[James]

Unfortunately I don’t have time to read this article and not being a biologist, I’m not sure I possess the skills to analyse the data accurately. I will see what others post and chip in, if I think I can offer anything of value. In the meantime, I will make a couple of comments.

When we think of complex strings of information such as the Works of Shakespeare, it is feasible that those complex strings have an explanation for their existence because the information was caused to exist (and began to exist) in the mind of Shakespeare and as a result of how his mind was able to work. Even if this was the result of Shakespeare reshuffling pre-existing information, the new arrangement began to exist as a result of Shakespeare doing this. But this all falls apart once an eternal and all knowing creator is introduced / assumed. Given such a being, the Works of Shakespeare existed uncaused in their mind from all eternity and they merely shared this information with Shakespeare (Shakespeare was merely thinking the creator’s thoughts after them, via his own act of shuffling and writing).

If the universe has an intelligent creator who knows everything ahead of time then the information in RNA/DNA fundamentally has no explanation for its existence either. This is because the information would have existed in the creator’s mind uncaused and from all eternity and they merely shared this information with the RNA/DNA via their act of creation. Why would a being that lacks a designer be possessing of all this information, and for no reason (RNA/DNA information, the works of Shakespeare and so on)?

Lastly, the theistic explanation (if it really is an explanation) is completely untestable, meaning, if it is mistaken we have no way of finding out. We find evidence of RNA information beginning to exist and for seemingly no reason at all. Is this an instance of God creating it ex nihilo or is the first premise of Kalam false? The point here is, even if the first premise of Kalam were false (I don’t think it is, I’m being hypothetical so bear with me) the believer would still insist on assuming that the phenomenon was the result of ex nihilo creation.

So let’s entertain the possibility that an intelligent and all knowing creator is the cause. At bottom, not only do we now not have any causal explanation for the existence of the complex information that we were seeking to explain but if we have made a mistake, we also have no way of finding out if we have made a mistake.

[Poul]

The abstract speaks of ordered information while you mention intelligent information. Neither adjective really make sense as a description of information, as the information is in the order and it isn’t intelligent. But your hinting that it is probably reflects your conclusion: It must have been intelligently designed. I notice that you didn’t reply to my OP on “What’s more probable: Abiogenesis or God?” (but it’s not too late. James has some good points.) where I raise the question “Why is it that theists think atheists should be able to explain exactly how abiogenesis happened, while they themselves don’t have to explain how God is possible and can simply say that “I believe God exists and that he has supernatural powers”?“. Basically, I think the ID advocate has a lot more explaining to do than the naturalist. Even if we accept the notion that ID was at play, how would an intelligent designer even begin to construct the sequence of nucleotides that make up our DNA. By trial and error?

knowwhyyoubelieve.org

What's more probable: Abiogenesis or God? - Reasonable Faith Forum - Equip

What's more probable: Abiogenesis or God? - Reasonable Faith Forum - Equip

[Poul]

I suppose the theist would say that the information in our DNA, in all DNA, was always in the mind of the creator. But how it got there, and indeed all properties of the creator remains unexplained by theism. It is simply in the nature of theism to refuse to even try to explain God. Sure, the naturalist will also throw up his hands when asked to explain why we have the observed laws of Nature or what the first cause of the Universe may have been. But the explanation job of the Naturalist still seems a lot smaller than the explanation job of the theist. And the Naturalist (i.e. the theoretical physicist) has one tool at his disposal that the theist lacks: The power of mathematics.

[James]

I suppose the theist would say that the information in our DNA, in all DNA, was always in the mind of the creator. But how it got there, and indeed all properties of the creator remains unexplained by theism.

Because God is eternal, without beginning and omniscient (and these are things about God that cannot change), the information in his mind is also eternal and without beginning. It is therefore not logically possible that the information began to exist in his mind as a result of his mind causing it. His mind contains the information that makes him omniscient but the information has simply always been in his mind meaning it cannot be thought of as designed in any sense that we usually use that word.

