Thanks for the ping on this fascinating topic, sister in Christ!
For it seems to me Intelligence must be prior to information. IOW, information itself must have a cause, just as Light must have a cause.
***I look at it as a building project that God generated. Just as an architect would have the information for a building in his head in terms of how many walls, how many electrical outlets, how many exits, how many windows, etc. He puts that information down and then the builders build to it. From the perspective of an observer, the activity proceeds according to a plan. But that observer would never see the plan, only the outcome of it. The information existed before this little mini-universe ever got started.
In a similar fashion, the Master Architect spoke the heavens into place according to His plan. He knew from the beginning that spiral galaxies needed to spin a certain way and that it would baffle modern scientists so much that they would need to postulate the existence of dark matter. The INFORMation of the galaxy existed before those galaxies ever began to spin. The information is an aspect of creation that is outside of TIME. Some information is independent of time.
On a separate note, it’s interesting to see you and Alamo Girl on a topic such as this. I have such high doubts that ‘aliens’ were involved that I consider it an impossibility. This is basic cold war military oneupmanship. The US had some secret capability, tested it first on our own nuke sites and then tested it on Soviet sites. They used an alien back story to frustrate any real investigation.
Such a theory obeys Ockham’s Razor, especially contrasted to the gigantic hurdles that interstellar travel presents, and that such a civilization would even find us remotely interesting — talk about an inflated self view!
1- Mounting evidence indicates there are interstellar visitors; some of the visitors may not be interstellar (see Tom van Flandern's exploding planet hypothesis)2- Since humankind do not have the 'final set of equations' incorporating a better understanding of Time, and our attained level of Physics understanding and application may yet be rather primitive to a civilization whose technology is a couple of thousand years ahead of our own, it is an oblique assertion to claim there are hurdles for interstellar travel to such more advanced beings; at our present publicly held level of Physics conceptualization the hurdles for us are insurmountable ... for now.
Wonderful insights, dear Kevmo!
Here we are again, back to that puzzling crittur, TIME. It has been suggested that TIME as experienced by human beings — that is, irreversible, linear time inexorably moving from past to present to future — is merely a sort of convention that we humans use to order events that take place in our experience. It has subjective reality for us; but (arguably) has questionable objective reality.
Upon further reflection, it should be obvious that a "plan" which orders "events" does not and cannot "sit" on the same timeline as the "events." Or as you note, the "observer would never see the plan, only the outcome of it."
The way I imagine this problem is to view the linear conventional time of human experience as a horizontal line; the "plan" resides on a vertical time-like extension that supervenes WRT events on the horizontal.
And the same is true a fortiori with respect to universal laws. Or as you say, "Some information is independent of time," and thus can never be directly observable. Entities (for lack of a better word) along the vertical time-like extension are only known and knowable by their effects — which we can directly observe.
I suggested in an earlier post that C — the speed of light — is a time-dependent measure associated with the "horizontal" timeline. Yet Alamo-Girl has noted that photons "travel" along a null path — which is to say they do not "travel" at all. So how can they really have speed, velocity?
And you observed that "C" pops up in a vast number of mathematical equations describing the laws of universe (which to my way of thinking — right or wrong — disport themselves along the vertical time-like extension whose "entities" we never directly observe.
'Tis quite a conundrum!!! HELP!!!
Regarding "aliens" having anything to do with the creation/evolution of our little "mini-universe" and the lifeforms within it, I totally agree with your statement: "I have such high doubts that ‘aliens’ were involved that I consider it an impossibility." Indeed. So much for "panspermia theory," which I regard as just nuts (on Occam's Razor grounds). This theory begs the question of the origin of the space aliens — so where does it really get you???
But then such folks as propose such patent nonsense are the sort that will propose ANY theory, just as long as it obviates the need of a Creator God — in their own imagination. They would turn themselves into pretzels if their "theory" needed it.
It's just NUTZ, or — not to put too fine a point on it — psychotic.
Thank you, dear Kevmo, for your enormously thought-provokative essay/post!