did that! Oh well. Can we still pretent it’s a PM? Earth to GGG, wake up GGG.
Indeed, I completely agree with Dr. Williams on this: "It is the irreducibility of the autopoietic hierarchy that provides the compelling evidence for design. That is, none of the levels of the hierarchy can be explained in terms of the properties of the level below it. Higher levels are not ‘emergent properties’ of the lower levels." I'd thought the article was pretty clear about this. But I guess not clear enough.
Regarding Dr. Williams' second point — "the lowest level of the hierarchy is not ‘pure elements’, as Jean Drew says, but molecules—the homochiral proteins and sugars (and thus DNA and RNA) and the other pure molecular components, in contrast to the dirty mixtures of the natural environment" — I appreciate his elaboration. Indeed, the remarks regarding homochirality in his article strongly suggest that such molecules are already "prepped" in a special way for life. But from his own statements, I'd thought to "catalog" homochiral proteins and sugars at Level (ii) of his model. So for good or ill, I left the "slot" of Level (i) to be "populated" by the atomic elements and laws of physics. For it seems to me that all life forms have a "physical basis." So the model should be able to reflect this.
It is true that Shannon information theory is indifferent to the meaning of messages. All it claims to be is a model for successful communication in all domains — which would include biology. It envisions successful communication of information as an action (similar to the action principle of physics) that moves a biological organism from a "before" to an "after" state, thus reducing uncertainty in the state of the receiver of the communication (i.e., the biological organism).
I hate to have to say this, but I think it's true nonetheless: Strictly speaking, science isn't interested in the "meaning" of things, but in how things "work."
This is not to denigrate, let alone abolish the concept of inversely-causal meta-information. It is merely to say that, at the level of action, biological processing may "reduce" to the statistics of codes.
Yet this does not appear to affect the teleological status of meta-information: Because it points to purposes, goals, in nature, we can speak of it as meaningful. Yet as already pointed out, in general "meaning" is not a problem for science. This seems to be a case of Stephen Jay Gould's niftily separated magisteria bumping up hard against one another.
In any case, it still remains a mystery from the perspective of science what the source of this inversely-causal meta-information is, and by what means it's conducted or translated into the physical and biological domains. It seems not to arise "in" nature, as we currently understand nature; it is not an "evolutionary development," rather it may well be the pre-eminent guide to evolution. But then, problems of "origin" seem to be devilishly difficult for science....
In any case, it seems to me we have to be careful about "mixing our metaphors": speculations about meaning belong to philosophy and theology, not to science. Science can only give us what is observable and experimentally replicable. The meaning and purpose of life, and the origin of meta-information, falls entirely outside its method.
At least that is my understanding, FWIW.
Thanks ever so much for writing, GGG! If you hear from Dr. Williams again, please thank him from me for his kindness in writing!
Excellent reply, BB. I meant to PM it as an FYI because Williams said he couldn’t participate.
==In any case, it seems to me we have to be careful about “mixing our metaphors”: speculations about meaning belong to philosophy and theology, not to science.
I think the autopoietic hierarchy has implications for all three. Science is more than just information gathering. In fact, I would argue that the most important aspect of science involves the interpretation of the same. If the various constituents of life are designed, then part of the job of science will be to discover the purpose of said designs. To my mind, such an endeavor overlaps with the concept of meaning.
All the best—GGG
2. Origin of inertia.
3. Origin of life.
b. Origin of Semiosis
5. Origin of consciousness.
6. Origin of conscience.
While I agree with you that the AP hierarchy "has implications" beyond science, we still need to recognize that science, qua science, is not "in the meaning business."
"Meaning" in nature is something that only man cares about: a "molecular machine" going from a before state to an after state doesn't need to know what the message "means"; it just needs correct, clear instructions that enable it to contribute to securing the needful biological ends of the total organism of which it is a constituent.
It's odd; but the meaning of science is not something that can be elucidated on the basis of the currently prevailing scientific method, which presupposes the doctrine of naturalism. Meaning is not a "natural" phenomenon.
But science ever since Francis Bacon has chosen to impose this limitation on itself; i.e., the expectation that all natural phenomena have natural causes, which can be discovered by direct observation, and tested by replicable experiments. It wasn't always that way; but it sure is now, in spades.
Thank you ever so much for writing, GGG!
Can we add a new item to the list of “open” origin questions — the origin of novelty in nature?
When you boil it all down, what science studies is change, or instances of novelty, in the natural world. Change as a natural process can be studied without having to know “why” change happens in the first place. Origin questions tend to get you into the prickly thicket of “Why?” questions. But science does not need to ask such questions to do its job. One just takes it for granted that change, novelty is somehow necessary in the natural world; no further inquiry need be made. The scientist’s job is to study change as it appears, not explain “Why?” it is a fundamental feature of the natural world.
And this is similar to the case of Darwinian evolution theory. The theory doesn’t require knowledge of the origin of biological life in order to study life as a changing process. In other words, the theory takes it for granted that life already exists; and then tells you how it “speciates” (changes over time, the source of biological novelty and diversity).