A being who comes upon new information was not omniscient prior to receiving that information and God has always been omniscient so in terms of the information in his mind, none of it ever got there. Theists could start insisting that we start dismissing reason but why should anyone do that? It is special pleading once again because they wouldn’t be asking us to abandon reason in relation to any other type of claim and the idea of life coming from non-life is not logically incoherent (even if it is hard to believe / counterintuitive etc). In terms of probability, why should we favour the incoherent over something that is coherent, despite being initially counterintuitive and for which we are starting to gather verifiable clues?

Additionally, the theist is also assuming that a natural process (that produced life from non-life) couldn’t be beyond our understanding and inaccessible to us. Whilst we carry out experiments and find clues in the hope that we will find a verifiable explanation, there is no presumption that we will inevitably find one, even if the processes involved were entirely natural.

If atheism has an information problem then theism has an even bigger one because the amount of information that we are being asked to assume could exist undesigned, is vastly greater (and arguably, vastly more complex) than the alternative.

[Poul]

I’m trying to comprehend the implications of knowing everything. For starters, all information is an unlimited amount of information. Heck, there is an unlimited number of primes, so even the simplest concept involves an unlimited amount of information. Then, there is the physical problem of holding an unlimited amount of information. As far as I know, there is no way to represent all the data on even the current state of the universe that is simpler than the universe itself. And then you need to know its entire past and future. And all those primes… And then there is the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: There is no way to simultaneously know both the position and the momentum of a particle. So if you know its position with infinite precision, you cannot know its momentum. And if you don’t know its momentum, you don’t know where it is going, so you cannot know its future. And even if you could know everything, you haven’t even begun to address the problem of how to represent and retrieve all that information.

And if you could know everything, you would not be able to learn anything as there would be nothing left to learn. So you would have no cognitive ability.

[James]

The mind of an omniscient creator must be thought to contain a vast amount of highly complex information by definition. The information in that mind is far more complex than that found in any DNA (because unlike the DNA, the omniscient mind contains vastly more information such as what I was doing last Tuesday, what is contained in every single book, fluency in every single existing and possible language, the entire contents of the internet including the dark web, every single URL, every single IP address, every person’s phone number, etc). If something lacking an intelligent cause couldn’t contain the information found in DNA, why should we assume that something undesigned would be capable of all that?

We necessarily reach a point where it must be assumed that complex information can lack an intelligent cause (either because the complex information has existed from all eternity as an aspect of an uncaused entity or it is the end product of causes lacking intelligence) and it is this analysis that provides the defeater for the assumption that complex information must always have an intelligent cause. If the information existed from all eternity in the mind of an omniscient, eternal and uncaused being then it was never actually designed at all, and this fact would still contradict the initial intuition that the information looks designed. In other words, the type of entity entailed by the assumption still demonstrates the falsity of the initial assumption that entailed the assumed existence of the entity. Even worse (under that scenario), the works of Shakespeare (for example) are not really designed either and despite looking that way. The information was never created by a mind due to it merely being borrowed from within a mind where that information existed but had never been brought into being.

In the absence of any other evidence and in a context where the possibility of information lacking an intelligent cause must be concluded, assuming that DNA could lack an intelligent cause is necessarily less of a leap than assuming that an omniscient mind could lack an intelligent cause because regardless of how complex the information in DNA is, it is still necessarily far less complex than that which must be assumed to exist in an omniscient mind. And the DNA having causes that lack intelligence means that (unlike God) there is potentially a causal explanation for why that information exists.

[Pater]

Poul said: “I’m trying to comprehend…”.

Can we agree that in the case of an MGB, it might be a given that the mind of God would necessarily be beyond the comprehension of any human?

So the things that apply to human thoughts, limits, etc. would not be applicable by definition.

So far everyone has avoided the question at hand. According to this paper, the ordering of nucleotides in RNA is significant. And unlikely. Paper after paper on the subject of abiogenesis says the same thing – the specified complexity of RNA seems to defy natural explanation.

This paper advocates a multiverse. If you believe the explanation of eternal information is puzzling, imagine an infinite universe (containing infinite everything) instead.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks ago by  Pater.

