The key to life is information, not chemicals

reply to post by KilgoreTrout


Awesome post. First time I hear that name. Guess I have something new to delve into, so thanks a lot for sharing ^_^

Originally posted by vasaga
reply to post by Barcs

 

I'm not the one repeating things over and over without any scientific papers. If you actually bothered to look at the sources, you'd actually see that they are scientific sources, even though you unjustifiably put them in ID/creationism boxes on purpose, so that you can justify dismissing the claims, since they don't fit your own view.

Tell me something. Why do you hate these ideas so much? And don't reply with "it's not scientific" when the opening post is from scientific sources. I request you actually give me something with substance. If you can not do that, then I request you do not reply at all. Do you think it hampers progress? Do you hold a grudge against religion? Do you think it's against materialism while you're a materialist? What is it exactly, that ticks you off so much?

Honestly, I know that I over do it sometimes, and push people pretty hard on topics like this, but I do it for a reason. I like to push people to produce results, and also motivate myself to also produce. You might not realize it but I'd be ecstatic if a scientific discovery about a designer was made. I'd be very impressed to see something like that posted in here. I just want to see how in depth people can get, that's all. I have nothing against faith or the idea of a designer, I just don't like seeing it pushed as fact.

Now with that said, I admit I may have misunderstood the original post. Basically what it refers to is defining life by its ability to process "information" (aka communicate). I do agree that there is not a good definition out there right now to differentiate life from non life. Sara Walker argues that in her essay and she is right. They are looking for the part of the process where something goes from not communicating to communicating. I see what they are saying, and definitely agree it needs more study and consideration.

BUT

Bear in mind that Walker's essay, "Is Life Fundamental?" is not a peer reviewed science paper. It's a theoretical essay based on mathematical theory. There isn't an experiment, results or a scientific conclusion. She also falls into the Darwin trap a few times as well. I'm still not sure why people still present things he said in the 1800s, when evolution was first substantiated, and try to make them relevant in today's modern synthesis. It doesn't make any sense. Something about that always rubs me the wrong way. I tried looking up her background but it seems that not all that much information is available. She has a degree in astrophysics, works for Nasa, is affiliated with the BEYOND organization, and seems to be the poster child for anti-RNA world hypothesis. Is she inferring intelligent design or does she have an ulterior motive? It's difficult to say.

Maybe she will eventually discover more about this and prove this vital step in abiogenesis / origin of life. It's a good start, but again it doesn't prove that information is the key to life, it presents it as a possibility of how she wants life to be defined. It was a pretty cool essay, I did read most of it, and it was decent except for the Darwin stuff. That's what set me off originally. Darwin talk instantly raises a creationist alert flag for me.

The only issue with her idea is that it's very difficult to run experiments and tests on. Like M-theory the math adds up but it cannot be proven objectively because it's impossible to test with our current level of technology and understanding. It also depends how "information" is defined, because I could see that being disputed just as much as the definition of life has been. My 2 cents.

reply to post by ImaFungi


Why are you trying to give purpose to nature? Normally a religious knows-it-all is the one that assigns a Purpose to the unknown because it was made for them.

Tree is just there, and water is just there.

Water flows down hill, it does not have any "codes" to make it go down hill.



We assigned these "Codes" to DNA and called Ribosomes as a "decoder".. all of a sudden people with barely any knowledge... "omg code... Its a design...creator....its god!!!"

If you look at the DNA, its just 4 nucleobase compounds repeating in a pattern.. its just a base of how to build things and ribosomes, just happens to be the transcripter which turns the codes into amino acids... just like how there is a reaction between an metal and a gas... which forms a ionic bond due to their patterns and arrangements.. and in turn makes salt.

reply to post by Barcs


Ok. I thank you for your well thought out response. I would prefer if we could communicate like this more often.

reply to post by vasaga

Its all information and data, every single thing you see from the suns in the sky to the grain of sands on the beach, chemicals are just another form of information and data and the processing of that information and data into the things that make up your world.

But its not the only one, its just a version of it, to quote the new age nutters a wavelength, the same things can be encoded, decoded and interpreted in any number of ways...The things you see with your eyes, are not necessarily the same things everybody else sees. Information and chemicals are two different interpretations of the same thing, they compound each other kind of like two sides of the same coin.

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.... William Blake"