Codes, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

Not necessarily. Codes, especially when you're talking communications theory, represent information transmission between sender and receiver.Algorithms, on the other hand, are basically processes. It has a beginning and an end, with some kind of operation in the middle. That's all DNA transcription is. It kicks off when chemical stimuli in or outside the cell jump start it, runs through an operation (input X yields output A every time it's run), and ends when the final product is produced. DNA itself isn't a code or anything - at most (stretching an analogy a bit) it's input data that is fed into the operation by cell chemistry to obtain a single output. That's it. All this crap about sender/receiver and DNA "coding" is just that.In my opinion, anyway.

"Genetic code" and "code of life" aren't just euphemisms for something that isn't really a code. DNA is a genuine code that has some striking similarities to codes designed by people for communications.First, DNA provides the blueprint for the organism. That the same sequence of nucleotides for a gene invariably produces the same protein is one of the hallmarks of a code. The information for the production of the protein is encoded in the gene's nucleotide sequence.Second, DNA conveys information from one generation to the next through the reproductive process. Conveying information is a primary function of a code.Yes, at heart DNA can be called just chemistry, but at heart a code can be called just squiggles on paper, bits in a computer or dit-dahs on the airwaves. Anything can be dissembled, deconstructed analyzed into its constituent parts. An automobile is no less a conveyance simply because it can be deconstructed into sheet metal, wires and plastic.--Percy

Wow, I feel popular today.Anyway codes (by which I mean codes made by us, the base premise seems to be that all the codes that we have made were made by us, what a shocking coincidence) codes made by us have some attributes that DNA just doesn't have. For one thing, they are abitrary, the correspondences are a convention of usage rather than a fact of chemistry.For another, they are detail-critical, one character wrong in a short message could derail the whole thing. Note that languages are softer here, yuo gyus cna rdea tsih btu teh mcaihnse cnat. Whereas the whole value of DNA in evolution is its constant mostly-nonlethal error margin. Errors are REQUIRED to make the thing work, it is based on the assumption that whatever can go wrong will. Nobody bothers to MAKE such things, they spring up on their own and turn the inside of the refrigerator brown due to LACK of intelligence anywhere nearby.

Tdcanam also put forth the premise that all codes known have been intelligently deisigned.Only one can really be true, because we know that DNA wasn't designed (though tdcanam is saying BOTH are true and using it as evidence of a Designer).Jon

That is the point you are trying to make. if you also include it in your prmises then your reasoning is circular (You are begging the question). In other words, intent implies a concious mind. But a concious mind is the point you are trying to make a case for. If you declare that DNA is a code and that a code has intent, then you are already starting from your conclusion. This is nothing more then a slight of hand. That's why it is a fallacious argument. This fact has been pointed out to you in at least four different posts (five with this one) written by at least three different posters. You have completely ignored it. Why is that?

I agree, DNA does possess such qualities, but that does not make it a code.A bowl possesses some qualities of a frying pan, but it is not a frying pan.Jon

That's 100% what I am saying. The thing is, the star is not encoding anything. It is producing both the colour and the radio frequency. When you make the code, you don't make the colour (at least you don't have to); and when I recieve the code, I don't have to make the colour.The start makes both. We can't necessarily see the colour, but we can use the frequency to show what colour it is. But the encoding/decoding process is! And this is something that can only be accomplished by a "concious mind" (human or animal). You seem to say that the "code" is just the information it contains in a certain format. However, that doesn't help us distinguish a code from a non code, and we can't just say everything is a code, can we? No. The code needs something special, and that's where the encoding/decoding part comes in. A code really can't be a code unless it's been encoded as such. And only concious minds can encode (as far as I've ever been aware).Jon

This is the same mistake tcdanam is making.I did not say that DNA possesses some of the qualities of a code.I said that DNA possesses some of the qualities of a *code made by people*. Specifically, it possesses some of the qualities of codes designed for human communications as defined at Wikipedia.But DNA possesses all the necessary qualities for a code, representing information in a structured and orderly systematized fashion.--Percy

While you say you're seeking a way to distinguish codes from non-codes, what you're actually doing is just drawing a distinction between things created by people and things not created by people. To return to the dam analogy, this is like saying a dam created by people is a dam, while a dam created by nature (such as at Spirit Lake at Mount St. Helens) is not a dam. Or it's like saying a car made by people is a car, but if a genie creates a car "poof" from nothing, it isn't a car.Outside of sciences like archeology and anthropology, one cardinal sign of inappropriate anthropomorphization is drawing distinctions based solely upon whether people were involved. In defining a code, you must identify objective criteria independent of the process of creation. Someone gives you a collection of symbols to analyze. Is it a code or not?The reality is that a code is a code, and codes can be created by people, they can be created by nature, or they can exist just from the properties of our universe.--Percy

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But the frequencies in that list are the actual frequencies for red, green and blue. For your position (and tdcanam's) to be right, it's a code if I create it and use it, but if a star broadcasts colors that correspond to the same color/frequency table then it isn't a code. But it is generally a good idea to shy away from anthropomorphisms where if humans do it it's one thing, but if nature does it it's another, but there are no other distinguishing features.