[Pater]

Talk about a coincidence…

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reasonable-faith-podcast/id252618197?i=1000652491891

podcasts.apple.com

‎Reasonable Faith Podcast: Fantasy of the Gaps on Apple Podcasts

‎Show Reasonable Faith Podcast, Ep Fantasy of the Gaps - Apr 15, 2024

[James]

Here is a video of the full debate between Wolpert and Craig: https://youtu.be/n2wh179kos0?si=H7Z4SoNFJyWHyNqr

In this podcast, Craig uses Wolpert’s “immaterial computer” as an example of a fantasy of the gaps. Does craig seriously think that Wolpert was offering this as a tenable explanation for universal origins? If he took this away from the exchange then I’m a little lost for words.

Wolpert’s objection is not terribly good (there are much better ways of objecting to Kalam) but his point (I think) is that when faced with a mystery (What caused the universe? What brought about physical life?), you cannot take something that you know is possible in the physical world and seems to require a physical structure like a brain (a computer, a mind) and just assume that such a thing is able to exist immaterially and cause universes in order to furnish an answer to the question.

Whilst I don’t think that Wolpert makes his point very well, I think it is fairly obvious that he wasn’t offering this as a serious alternative to God and his overall point is, “If we don’t know, we should simply admit that we don’t know”.

[James]

For the sake of argument, let’s concede that every attempt at a naturalist explanation for the existence of the universe and life fails completely. What does that leave us with? We still have no reliable evidence that a mind can exist sans a brain in the same way that we have no reliable evidence that a computer can exist immaterially and the theist is left with an argument from ignorance or the claim that the theistic explanation must be embraced simply because there is no other explanation. And that seems to be Wolpert’s point.

[Poul]

“Can we agree that in the case of an MGB, it might be a given that the mind of God would necessarily be beyond the comprehension of any human?“

You point to the information problem of abiogenesis and demand an explanation from the naturalists. I point to the absurdly bigger information problem of an eternally omniscient God, for which you refuse to offer any explanation, saying that it’s necessarily beyond the comprehension of any human. That is special pleading. Just because the naturalist has an information problem, doesn’t mean that we should give up on finding a naturalistic explanation and resort to supernatural explanations.

If I can show that an eternally omniscient God having an unlimited amount of information at his disposal is a logical impossibility (as I was arguing), I think it is the theist who has the bigger information problem. You may find that an infinite universe or multiverse is beyond comprehension, but so you admit is the mind of God. Which incomprehensible reality we should accept very much depends on where we are coming from.

[Pater]

Special pleading – “Special pleading is an informal fallacy wherein one cites something as an exception to a general or universal principle, without justifying the special exception.”

God is special by definition. By necessity, God is is not governed by anything other than His own nature. He is not a man, nor does He think like a man, again by definition. Man is a creation of His, not the other way around. As such, God is a justified exception to whatever we identify as properties of knowledge ontology. We don’t know the properties of God’s knowledge, but we can safely assume they aren’t the same as the properties of our knowledge.

The claim of naturalists is that EVERYTHING has a natural explanation. If that is the case, there should be a natural explanation for the intelligent code that forms the basis for all life on this planet. Many scientists are comfortable with an infinite universe, so many laymen follow suit, without considering what that means. Anything logically possible will manifest in an infinite multiverse an infinite number of times. An infinite number of earths and an infinite number of Joe Bidens and an infinite number of yourself, for example. Talk about an epistemic cost. So when you come down to breakfast and there’s an elephant sitting at your table, you can comfort yourself by saying, “well, it’s not the first time, or the last time.”

I guess this means no one wants to address the actual question at hand? Scientists repeatedly recognize in the literature that the complex specified ordering of RNA couldn’t have possibly occurred by chance in this universe. The inference by that recognition is a necessary cause, or an intelligent cause. No necessary cause is apparent either, at least so far. That leaves intelligent design as the most likely cause.

• This reply was modified 3 weeks ago by  Pater.

[Poul]

“God is special by definition. By necessity, God is is not governed by anything other than His own nature…“

“The claim of naturalists is that EVERYTHING has a natural explanation. If that is the case, there should be a natural explanation for the intelligent code that forms the basis for all life on this planet“

Whenever throughout history there were something that we did not understand, the first response has always been to say God did it. It’s the argument from ignorance that still gets put forward to satisfy those who prefer a non-explanation over having no natural explanation.

