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VC,

When you touch something warm, do you then have "warmth" going through your nerves to your brain?

Of course not, you have a neural representation of warmth.

And does anyone actually believe this neural representation can be isolated and "warmth" be measured from it??

Of course not, it is a context-specific representation that must be recognized and interpreted (at the sensory cortex) just like any other representation.
 
Biosemiosis org said:
VC, tell me a symbol system that is not material/chemical/follows inexorable law.

Name one.
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Again you are trying to blur the line here, I never said symbols weren't chemicals printed or made out of chemicals, just about everything is chemical.

you are trying to say dna is a language/symbol, I am saying its not, its a chemical molecules that are part of a self replicating chemical process, based on physical chemical reactions, its not like words in a book that are written by one person and read by another

Biosemiosis org said:
VC,

When you touch something warm, do you then have "warmth" going through your nerves to your brain?

Of course not, you have a neural representation of warmth.

And does anyone actually believe this neural representation can be isolated and "warmth" be measured from it??

Of course not, it is a representation that must be recognized and interpreted (at the sensory cortex) just like any other representation.
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that has nothing to do with dna chemicals, again you are trying to blur the issue.
 
Again you are trying to blur the line here
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NO…I’m not. I’m trying to get you to understand the fundamental fact that ALL information acts under the same inexorable physical laws. You do not get a special exception for DNA.

DNA, as a medium of information, has to be translated under the same inexorable physical laws as any other medium of information.

The method of that translation is settled science, it is not even controversial.

You are (probably unknowingly) DENYING physical reality, and I am trying to draw your attention to that fact.
 
If you want to vent your spleen against religion... well then knock yourself out .... BUT you do not get to deny reality and then pretend that your rant against religion is powered by physical evidence, because that is an out and out lie.
 
Biosemiosis org said:
NO…I’m not. I’m trying to get you to understand the fundamental fact that ALL information acts under the same inexorable physical laws. You do not get a special exception for DNA.

DNA, as a medium of information, has to be translated under the same inexorable physical laws as any other medium of information.

The method of that translation is settled science, it is not even controversial.

You are (probably unknowingly) DENYING physical reality, and I am trying to draw your attention to that fact.
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I think its pretty clear to everyone here that you are just trying to twist things to inject your "intelligent design" rubbish.

It might work on people like tink and your church group that are really looking for anything that justifies their belief, but the thin veil of "science speak" and silly analogies won't work on most here.

I don't really get anything stimulating out of the discussion with you, so don't mind me if I end up ignoring your posts


Biosemiosis org said:
If you want to vent your spleen against religion... well then knock yourself out .... BUT you do not get to deny reality and then pretend that your rant against religion is powered by physical evidence, because that is an out and out lie.
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I didn't think you were talking about religion, HAHAHA

I guess you slipped up there, turns out you might have shown your hand, and the real reason you care about intelligent design is because you have a religious agenda.
 
VC,

When you see a sign painted in red with the pattern “STOP” on it, do you think that this paint and those shapes chemically represents “Apply your brakes”?

Of course not. It has to be interpreted in a system.

When an ant passes an ALERT pheromone to the other ants causing them to defend their mound, do you think that the pheromone chemically represents “SAVE THE QUEEN!”?

Of course not. It has to be interpreted in a system.

When you push the “A” key on a keyboard and the letter “A” appears on your screen, do you think the electromagnetic pulse coming from the keyboard physically represents the letter “A”?

Of course not. It has to be interpreted in a system.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You just want to think otherwise of DNA.

But, CTA does not represent leucine and GAC does not represent aspartic acid.

They must be interpreted in a system.

The manner of that system is entirely understood. Its not even controversial.

You just deny it.
 
I think its pretty clear to everyone here that you are just trying to twist things to inject your "intelligent design" rubbish.
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And there it is. Abject denial of physical reality. Not even gonna give it a thought.

Nice job science man.
 