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I think your failing to see the point of a code. It's communication. A rock isn't a code, but I can spell my name in rocks, and voala, code.A code is any series of symbols with an agreed upon meaning assigned to each. The purpose of assigning these symbols meaning and encoding them is communication.It matters not if "a star broadcasts colors that correspond to the same color/frequency table (the list you posted), meaning has now been assigned them, :. they are now a way of encoding information.Edited by tdcanam, : HTML fix.

Depends upon context. When rocks are used as dots to spell words, of course they're not a code. Ink isn't a code, either.But when you're examining the rocks themselves, they contain much coded information, such as method of formation, age, composition, etc. That's the most common type of code people tend to create, but it isn't the only type of code, not even close. Take a look again at the definition of code from Code - Wikipedia: A code is a set of rules for transforming information from one form to another. That includes information that is a series of symbols, but that is not the only way information can be organized. For instance, you look at a rock and note quartzite particles embedded in it, and this can tell you something about how the rock formed. In part, a geologist is someone who has been trained in how to decode the information in rocks. Are the quartzite particles a series of symbols, which is your definition of a code? No, of course not. Are they a representation of information? Of course! And geologists know the code for transforming it into something they can analyze and put in technical papers and textbooks. Let me refer you to Shannon again. This is from page one of his landmark paper, A Mathematical Theory of Communication: As Shannon makes clear, and as I've been telling you, human concepts like meaning and intent (what Shannon calls semantics) are irrelevant to the information issue, or in this case the encoding of information issue. That's why Yockey, who references Shannon, should know better than to make claims that information involves such things as meaning and intent.I can't tell if you're following Yockey or Gitt or Dembski or some combination, but they all include meaning as part of information. None of their views on this have found acceptance in scientific circles.By the way, it's "voil", not "voala".--Percy

Ohhhh man. I just finished replying and then erased it all by accident. Crap. Here we go again. Might be a bit more streamlined this time. Lol.

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You miss the point. We have no evidence of a conscious entity before DNA. The only conscious entity we know of exists after DNA. This is why DNA is different from every single consciously created code. It is just one fundamental difference between DNA and other codes, one that serves to weaken the conclusion.

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We have no evidence of origins at all. How did the stuff the universe is made of come to be?

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I know how DNA works. That is why I raised the second difference: it is self-replicating. Something that no human code is.

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DNA is the medium. The mRNA records info stored in DNA and then takes it to the ribosomes. The ribosomes reads this info and presto, the code is compleate.A better way to put it. I (mRNA) go to a filing cabinet (DNA) and pull out a plan (code) for a model that our team (body) has been building and now requiers. Say it needs a bit of rebuilding in an area. I (mRNA) photo copy the file (code) taken from the filing cabinet (DNA) and take it to you (ribosome). You (ribosome) read (decode) the plan (code) and start building the model by physically replicating the intangible info (intent/idea) in the file (code). Your product is a tangilble model that the intangible info. (code) represented.You just replicated. But to do so, you had to have the info/code brought to you and you had to decode/read it. You then, understanding the instructions laid out in the info/code, built an exact replica of the info.This info stored in DNA isn't the actual outcome. A code for an arm isn't an arm. It represents an arm. You, the ribosome, had to read the code and build a model that the info represented.That is code. For DNA to "replicate" itself, code is needed. Code in the sense I am talking of.

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You seem to be talking only about the development part of DNA, why are you ignoring its other highly important property? It replicates itself. That's its most important feature!

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Important feature or no, code is still the reason the feature is realized.How is DNA to ribosome any different than say, me being a framer. I can't frame a house without the blueprint. My gopher goes and gets a blueprint from our files. I read the blueprint and make the house that is only represented and not realized in the blueprint. I turn intangible info. into the tangible reality that the info. represented.

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One might make a case for it - but we are the ones that start the communication, and we are the ones that do something with the outcome. It was why I used the word principally - the code that built an antivirus program has a clear purpose, a purpose that is only wielded by conscious entites. DNA's purpose appears to be to build vehicles that can aid in self-replication.

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I have made a case for it. We started the program, yes. If programs "pop up" with out us directly programing them, remember that they are still using our code, it's their world. They are byproducts of our original code. This only strengthens my case. If codes can create codes within our systems, what does this say of DNA. A program pops up in our program, it makes sense. It follows the pattern of our codes. It creates a program using the same steps we did. We were the original encoder of the program, we set the peramiters of the world and the codes that "poped up" are confined to these paramiters.DNA seems to be working the same way does it not? We produce codes. Our codes follow the same steps DNA does, but it would seem that DNA comes first. That puts us in the same situation that these programs "popping up" inside of our programs are in. DNA encoded by an original encoder, produces programs/code sequences with the capabiblity to produce their own programs/code sequences. The codes we produce are subject to the rules of that one original code, DNA. Why? Because DNA would seem to be the origin of life, :. all life capable of producing code will produce it in the same way.