“Many scientists are comfortable with an infinite universe, so many laymen follow suit, without considering what that means.“

Maybe the universe is infinite, maybe it isn’t. Anyone is free to believe either hypothesis. There is no way of knowing which is the case, because we only have access to information that has had time to reach us since the visible part of the universe was born. And if the multiverse is reality, there will be universes we will never know about. I perfectly understand why you might be reluctant to accept the possibility of another you existing out there somewhere in this or another spacetime. We don’t know the probability, but it is not zero. Bottom line, I don’t see why you would (except on emotional grounds) reject the idea of the multiverse: If one is possible, why not two?

As to your RNA problem: Yes, the multiverse is definitely on the table, but there is one possibility that neither you nor your Nature article mentions, and that is aliens. It’s not one that I give a high probability, but nor is it one that we can rule out. It’s just an example that shows we ought to think out of the box. Whenever there is a mystery, it’s simply a sign that we haven’t yet spotted the explanation. It’s not a sign that we should fall back on the classic “God did it” idea.

[James]

God is special by definition. By necessity, God is is not governed by anything other than His own nature. He is not a man, nor does He think like a man, again by definition. Man is a creation of His, not the other way around.

We must assume that, at some point, complex information can lack an intelligent cause. Given that we must make this assumption, we are warranted in keeping this information as simple as possible (but not too simple) because the more complex something is, the less likely it is to occur in the absence of an intelligent cause. In addition, it should not be ruled out that the information lacking an intelligent cause possesses causes lacking intelligence (because there is at least then, a causal explanation for the existence of the information). Whether or not we can know what those causes are is another matter entirely and the only way that the simpler information could have causes lacking intelligence and a causal explanation for its existence, is if God did not create it.

Theism does not provide an explanation but merely pushes the problem back and creates an even bigger mystery. Under theism, we now have a set of even more complex information for which there is no causal explanation (and nothing to explain how the information got from there, into the DNA) and the things that allegedly look designed are merely physical manifestations of ideas that are not.

The claim of naturalists is that EVERYTHING has a natural explanation.

Naturalism is a form of monism and the logical opposite of Idealism. It proposes that there is but one substance and that the aspects of the world we can verify consist of this substance. Nothing about the assumption of this type of monism being true entails a belief that everything can be explained or known to us. Even under this type of worldview, it is still reasonable to think that there may be things beyond our ken (eg, because they fall too far outside human experience and the capacity of our cognitive faculties).

[Jabberwock]

God is special by definition. By necessity, God is is not governed by anything other than His own nature.

If the universe is all that exists, then it is also special by definition. (Of course, if there are multiple universes, then the multiverse ensemble is that special one thing). If the universe is all that exists, then it is also not governed by anything other than its own nature, again by definition.

Moreover, you cannot have it both ways: if God is incomprehensible, then you cannot tell that he is good, loving or in fact a mind at all, as these are all comprehensible terms. Not to mention that explaining things by appealing to something that cannot be comprehended is not an explanation at all.

[seán s. (nonbeliever)]

“God is special by definition.“

Only if he exists. Does god exist? What is the evidence? Little to none.

seán s.

[Pater]

James said – “In the absence of any other evidence…”.

But that’s not true. There is a lot of other evidence for the existence of God. In fact it’s ridiculous for anyone to suppose (as Dawkins does) that finding a self-replicating molecule is the only challenge. That’s the infinitesimal tip of a right good sized iceberg. Dozens of impossible challenges follow in just building a living cell.

For example – “During mitosis, a cell duplicates all of its contents, including its chromosomes, and splits to form two identical daughter cells.”

The question is, why does it do that? What triggered the first cell to duplicate itself and split apart into two, by accident? (Picture Capt James T Kirk shouting “I WANNA LIVE!!)

• This reply was modified 3 weeks ago by  Pater.
• This reply was modified 3 weeks ago by  Pater.

[Poul]

“There is a lot of other evidence for the existence of God“

But for some odd reason, it rarely appeals to those who are not taught from childhood to accept such evidence. I wonder why.

“The question is, why does it do that? What triggered the first cell to duplicate itself and split apart into two, by accident?“.

I asked perplexity.ai to explain “origin of mitosis” and got this answer.

perplexity.ai

Just a moment...

Just a moment...