Science seems divided on the issue of origin questions. Some scientists believe that the solution to such questions is obtainable by means of the scientific method, and that it’s just a matter of time before their answers are “scientifically” revealed. Others won’t touch such problems with a ten-foot pole; because to speak of “origins” is, to their way of thinking, just a way to smuggle the notion of “creator” into the scientific debate. And this is strictly impermissible.
George V. Coyne, S.J., an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory, thinks such matters go straight to the heart of what science is and what it can do. The key criterion goes to “what is meant by ‘origins’ and what is meant by ‘creation.’”
The key to understanding the difference between creation and origins is the notion of change…. Changes in nature are the object of study for the natural sciences. From pure energy to matter, from hydrogen to hydrocarbons, from giant molecular clouds to star clusters, from single cells to organs, from amino acids to the human brain — these are all objects of investigation for the natural sciences. They all require an existing entity which changes. The natural sciences do not deal with the issue of existing at all; they deal with existing in a specific way and the changes in nature, which bring about specific ways of existing.A little later on, Coyne continues: “In our discourse on beginnings we find it necessary to speak in a temporal framework. The creator is considered to be prior to what is created, but the priority is actually not temporal. The relationship is metaphysical, not temporal. To be created out of nothing does not mean that the creature is first nothing and then something. It means that the creature has a dependent existence.” [Ibid., p. 11]Creation, on the other hand, speaks to the very existence of whatever exists. It does not speak to change. Creation does not deal with the chain of events which bring about a specific kind of being. It deals with the source of being of whatever exists. It does not address the evolution of one kind of being from another. To create, therefore, is not to work on or with some already existing material. Creation is not, therefore, a cause in the usual sense of the word. Or, if you wish, creation is the complete cause of all things. Such a complete causing is precisely what the act of creation is. Thus, to create is to give existence to whatever exists in a specific way. To create does not mean to take “nothing” and make “something” out of it, in the sense of changing it from not being to being. To exist means to depend upon a source of existence. So, creation is not exclusively, not even primarily, some distant event; to create is the continual, complete causing of the existence of whatever is.
So there can, in principle, be no necessary conflict between the doctrine of creation and any scientific explanation of origins. The natural sciences seek to account for change and the origins of change. Whether the changes described are biological or cosmological, have a beginning or not, are unending or temporally finite, they remain processes. Creation accounts for the existence of things, not for changes in things. So, given that something exists, how did life originate from this something is a scientific question. Why there is something rather than nothing is not a scientific question. — “Evolution and Intelligent Design,” Divine Action and Natural Selection: Science, Faith, and Evolution, Singapore:World Scientific, 2009, p. 9f.
In these last remarks, Coyne touches on our old friend, the law of cause and effect, which in the universe of sense perception ever moves along the arrow of time from past, to present, to future. Thus causes must come first in the temporal order; their effects follow later on. This perception of the normal “flow” of things is so deeply ingrained in the human psyche that the very idea of “inverse-causality” is senseless, even reprehensible, to many people today, including many scientists.
It goes without saying that the law of cause and effect is intrinsic to the scientific method. And yet, if the observation of the great philosopher David Hume is to be taken seriously, science has reason to be troubled about the “firmness” of our ideas regarding causality. For it seems to me Hume was right: We never actually see a cause at work. The only thing we think we know is that one thing follows upon another. In short, by the time we notice the effect, the cause has already receded into the past; i.e., it is not then a direct observable; and we never saw “what it did” to effect a particular outcome, because we were completely unaware of it until the outcome occurred. In fact, the same thing could be said of the effect: We notice it by taking “measurements”; but by the time the measurement has been taken, the effect is already in the past, too.
In saying this, Hume was drawing attention to the fact that accounts of causation never can come by direct observation, but only by means of an exercise of human judgment — a completely different faculty of the human mind than sense perception.
And then steps in the great philosopher Immanuel Kant, who observed that human sense perception is physically structured in such a way that all we can really say about “direct observation” is that it can capture only the outward, or surface appearance of things, but can never grasp the observed thing as it is “in itself.” This formulation draws the sharp distinction between “appearance” and the actual reality of which the appearance is merely the “reflection,” as “registered in the brain” of an observer at a particular point in space and time. Again, we are in effect thrown back on judgment, since direct sensory perception provides insufficient data for a more complete understanding of the entity concerned.
Well, these would seem to be the really “deep problems” for science. Notice that it’s philosophers who have pointed them out. Which is why I consider as total nonsense arguments holding that science and theology/philosophy are somehow mutually-exclusive knowledge domains or “magisteria” whose paths should never cross. Or worse, that one of the magisteria is “true” and the other “false,” one always right, the other always wrong. If you take a look at the history of science, or of human culture more generally, you will find that the two knowledge domains have been cross-fertilizing for well over two millennia by now…. To the mutual benefit of each.
In closing, let me add an amusing story. You and I both appreciate Robert Jastrow’s famous comment about the scientists, painstakingly struggling up the mountain peak of Knowledge, and finally making it all the way up to the summit — only to find a band of theologians who had been waiting for them, sitting there for centuries.