VC,

Every instance of translated information ever known to exist requires one arrangement of matter to act as a representational medium, and a second arrangement of matter to establish what is being represented. And the system of interpretation (the system doing the translation) must be organized in a way to preserve the natural discontinuity between the representation and its effect.

This is foundational knowledge in an age of information. It is a physical reality. You doing your damndest to insult me is not going to make it go away
 
I think its pretty clear to everyone here that you are just trying to twist things to inject your "intelligent design" rubbish. It might work on people like tink and your church group that are really looking for anything that justifies their belief, but the thin veil of "science speak" and silly analogies won't work on most here.
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“Mechanisms, whether man-made or morphological, are boundary conditions harnessing the laws of inanimate nature, being themselves irreducible to those laws. The pattern of organic bases in DNA which functions as a genetic code is a boundary condition irreducible to physics and chemistry.”

Hungarian-British Polymath, Michael Polanyi


“A new scientific truth is usually not propagated in such a way that the opponents become convinced and discard their previous views. No, the adversaries eventually die off, and the upcoming generation is familiarised anew with the truth"

Nobel Laureate, Max Planck, Founder of Quantum Physics


"...we desire the best available scientific status report on the origin of life. We shall see that adherents of the best known theory have not responded to increasing adverse evidence by questioning the validity of their beliefs, in the best scientific tradition; rather, they have chosen to hold it as a truth beyond question, thereby enshrining it as mythology."

Robert Shapiro, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, New York University


“The existence of a genome and the genetic code divides the living organisms from nonliving matter. There is nothing in the physico-chemical world that remotely resembles reactions being determined by a sequence and codes between sequences."

Hubert Yockey, "Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life" (Cambridge University Press)


“Semiosis not only is a fact of life, but is the fact that allowed life to emerge from inanimate matter"

Marciello Barbieri, Dept of Morphology and Embryology, University of Ferrarra


"The basic unit of life is the sign, not the molecule"

Professor Emeritus Jesper Hoffmeyer, Institute of Biology, University of Copenhagen


“Life is matter controlled by symbols"

Professor Emeritus of Physics, Howard Pattee, New York State University
 
Biosemiosis org said:
VC,

When you see a sign painted in red with the pattern “STOP” on it, do you think that this paint and those shapes chemically represents “Apply your brakes”?

Of course not. It has to be interpreted in a system.

.
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exactly, a stop sign is an example of a true symbol. It was written by an intelligent being to communicate something to another intelligent being, that's not how dna works. the chemicals in the dna are doing what they do because of chemical reactions, not because they are symbols being read.

When an ant passes an ALERT pheromone to the other ants causing them to defend their mound, do you think that the pheromone chemically represents “SAVE THE QUEEN!”?
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pheromone means that to the ants, but the pheromone would also have chemical properties that would cause it to react to different chemicals in different situations, these reactions are not a language, how dna works is more like the chemical reaction not the ant pheromone.

You just want to think otherwise of DNA.



They must be interpreted in a system.

The manner of that system is entirely understood. Its not even controversial.

You just deny it
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This video touches on the subject.

 
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Biosemiosis org said:
A lifelong atheist (not that it matters), a physicist, a professor emeritus, a thoughtful intellect -- a man who studies symbol systems for 50 years, becoming a most-revered expert on the subject, writes dozens of papers telling you that you are just completely and utterly wrong wrong wrong, and you refuse to even consider it. You do so because it doesn't fit well with your metaphysics, and for no other reason.

Man of science and reason.....yeah sure. :)
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You must be loving the opportunity to have someone with a similar steel trap opinion argue the toss with you.

As Thatcher said "You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.", to which I would append a further caveat that sometimes it takes both sides to modify their intransigence ... which is good for me because I don't takes sides ... :D
 
exactly, a stop sign is an example of a true symbol.
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A stop sign is a representation, but it is not a representation because of any physical property of the material it’s made of.

This is to say, the physical properties of the medium do not determine what its effect will be. That effect is determined separately within the system itself.