[Pater]

Poul said: “But for some odd reason, it rarely appeals to those who are not taught from childhood to accept such evidence. I wonder why.”

I understand what you are saying, but this blanket statement is just false.

[James]

James said – “In the absence of any other evidence…”.

But that’s not true. There is a lot of other evidence for the existence of God.

You have taken my comment out of context. I meant, in the absence of verifiable evidence regarding how life started, these are the only options we have in relation to this particular issue. And our not currently knowing or being able to find what the natural process was, does not entail that there wasn’t a natural process.

[Pater]

I still disagree. When one is calculating the value of evidence for a particular cause, one has three choices. Couldnt have been, might have been, and must have been. I agree with Poul that “aliens” can’t be ruled out (out of hand) with regard to a first cause for life on earth. But that doesn’t explain where the aliens came from, and just kicks the can to a different context. The aliens explanation lands in the might-have-been category.

The RNA world theory relies on a high number of apparently very highly unlikely assumptions about RNA that have never been demonstrated, but rather have been soundly repeatedly defeated in actual experience. RNA doesn’t form long polymer chains without help. It disintegrates in a very short time without help. The nucleotides themselves don’t form without a lot of help, and so on.

Ruling out a particular cause because it couldn’t-have-been, reduces the available explanations, increasing the likelihood that the remaining available explanation is true. And as I said, spontaneous formation of RNA has little actual evidence that it should stay in the could-have-been category. In this case, the positive evidence of intelligent information, which can’t be naturally explained, makes a strong case for a designer.

[James]

I still disagree. When one is calculating the value of evidence for a particular cause, one has three choices. Couldnt have been, might have been, and must have been. I agree with Poul that “aliens” can’t be ruled out (out of hand) with regard to a first cause for life on earth.

Right, and that is sufficient for there to be a significant problem. Evidence of a supernatural cause would force us to rule out an off-world physical cause and that is something we cannot do. Our inability to rule out an off-world natural cause is evidence that we lack evidence of a supernatural cause for life on earth. And what would evidence of a supernatural cause even look like?

But that doesn’t explain where the aliens came from, and just kicks the can to a different context.

And pointing out that life had an intelligent, immaterial cause doesn’t explain where the immaterial being came from … and so on. Fundamentally, under theism, life exists for no reason and without a cause. It has simply been there from all eternity and for no reason. It is an uncaused property that happens to have been shared with us finite beings. The only way that life can have an explanation for its existence is if it is the result of a non-living process.

Ruling out an attempted naturalistic explanation only brings us back to not knowing. We still need an evidential basis for ruling out an unknown (or even, unknowable) natural cause.

[Pater]

Most accept the logical entailment of an uncaused cause, however one envisions it. There comes a point that avoids an infinite regress. We say that the evidence points to an intelligent uncaused cause.

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 6 days ago by  Pater.

[James]

I haven’t ruled out an uncaused cause at any point. In fact, that’s an entirely different consideration. I’m simply pointing out that the only way life (and complex information) could fundamentally have a causal explanation for its existence is if that uncaused cause is lacking in those features and those features appeared later, as the result of a causal process.

[Pater]

Huh? Kindly explain your reasoning?

[Mammal]

I point you to what Fred posted in the other thread where you first cited this paper: https://knowwhyyoubelieve.org/groups/reasonable-faith-forum/forum/topic/the-apologetics-problem/#post-68261

I agree with him. This paper is not trying to sell a multiverse, or to argue that a RNA first world is impossible – as you have claimed.

It simply acknowledges that there is that possibility, and it attempts to calculate a statistical probability of that occurring elsewhere in our observable universe if it happened here on Earth, and then extends that statistical probability to a multiverse. That is really all it does.

Main take-away – it might have happened on Earth. Which is supported by recent work in the field of abiogenesis.

knowwhyyoubelieve.org

The Apologetics Problem - Reasonable Faith Forum - Equip

The Apologetics Problem - Reasonable Faith Forum - Equip

[Mammal]

And about this in the OP:

“So far everyone has avoided the question at hand. According to this paper, the ordering of nucleotides in RNA is significant. And unlikely. Paper after paper on the subject of abiogenesis says the same thing – the specified complexity of RNA seems to defy natural explanation.”