Well, Richard Gordon, Department of Radiology, University of Manitoba, has written an uproariously funny “new ending” for that parable:
…who have been sitting there for centuries… killing each other and their descendents in the name of God. But the scientist and his comrades, who although they had also argued for centuries, formed together a single world effort at understanding the universe. They then convinced the younger theologians to descend the mountain and consider whether science itself might provide a way to bring an end to their mutual slaughter. In exchange, the scientists had to broaden their view, and start working on some of the tougher problems they had previously fobbed off on religion. [Op. cit., “Preface 3,” p. xlix]Oh, the joys of the “observer problem!” Noble scientists! Blood-thirsty theologians! LOLOL! (Richard Dawkins, call your office....)
People can only see what they can see from where they stand. But at the same time, if the universe is an intelligible order (which I’m convinced it is), then direct observation only gets you so far; and there are limits to rational speculation….
I did appreciate Gordon in effect admitting that maybe, just maybe, “scientists had to broaden their view.”
Thank you ever so much for writing, and your kind words of support, dearest sister in Christ!
Thanks for the pings. I’ve been following even though I’ve been too busy to post much.
==While I agree with you that the AP hierarchy “has implications” beyond science, we still need to recognize that science, qua science, is not “in the meaning business.”
Thanks for your reply, Betty Boop. I just wrote a long response that was deleted when I checked for spelling. I can’t describe my reaction to this travesty as anything other then demoralizing! I just can’t bring myself to write it all over again, so I will do my best summarize:
In my opinion science is all about meaning. Distant light photons do not mean “star” unless there is an intelligible sender and an intelligent receiver. An “apple” falling to the ground does not mean gravity, unless there is an intelligible sender and an intelligent receiver. The fact that these messages are intelligible presupposes meaning. Thus, when a scientist says this happened, or that happened, they are deciphering the meaning of the message. The message cannot be explained by the chemistry or physics of their brain, any more than it can be explained by the chemistry or physics of the sender. Thus, scientists must take the meaning that is conveyed by the sender, and the meaning that is understood by the receiver, as an axiom at the very foundation of what makes discovery possible. And yet, neither the chemistry nor the physics of this interchange explains the intelligibility of the message. The chemistry and physics involved are the medium, not the message. The fact that we (not just scientists) are constantly receiving intelligble messages from every aspect of the Universe (no matter how over our heads, and no matter how poorly understood) means that science is all about deciphering the meaning (and at least the intelligent design) of the sender, which presupposes the intelligence of the receiver. Thus, science is fundamentally about meaning. To deny this obvious fact is to deny science itself IMHO.
All the best—GGG
Indeed. That's why Shannon information theory draws such a clear distinction between the "content" (i.e., meaning) and the "conduit" (i.e., medium) of the message. Since science is not in the meaning business, all it has to go on is the medium. It's awesomely good there. But the fact still remains that scientific knowledge does not encompass the totality of human knowledge, or provide solutions to all human problems; let alone does it reach to wisdom.
So truly, I appreciate your frustration that science cannot, in principle, deliver all the answers of most vital concern to human beings.
Must run for now. Take-out just arrived!
Hope to speak with you again soon, GGG!
So true.. If an observable happens and no observer is there to see it, did it happen?..
A new twist to an old bromide..
More, if it was observed was anything missed in the observation?...
WHo can observe anything from all aspects?..
The arrogant may think they do..
The vain may be sure they do?..
and, the afraid may be afraid to admit they looked...
But the wise know they are pretty stupid..
For the more you know, the more you know of things you don't know..
Generating humility..
Observation is not a problem for the humble..
They are the true scientists.. satisfied with a piece of the puzzle(observation)..
That reminds me of the philosophy statement I put in my high school senior yearbook:
As I extend the radius of my knowledge, I expand by a factor of 2pi the circumference on which I touch my ignorance.
It served me well throughout a long career as a scientist and technologist...
[[For the more you know, the more you know of things you don’t know..]]
Aint htta the truth- There was an old saying I’ve forgotten now, but basically it goes somethign like “When I was young, I thought I knew it all, when I got a bit older, I knew I knew it all, but when I got old, I knew I was just beginning to udnerstand dimly”
Somethign liek that
I'm 71 now, and living (by choice) 'way out in the boonies. My best hope of keeping this old brain exercised is that we have 4th and 6th-grade granddaughters living with us. I live for those "teachable moments" -- and have learned to drop whatever I'm doing to nurture and share those moments of youthful discovery...
Although I keep stereo and metallurgical microscopes ready at hand, my next planned project with the girls is to build a simple microscope (as I did at 10) and introduce them to the wonders of a hay infusion culture.
Likewise, man's ability to reason is limited. His inability to comprehend a thing nor more invalidates it than it would for an amoeba not to be able to comprehend high energy particle physics.
It is particularly absurd when men (e.g. Dawkins remark above) think they can measure God.
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