But the system only works because it preserves the natural discontinuity (the physical arbitrariness) between the arrangement of the medium and the determination of its effect. This is what makes it a “true symbol”, as you say.

It is the product of a specific type of organization, and that organization is understood and documented by the people who study such things.

This is what I was talking about when I said that the translation of information requires two arrangements of matter. One arrangement to serve as a representational medium and another arrangement to establish what is being represented.

And this is exactly the type of system found inside the cell. It the physical means that allows nucleic representations to have amino acid effects, thereby making it possible to organize the cell.

But the system in DNA is required to also be transcribable between mediums, and have enough informational capacity to describe itself into memory; otherwise you could not start the cycle of life.

This is accomplished inside the cell by a combination of two things: using a finite set of spatially-oriented representations (where the pattern of the nucleic acids in each codon distinguishes one representation from another) and by implementing a reading-frame code.

Crick demonstrated the reading frame code, and Nirenberg demonstrated the representations. Crick also predicted the adapters between nucleotides and amino acids, then Hoagland and Zamecnik not only confirmed his adapter hypothesis, but also found the proteins that allow the system to preserve the discontinuity that it requires for it to function. Those proteins are called aminoacyl-tRNA tranferases (aaRS).

All of this is documented in the literature, and not an ounce of it is even controversial. Moreover, this specific physical system is something that a physicist can uniquely identify among all other physical systems. It is a simple matter of fact that this specific type of semiotic system can be identified in only two other instances anywhere in the cosmos. That is in the use of recorded language and mathematics -- two unambiguous correlates of intelligence.

This is an objective empirical fact. Denying this fact will not make it go away. Being derogatory is in equally bad taste.
 
VC,

By the way, since you see DNA translation as nothing but chemistry, you may be wondering how is it possible for the nucleic acids in DNA to not physically determine which amino acids are being added to the proteins being built, after all, that’s the whole point -- the cell reads the DNA in order to know how to build itself, right?

I explained this on the front page of Biosemiosis.org. The system separates the establishment of the code from the reading of the DNA.

The Basics

In all living things, proteins are the workhorses inside the cell. They build structures, regulate processes, transport materials, and take part in virtually every function of cellular life. Well over 100,000 different types of proteins have been found in the living kingdom, and each of them is created by using just 20 different types of amino acids arranged as building blocks in a particular order. Changing the order of the amino acids changes the type of protein being created, and while an average protein might be made up of 200-400 amino acids, others have thousands. Living cells know how to arrange the order of these amino acids by reading the information encoded in their DNA.

In order to encode this information, four different types of nucleic acids (adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine – A,T,G,C) are used to form individual representations called “codons”. A codon can be thought of as a "code word" inside the cell. Each of these code words is made up of three nucleic acids (triplets) which are read together as a single representation. For instance, the triplet TAC is translated by the cell to add an amino acid called tyrosine to a new protein being created. CTA means add leucine, GTC means add valine, CCG means add proline, GAC means add aspartic acid, and so on. This is how the cell builds every protein in the living world - it uses a code.

The Input of Information

When the cell manufactures a new protein, it starts the process by locating the correct segment of its DNA for building that particular protein. The sequence of codons in that segment are then copied into a secondary mobile medium called "messenger" RNA (mRNA). When the information is copied into RNA, the nucleic acid thymine is substituted with another nucleic acid called uracil, but the pattern of the codons remains the same. This RNA copy is then matured and transported to the site of protein assembly, which is a molecular structure called a ribosome. Upon entering the ribosome, the sequence of codons in the messenger RNA are used to arrange the order of another set of RNA molecules called "transfer" RNA. These tRNA carry with them the individual amino acids that will be used to build the protein.

In short, the information in DNA is first copied into mRNA, and the mRNA is then used to order tRNA (with their amino acids in tow) in the same sequence as it existed in the original DNA. After all the amino acids are bound together in the right sequence, the chain of amino acids is then folded up into the protein that the cell needs to survive.

