Biology in the Information age; an informed approach to Origins

I've been reading 'The signature in the cell' and want to offer a couple comments on the subject of information.

Quotes and comments;

A. "What evolutionists need to do (and what Darwin failed to even attempt) is to account for the existence of information; not the origin of species or the origin of 'life' but the origin of specified complexity. Nothing less than this will do." [1.]

- No one talked of information in Darwin's day. How then could he have formulated a theory of biology that could have been accurate? i.e. how can you fail to recognize the most vital element in a subject and still be right about it? still understand it correctly? I don't see how you can. Darwin formulated his ideas on the origin of life, the origin of species and the origin of man, on a foundation of utter ignorance. (An analogy might be basing your ideas of cosmology without knowledge of stars or galaxies... or without the aid of telescopes.) He missed the major point, the crucial point. (Can you understand the solar system without the theory of gravity? Can you understand the sun without the idea of fusion?)

- Materialists can't explain information for the basic reason information requires intelligence, intentionality and design. (You might as well ask a planet to come up with a theory of gravity.) People don't seem to understand that information is in a separate category from matter. That these are utterly separate entities has yet to dawn on people. (I'm sure that it will do so shortly; I see it as well nigh inevitable.) The 'information age' is the next great stage in intellectual thought; the next major development in scientific thinking.

- It takes information to create living forms out of matter; and matter in itself doesn't contain information. Not containing information, matter has no way to create living organisms. We might recall here that Aristotle spoke of animals as 'informed' matter; and thus was closer to the truth than Charles Darwin and the Victorian evolutionists. He developed this idea out of Plato's ideas of the forms. (It strikes me that the idea of the Forms was a secularized version of the creation account we have in Genesis.)

- Matter and information are as different as matter and language. (You can't get information from matter any more than you can get a text by throwing a bunch of rocks up into the air, and having them land in a readable formation.) The concept of information demands that the old materialism be tossed out and replaced with a new way of looking at things. Materialism (as a philosophy) is able to handle such things as planetary motion, but it can't cope with information and coding. (Isn't it a mistake to think one 'concept' will be sufficient to explain all things? Isn't this the mistake of scientism?)

B. Meyer [p.86] wants to define information as a sequence of characters (e.g. letters) that produces a specific effect.

- With all these chicken and the egg questions (i.e. which was first) we need to ask if instead it was neither. If we can't figure out which came first we need to wonder whether either came first. e.g. proteins are needed to make code, but code is needed to make proteins. Q. which was first? A. neither. They both arrived on the scene at the same time, via Intelligent design and creation. [discussion on p.134]

- While we know that persons can produce code, we know of no 'law' that can produce code, and we know of no of no material action that can produce code. If we want to base our idea of origins on something we do know (and not on baseless speculation) we have to opt for an intelligent and personal source for information.

B. 'Also according to a frequently quoted statement by the American mathematician Norbert Wiener (1894 – 1964) information cannot be a physical entity [W5]: “Information is information, neither matter nor energy. Any materialism which disregards this, will not survive one day.” [2.]

- The ever present problem facing the materialist is 'where did all this specified information come from?' It's not floating around in space after all. It's not hiding in gases or in rocks. It's not blowing in the wind. (I've not seen any attempt at an answer that I found even possible.) This problem is downplayed by Materialists for the reason they have no answer for it. It stumps them, as it stumps everyone. i.e. there is no answer to this problem to be found within the closed universe of matter in motion.

- You see lots of attempts to come up with a source of specified information, but we need to be clear as to what's going on. For the most part people aren't trying to find answers to the problem as such, but are trying instead to find answers within the narrow framework of the materialist model. If they were really looking for answers, if that was their number one concern, they would abandon the search within the materialist model as being a hopeless enterprise. (We need to realize that most scientists are being paid to look for answers solely in terms of the materialist model. This is their work program; this is the agenda they are working within. This being the case, they don't look for answers that might exist outside this framework. We might say they're doing the best they can in an impossible situation.)
- M. Johnson 1/11/2010

Notes;
1. Signature in the Cell - Stephen Meyer/85
2. In the Beginning was Information - Werner Gitt/46 [available free online]
3. Information; from inform
Early 14c., "to train or instruct in some specific subject," from L. informare "to shape, form, train, instruct, educate," from in- "into" + forma "form." Sense of "report facts or news" first recorded late 14c. [that's close to what biological information does... interesting]
1. noun Knowledge derived from study, experience, or instruction.
2. noun Knowledge of specific events or situations that has been gathered or received by communication; intelligence or news. See Synonyms at knowledge.
3. noun A collection of facts or data: statistical information.
4. Processed, stored, or transmitted data. [American Heritage]
- This leaves us with the problem of what data is :=)
Webster's 1913;
1. The act of informing, or communicating knowledge or intelligence.
- there seems to be a vital connection between information and intelligence (ie. traditionally)
2. News, advice, or knowledge, communicated by others or obtained by personal study and investigation; intelligence; knowledge derived from reading, observation, or instruction.
Century;
1. Communication of form or element; infusion, as of an animating or actuating principle.
2. Knowledge communicated or received
- Matter doesn't know anything, and can't communicate any knowledge therefore. (It can receive information, but has none inherently.)
10. In metaphysics, the imparting of form to matter.
Wordnet
2. knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction
- as matter is incapable of learning anything it can acquire no information.
3. a message received and understood
- Mere matter is incapable of understanding any message. Only genetic code makes it possible for a body to understand.