The big question..

"2. Everything is. There was no creator, we are here, and it will continue for all eternity."

No creator? You've short circuited your own logic.

"....or maybe I'm only brought up to believe I am 'soul'. Maybe I'm a heap of skin and will rot away in the sands of time..."

True, true, and true.

Good fortune though, the soul survives the part it plays.


x

 

A "message", by definition, must have an intelligent sender. On the other hand, I don't think this is necessarily true of information per se , depending on how we define information. In the case of DNA, the "code" is a pattern of data that contains genomic sequences leading to organisms that survive. As Freaker says, it "begs the question" to assume that this data is "information" in the semantic sense of message conveying meaning, so the analogy to human languages may be limited.

There seems to be growing agreement that information may be at least co-equal to matter and energy as one of the "Trinity" of fundamental quantities or constituents of the universe. Wheeler considers information more fundamental in the universe than energy, while Apollo astronaut, Edgar Mitchell, views it as part of a dyad, of which the other part is energy. He believed that meditation could bring us in tune with "holgraphically embedded information in the quantum zero-point energy field". But this is possibly pseudoscience. Shannon views information as inversely related to entropy, a highly ordered, low-entropy system being described as high in level of information that can be encoded with bits (binary digits). Laszlow claims that there is an information field called the Akashic field, consisting of wavefields generated by the oscillations at varying frequencies from the various objects in the universe. He thinks that this creates a collective information pool that living things can tap, and that it possibly accounts for some of the coherence we've been talking about in our finely tuned universe. In New Mexico, Zurek, Gell-Mann, and Hartle use the concept of information to resolve some of the paradoxes of quantum mechanics. A quantum particle contains a huge complex of information, the wave function describing every possible state that it might assume, until it is measured and takes on one of these states to the exclusion of others. The extra information is absorbed or "recorded" by the environment, thereby avoiding the radical idealist interpretation of QM theory that the observer defines reality.

You mention information as a proof of God. A writer who's developed the DNA argument as "proof" of God is Professor Werner Gitt, a Young Earth Creationist and expert on information systems in his book In the Beginning Was Information. He argues that the DNA code has all the essential characteristics of information and must be the result of superior intelligence since the density and complexity of the DNA information is millions of times greater than man's present technology. All attempts to generate or simulate the generation of the information have failed. Also,since the sender must have encoded (stored) the information into the DNA molecule and constructed the molecular biomachines to encode, decode and run the cells, Gitt argues, the sender must be purposeful and powerful. Since information is nonmaterial, the sender must have a nonmaterial component (spirit).

Possibly you're also thinking of the formulation by Intelligent Design advocate William Dembski that ID=Complex Specified Information. Information reduces uncertainty regarding multiple possible outcomes. Information is complex when it involves a large number of bits and "specified" when it reflects a distinctive pattern that is difficult to account for by random or natural processes. Your DNA example would probably fit the bill nicely. ID fan and biophysicist Lee Spencer has also argued that mutations can't explain the increase in genetic information postulated by evolution. Scientists have great difficulty sythesizing the components of a single nucleotide in the laboratory, and to get them to assemble into the chains of RNA and DNA that direct the construction of proteins and enzymes. Recently, there's been speculation that RNA & DNA were preceded by simpler but related chainlike molecules called PNA (peptide nucleic acid). Scientists have been able to sythesize purines and pyrimidines, that form the backbone of these molecules. Various theories have been put forward involving pre-PNA "autocatalysis" (Farmer and Bagley; Calvin; Rossler; Eigen; Kaufman) and how hypercycles of nucleic acids might have given rise to life. Morowitz has shown how cell vesicles of lipids may have provided the havens in which primitive metabolisms later evolved. So it's not as improbable as Hoyle' "tornado in a junkyard" assembling a 747, but it's still remarkable enough that we can understand why Anthony Flew converted to deism over it. Of course, it could also have been created by aliens from Outer Space.

I personally find these arguments persuasive, if not conclusive, for involvement of intelligence in evolution (not conclusive because they still leave open the possibility that science will come along some day with and explanation. But maybe not in my lifetime).