The Point of Translation

The input of information into the ribosome results in amino acids being attached together in a sequence prescribed by the DNA. Each critical step in this process is controlled by purely mechanical (deterministic) forces. However, in order for the genetic system to translate the form of a protein through the medium of nucleotides, the system cannot rely on deterministic forces alone to achieve that result.

To achieve translation, a set of arbitrary relationships must be established in the operation of the system, and these relationships can only exist if the various codons are mapped to their amino acids while the discontinuity (i.e. the arbitrariness) between them is preserved. This requires the system to be organized in a specific way to bring those relationships into being. Inside the cell, this organization is accomplished by isolating the establishment of the code from the translation of the codons.

In the genetic translation system, the relationships that make up the genetic code are established by a very special set of twenty complex proteins called aminoacyl tRNA synthetase (aaRS). The aaRS are the physical protocols in the genetic translation system. It is their job to load the correct amino acids to each of the tRNAs, and they accomplish this task prior to the tRNA ever entering the ribosome. Therefore the establishment of the genetic code is both spatially and temporally isolated from the remaining translation process. One process (the input of form) is functionally coordinated with the other process (the establishment of an effect) yet the two processes remain independent. The contingent organization of the system thereby establishes the genetic code while maintaining the discontinuity that is vital to its function.

Summary

A living cell is a heterogeneous system. It requires discrete parts in order to function, and reproduces itself by means of prescriptive synthesis. This process requires the translation of an informational medium. The minimum requirements for the origin of the system are therefore established by what is physically necessary to record and translate the amount of information that the system needs to successfully describe itself into memory.

A physical analysis of the system makes explicit what those requirements are.

The necessary material conditions of genetic translation are found to be exclusively identifiable among all other physical systems. They can be identified nowhere else in the physical world except in recorded language and mathematics – two universal correlates of intelligence.

Watch a Video of the Process (2.5 min)
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This is not someone trying to trick you. This is how the system actually functions. It is not “just chemistry” as you suppose. It is organization. The organization of the system has to occur for the information to even exist. And a description of the system has to be encoded in the very information that it makes possible. Or else, no information, no translation, no cell, and no life.
 
I know you want me to just go away so that you can go back to practicing your scientific bigotry unabated by physical evidence.

You have your wish.
 
Sadly, this is what has become of this world, where truth and reality are being silenced, even in the scientific world.

While the West sleeps.......

Thank you for your input, Biosemiosis
 
Biosemiosis org said:
VC,

By the way, since you see DNA translation as nothing but chemistry, you may be wondering how is it possible for the nucleic acids in DNA to not physically determine which amino acids are being added to the proteins being built, after all, that’s the whole point -- the cell reads the DNA in order to know how to build itself, right?

.
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the combination of nucleic acids does determine the protein added, via the RNA.

This is all just complex chemistry, that's built up over time, from simpler replicators.

I know ID guys like you love to latch onto words like "Information", "instructions", "messengers" and "reading", and then make unfounded claims that it must be a designed etc, but its not like that, those words are being used as descriptive metaphors to try and easily explain the process, its not actually being read and interpreted, its all chemical reactions and processes, the nucleotides bond with their matching partner because that's how the physics involved works its based on the chemical properties of those parts.




Any one actually interested in finding out how DNA works, here is a video.




But yeah, I know a guy like you will see his god every where, the only reason you are pushing the dna thing is because it confuses laymen like tink, so they will just take you word for it because it goes along with their pre existing ideas, and you can no longer get away with all the other arguments of irreducible complexity you used to make.

Anyway though, I find this conversion mind numbing, so as I said , dont be offended if I ignore your future phony logic.

If your claims were true you wouldn't be hear trying to convince us, you would be changing mainstream science.
 
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Biosemiosis,

Are you asserting that DNA contains messages from God ?

(Yes or no please).

If so , what do you think these messages say ?
 
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