This is simply not true. There are explanations, I cited a so-called engineer’s perspective of how the information (etc) originated in that other thread. It was based on the current abiogenesis paradigm, even though it used engineering terminology when referring to some of the natural processes. Point is that the so-called complex information was nothing more than a copied version of the fundamental properties of the chemical composition of- and naturally selected manner in which the subsequent DNA and cell was succesfully replicated, protein functioning and all.

[Mammal]

In support of my last post, published in 2023:

“The basic idea of the RNA world as an early step towards life relies on a molecular evolution process based on self-replicating RNA strands. It is probably the oldest and most convincing model for efficient prebiotic evolution. Obviously, the functionality of RNA sequences depends on order (i.e., the definition of their sequence) as well as on complexity (i.e., the length of their sequence). Order and complexity seem to be crucial parameters in the course of RNA evolution. In the following, an attempt is made to define these parameters and to identify characteristic mechanisms of their development. Using a general RNA world scenario including the free monomer units, the sequential order is defined based on statistical thermodynamics. The complexity, on the other hand, is determined by the size of a minimal algorithm fully describing the system. Under these conditions, a diagonal line in an order/complexity-diagram represents the progress of molecular evolution. Elementary steps such as repeated random polymerization and selection follow characteristic pathways and finally add up to a state of high system functionality. Furthermore, the model yields a thermodynamic perspective on molecular evolution, as the development of a defined polymer sequence has a distinct influence on the entropy of the overall system”…

[Detail]

…”Based on the idea of an RNA world, the concept of order and complexity proves to be a versatile and powerful approach to evaluate the efficiency of general evolution processes. It defines a general criterion for any development in any system that presumably is capable to form functional prebiotic chemistry and to transform into early forms of life. Beyond the application shown here, and with minor additions, it easily accounts for special features such as multilayer and membrane environments, micelle and vesicle formation, intermolecular arrangements, compartment formation, surface interactions, temperature and pressure gradients. Further, it is suitable as a very general tool to identify life or any early stages of its development and yields a thermodynamic understanding for its various states of order.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10052177/

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Order and Complexity in the RNA World

The basic idea of the RNA world as an early step towards life relies on a molecular evolution process based on self-replicating RNA strands. It is probably the oldest and most convincing model for efficient prebiotic evolution. Obviously, the functionality … Continue reading

[Pater]

Mammal said:

“And about this in the OP:

“So far everyone has avoided the question at hand. According to this paper, the ordering of nucleotides in RNA is significant. And unlikely. Paper after paper on the subject of abiogenesis says the same thing – the specified complexity of RNA seems to defy natural explanation.”

This is simply not true. There are explanations, I cited a so-called engineer’s perspective of how the information (etc) originated in that other thread. It was based on the current abiogenesis paradigm, even though it used engineering terminology when referring to some of the natural processes. Point is that the so-called complex information was nothing more than a copied version of the fundamental properties of the chemical composition of- and naturally selected manner in which the subsequent DNA and cell was succesfully replicated, protein functioning and all.”

That wasn’t in the OP. New thread, new start. I was referring to the fact that the discussion up to that point in this thread had so far avoided the questions in the OP.

The last part sounds like you’re making a case for necessary formation? It’s a nice fantasy for naturalists. Never been observed, no matter how carefully we design our experiments.

[Mammal]

I did not say that. I said the information is nothing more than the information of its evolved parts, as the paper I cited explains.

[Pater]

Mammal said – “I point you to what Fred posted in the other thread where you first cited this paper: https://knowwhyyoubelieve.org/groups/reasonable-faith-forum/forum/topic/the-apologetics-problem/#post-68261

I agree with him. This paper is not trying to sell a multiverse, or to argue that a RNA first world is impossible – as you have claimed.

It simply acknowledges that there is that possibility, and it attempts to calculate a statistical probability of that occurring elsewhere in our observable universe if it happened here on Earth, and then extends that statistical probability to a multiverse. That is really all it does.

Main take-away – it might have happened on Earth. Which is supported by recent work in the field of abiogenesis.”

It seems we are not reading the same paper. Main points:

1. Abiogenesis by RNA world process happened once on this earth. We are here. But it would never happen again, and if we encounter other life in this universe, we should assume a different origin process.