 

Nobody replied yet to my last post. Did I win, or was it just too long to read? My left brain has regained control and would like to express some reservations and qualifiers to this notion of information as proof of Intelligent Design. First, the people who are pushing this idea have legitimate scientific credentials but also axes to grind. There are, on the one hand, the Creationists and ID folks, who are out to disprove evolution. They have science degrees, but are really more into Christian apologetics than science, meaning they start with the conclusions and spend their time finding evidence to support them. Their positive evidence for ID is thin, and they rely mainly on pointing out problems and deficiencies in evolutionary theory, such as its inability to explain DNA. On the other hand, we have scientists, especially physicists, who have gone over the edge to New Age in grappling with the paradoxes of quantum mechanics, relativity, and cosmology. I mentioned former astraunaut, Edgar Mitchell, who has a Doctor of Science (Sc.D)degree from MIT, but has founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences to seek scientific proof of spiritual and scientific phenomena. I'd put Laszlo's Akashic Field in that category, as well. The empirical basis for it is weak, consisting mostly of handwaving. So while DNA and information remain problems for evolutionary theory, the alternatives are also not without problems.

 

I've realized that the existence of a higher power is so obvious that it is ridiculous to even argue.

 

This is true.

 

I must say, I actually didn't read it at first because of the length, but since you posted again I thought I might as well, heehee.

When you said "Since information is nonmaterial, the sender must have a nonmaterial component (spirit)." I think I have come to a realization. I believe this partly explains the a part of the Tao Te Ching. It states, "The name that can be named is not the eternal name." When applying to this it would represent that the 'info' doesn't matter. I believe we already have an imprint in our souls of everything, and experiencing it is only the process of remembering. Since what we call a certain piece of info now will difer later on in time, we just use words to describe it, but "IT" really isn't those words.

 

hey brother, do u have any links to wherever u got or read this stuff about how parallel universes were created?----id like to read about it---maybe ill google it---dont u ever wonder who or what causes these parallel universes to exist?---i guess maybe one could say: i am that i am and the point at which i am not, then i am no longer i am...u know, i suppose if everything is and all of a sudden it is not, then it is not and ,logically, we are not here anymore...guess i answered my own question---lol

 

codeye, thanks for asking, I've been waiting for someone. These videos are one of the most interesting theories I have ever heard. The info seems infinite yet logical. There are 5 different videos... I recommend watching either one or two at a time, then pondering over them. Good luck to all who watch...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gWIyam5cAko&feature=related

 

Hello..
Your body is just a shell. Humans have a distinct disire for sprituality..a need, if you will and Jehovah god has put that in us, another great thing in the creation of us.

 

misfeed

 

I agree with you on the part that we have a need for spirituality. I think we need it for feeling comfort in knowing we are not alone.

 

I agree on the desire for spirituality. But body "just a shell"? Our bodies and brains are important, integral parts of our material existence--not just accidents or mistakes, but integral parts of the divine process.

 

Spirituality is rooted in our DNA, it is not just a need for comfort to know that we aren't alone, it is there to TELL US who we really are. It is there to help us remember where we really came from, it's there to let us know.

 

Maybe you just think that because you are comforted by believing we aren't alone.

I think spirituality has more to do with supplying a comfortable answer to unanswerable questions. Not only that, but I am quite content, and will continue right on living my life, without any knowledge or belief in a spiritual friend.

 

How is it rooted in our DNA? DNA... I believe doesn't make up our thought process... or anything else except our physical being...

 

I do not believe, I know.

 

...Or so you believe.

Would you accept that your human senses and mind can interpret reality incorrectly? If so, you do not KNOW. If not, you still do not know, and your belief is blind.

 

Hah, I've had way too many experiences to think otherwise.

Sorry, I don't really like the idea of "belief" or faith. I know. It's as simple as that. Yes I accept that my human senses can be wrong, but I know not through my 5 senses.

 

Regardless, you have only a human mind. Everything must enter and be interpreted. There is always (always) the possibility that something entered and was interpreted incorrectly.

 

So in actuality.... do we know anything?........... Wait, what's actuality?