Replies

Re: "All the physical laws that account for matter, it's bonding and other energy exchanges are sufficient to know and understand the assemblies and configurations that are identified as life."

"Au contraire, mon ami. They cannot be identified as "life," only as the necessary preconditions of life."

Life is a configuration of energy. Those configurations exist according to the physics and give rise to all and every instance of life in this world.

"See Chaitin, Yockey, Grandpierre et al. Not to mention Williams."

"On this basis, Chaitin has pointed out that the complexity we observe in living systems cannot be accounted for on the basis of the chemical and physical laws alone, owing to the paucity of their information content."

Obviously the complexity of his simple scratch pad program did not model life. Evolutionary algorithms can be used to do so, and generate info as they progress.

"The single most telling point that Williams’ model makes is that information is vital to the living state; that it flows “downward” from the “top” of his model — Level (v), meta-information — and not from the “bottom” of the model flowing “upwards” by the incremental means characterizing Levels (i) and (ii) — not to mention orthodox Darwinist expectation.

As I pointed out, Williams model doesn't represent reality. There's no real distinction between levels 1&2, and the levels above are built upon the simple physics contained in 1&2. All that's needed is to analyze the interactions of the components of the appropriate complex configurations. That's done in medicine for instance, to know and understand human life and to provide for intelligent and deliberate curative, or corrective affects.

Also, Williams idea that info proceeds down is never seen in reality. Biological development,and evolutionary progression are observed to progress from the simple to the complex, never the other way around. That's because, the info contained in the fundamental physics is all that's needed to result in the physical configurations recognized, known and understood as life. There's no life form, or part of, that can be shown to be irreducibly complex. The contrary is true, indicating the info arrow goes up, not down as with IC(omplexity).

[[Evolutionary algorithms can be used to do so, and generate info as they progress.]]

mmm not so much- at least NOT without intelligent intervention acting as a species metainfo- You should know htis if you’ve objectively investigated computer algorithms that assert they are standins for naturalism- Computer programs have been exposed as intelligent manipulation time and time again.

[[As I pointed out, Williams model doesn’t represent reality. There’s no real distinction between levels 1&2,]]

and htere has to be a clear distinction why again? When chemicals give birth to acids, there really is no real discernable difference in the info, and so a large gap that you apparently think must exist, wouldn’t be seen- it’s not until we start itnroducing lower levels of biological info that things start to really take off differences wise.

[[and the levels above are built upon the simple physics contained in 1&2.]]

Yup- they do CONTIAN the basics, however, they also contain somethign the basics coudl never provide, the info necessary for the foundations of life, but htey still are not life until level V when all the self sustaining info is present and accoutned for- up to that point, the examples had to be artifically kept alive by soem unknown outside force of metainfo system which understood al the mechanics of these lower levels, and knew how to sustain the examples by controlling small changes that affect the hwole system- it needed forward looking life support that somehow managed to anticipate changes

Wil lrespond more later.

[[All that’s needed is to analyze the interactions of the components of the appropriate complex configurations.]]

And do what with htese complex configurations? Design computer programs that manipulate that intelligently designed info that is already available to them? Guess what? There’s an intelligent metainfo system already inplace that analyses those reactions and can thus manipulate those reactions and hte resulting info in order to maintain fitness of hte species. All those scientists you point to do is mimic this system of annalyzing, by creating designer drugs that mimic hte lower levels of info and reactions- levels that lie below the metainfo. They are playing hte part of metainfo- analyxing and understandign htose reactions in order to intelligently design info they can add to the system without negatively affectign the fitness (of course they get htis wrong a lot, and negative effects do occure, to which they haven’t got answers- but htey do try to mimic metainfo at least)

[[Also, Williams idea that info proceeds down is never seen in reality.]]

Sure it is- info degrades- however, this isn’t hte point- info doesn’t increase without intellgient direction, and the metainfo in species is absolutely needed BEFORE change in info can occure- ruling out an upward stepwise process of evolution of info

[[Biological development,and evolutionary progression are observed to progress from the simple to the complex,]]

The complexity you are appealing to is a FAR far simpler complexity than metainfo- change introduces minor complexity changes- but guess what? These changes NEED to be cotnrolled, once again, by higher completed metainfo, otherwise, these changes are nothign but chaos and owuld muck the whole system up- Change isn’t some neat little process that ONLY affects one tiny aspect of a cell, and can be ignored by the rest of the billions of systems and subsystems. Change affects many aspects of life’s systems, and htere NEEDS to be a conductor conducting hte whole orchestra, or else everythign goes haywire- just as it woudl if you introduced change into an orchestra’s symphony spontaniously- one small seemingly insignificant change affects the whole.

[[That’s because, the info contained in the fundamental physics is all that’s needed to result in the physical configurations recognized, known and understood as life.]]

Time for poker game- but briefly, Swell- you’ve described life AFTER all the necessary elements and systems and infromation are present- You’ve not shown how all this necessary stuff arosde naturalistically- you’ve just come in after the party is over and claimed credit for what others did.

[[There’s no life form, or part of, that can be shown to be irreducibly complex.]]

Sure htere is, you’re simply denying IC exists without showing how IC can arise- you’re just making unsupported claims that fly in hte face of the evidnece presented here and in william’s paper.

[[The contrary is true, indicating the info arrow goes up, not down as with IC(omplexity).]]

Pretty broad claim- mind showing us how the controlling metainfo can arise from chemical arangements? Or from any step in hte 5 steps needed for life? (Well, I shoudl say any of the first 4- the 5’th is life compelted)