2. RNA world abiogenesis is statistically impossible in the absence of an inflationary multiverse.

3. The reason for this statistical impossibility is the ordering of the monomers into an intelligent code. The paper doesnt address the physical or chemical impossibilities of auto polymerization in the first place.

[Mammal]

Please point to the part where the paper claims that it is impossible for it to occur in this universe (in the absence of a multiverse).

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 6 days ago by  Mammal.

[James]

Theism suggests that it is ridiculous to think that the information in DNA could lack an intelligent cause because it is just so complex but then asks us to assume that not only could a set of much more complex information (unimaginably more complex than that found in DNA) exist in the absence of an intelligent cause but also doesn’t require any causal explanation at all. Because the information has existed from all eternity, there was no point in the past when the mind in which it is contained, caused that information to come into being.

[Pater]

It’s not just “complex”. It’s specified intelligent information. You are still avoiding the question.

[James]

I’m not avoiding it at all. The information in the mind of an omniscient being is specified (it isn’t random) and complex by definition. If is was simple, it wouldn’t be incomprehensible. If it was non-specific, it would be random.

[Pater]

Jabberwock said: “If the universe is all that exists, then it is also special by definition. (Of course, if there are multiple universes, then the multiverse ensemble is that special one thing). If the universe is all that exists, then it is also not governed by anything other than its own nature, again by definition.”

I’m not sure what your point is. Mine was about special pleading claims.

“Moreover, you cannot have it both ways: if God is incomprehensible, then you cannot tell that he is good, loving or in fact a mind at all, as these are all comprehensible terms. Not to mention that explaining things by appealing to something that cannot be comprehended is not an explanation at all.”

One can safely describe property attributes of an MGB without knowing precisely all property attributes of an MGB. James might identify these as modal scope fallacies.

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 6 days ago by  Pater.

[James]

<gentle-sarcasm>The incomprehensible specified complexity of the mind of the immaterial being who created this universe is still much less complex than the incomprehensible specified complexity of the mind of the omniscient being who is their creator. And that’s true because, unlike the alternative, it explains the existence of the incomprehensible and specific complexity of the mind of the immaterial being who created the universe, the existence of specified complexity demands an intelligent cause and nobody can prove it’s not true.</gentle-sarcasm>

[Pater]

We are talking about the intelligent information in RNA on naturalism. That’s the question you are avoiding. Imagine I’m not advocating any position. What is the natural explanation?

[James]

I’m not avoiding it. I’m not a biologist and I don’t know how it happened. You’re not a biologist and you don’t know how it happened either. If you did know, you would know whether or not it was aliens. Biologists look for clues and are hunting for a verifiable process in the hopes of finding a verifiable explanation but they don’t currently know either. None of those facts entails that theism must be assumed true. However and fundamentally, the only way that information could have a causal explanation for its existence is if the causes (especially, any uncaused causes) were not in possession of any timeless and eternal versions of that information.

The comment above simply points out that even if something like God exists, the assumption that specific and complex information must have an intelligent cause must be mistaken in some way, we shouldn’t just accept a claim because it explains the existence of something that another position doesn’t and because it cannot be disproved.

[Pater]

“However and fundamentally, the only way that information could have a causal explanation for its existence is if the causes were not in possession of that information.”

This seems incoherent.

[James]

I have reworded it slightly in edit because the comment wasn’t complete, but it isn’t incoherent. At bottom, the only way that there could be a causal explanation for the existence of the information is if the information doesn’t exist in an eternal and timeless form.

[Pater]

Umm yeah I see what you’re saying. But it seems to me that we are identifying an implementation of intelligent information in a concrete form. That would require ann intelligent cause. Again, the form and cause of the ontological existence of information would be a different discussion.

[James]

Worth a watch. Jon Perry explains how language can emerge via coevolution.

(2178) The Argument from Genetic Code (DNA) DEBUNKED | John Lennox & Ken Ham – YouTube

Skip to 11.38 if you would like to focus on Jon Perry’s explanation (this is more important that Stephen’s intro).

[Pater]

Sorry I disagree. Wasn’t worth a watch. If thats the state of affairs for “debunking” ID, we have nothing to worry about.

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 3 days ago by  Pater.