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So now DNA isn't a code? Fine, show me a human medium of communication that is self replicating. We'd have to look once again to computer programs. In this sense though, the medium isn't self-replicating only the information. The medium is the computer, which is not self-replicating.

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Again, any person reading instructions on how to get materials and build a model is replicating just as ribosomes replicate the info sent from DNA. The replication in both cases is not replication of info, but the actual building of the thing that the info represents.This is still not a weak induction. No weaker than the rest of the attempts to explain origins and the start of life. The thing most don't see is that when men like Yockey say "DNA is not like a code, it is a code", they don't specify what kind of code because there is only one kind of code known to man. The code was coined and defined by us. All things that fit the description of our word code are literal, compleate codes. DNA is 100% code. Not a different kind of code, the only kind of code. Communication. To make this simpler, lets take your idea and say, the process is code. DNA-mRNA-Ribosome.The fact that even most people disagreements are more or less in sync is good. Most say the out come is 1:1. Consciously produced code to DNA code. But we have many codes consiously produced, and that leaves DNA all alone.Funny that the one thing that we all come from is the only thing that produces code and we don't see an originator for the code, but we, who produce the same codes we are produced from, produce codes following the same steps.Edited by Admin, : Fix quote.

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I'll ask you the same question--who programmed the first programmer, ie God?

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You state it doesn't matter if the aliens programmed DNA. Well, then it doesn't matter if God programmed DNA. Because, as you ask, who programmed, created, or whatever the first entities?

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You dismiss the alien argument on this ground. Looks like you also need to dismiss God on the same ground. Oops.

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No oops.First off, let's leave the "God" idea out of this.Take all religions in the world and they can be boiled down to squat. Man made programs with the intent of controlling man. Take all religions and throw them out. What now? Well, it would seem that all mankind has had a very strong tendancy to lean towards the idea of a supreme being(s). Run with that. Do we have some god gene in us? Why do most humans, past and many present still look to a maker? Don't know? Me niether.With religion out of the way, we can focus on the idea of a "Creator". As many attempts to explain origins, this one isn't provable, as of yet anyway. A creator can be said to have created all things, not just life. This would encompass the univers and all that it is made of. Who is to say that this Creator is physical? Why could it not be metaphysical?A begining would only be necassary for us in the physical realm. Why? It's obvious. Time and space. How can one have a begining without time? How can one have time without space/matter? Matter is essential. We plot poin "A" on a piece of matter, and we travel. We then plot point "B". The "phenomenon" that has occured from our traversing from point "A" to point "B" is called "time".A metaphysical being living outside of the physical reality would have no time. No matter, no time. Godel and Einstein both presented this idea that time is relevent and possibly not real at all. With no time, beginings are not necessary. With us in a world of matter, we are subject to time.Say this metaphysical "Creator" created a bubble suspended in whatever it exists (or doesn't) in. Within this bubble, all creation of matter takes place (big bang?). All of that creation contained in the bubble would be subject to time, but all things outside would be free of it.Of course this is just theory.

Once we all are on the same page, the main issue will arise. This is the issu that I have with macro evolution.

That's a total nightmare! Indeed - and here you go proposing the possibility of a conscious entity billions of years before the earliest evidence of conscious entities! Yes, but DNA has two roles, you can't ignore one. It builds a vehicle, as part of its self-replication process. DNA replicates therefore it is. If DNA didn't self-replicate...none of this would be being talked about now. The codes you are comparing DNA to do not exist as an integral part of a self replicating molecule. The codes that humans use are significantly different than DNA in this regard. Also - all human codes have existed within the same period as all conscious entites we know have existed. Not so for DNA.That is why the induction is weak - the two things share some properties, but differ in other important areas. There maybe only one type of code, and DNA maybe 100% but the definition of code does not include 'has to be initiated by a conscious entity'. We are trying to establish if the induction is strong enough to come to this conclusion. At this time, all the codes we know the origins of have been human or animal inventions (DNA isn't), they have not been transmitted via a self-replicating molecule/medium (DNA is), and it doesn't date to a time before any known conscious life (DNA does). Thus we cannot make the inductive leap 'there is good reason to think that DNA was started by a conscious entity'. Since it is not comparable directly to other known codes.If you can find me any code known to man which is not DNA yet which is directly comparable to the DNA code in its age and properties, and show me that it was created by a conscious mind, I will happily concede that your induction has more strength than I had previously stated.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.