A preposterous universe

Some more comments on the book 'The Information' by James Gleick. (I recommend it to everyone.)

Quotes and comments;

1. 'By now the word code was so deeply embedded in the conversation that people seldom paused to notice how extraordinary it was to find such a thing—abstract symbols representing arbitrarily different abstract symbols—at work in chemistry, at the level of molecules. [1.]

- Apparently people still don't realize how 'extraordinary' this is. i.e. it's 'extra' ordinary, in the sense of being outside the ordinary realm. We might say it's meta-ordinary; which is to say beyond natural, which is to say supra-natural. (Not in the sense of being, necessarily, divine, but in the sense of being beyond the merely physical.... meaning when we look at DNA we're looking at intelligence.)

Here we have people admitting they've discovered something extraordinary... but don't even contemplate giving the subject serious thought. Their m. convictions are so firm that they refuse to consider the extraordinary implications of what they're looking at. They say they want a sign from God, but when they get one they deny it.

If all is matter plus physics how can anything be outside the normal order of things? Aren't physical laws supposed to be common and universal? How then can you get 'uncommon' results? How can there be any exceptions to the rules? (i.e. creating code is most especially NOT what chemicals do. How can there be a remarkable exception to the ordinary way they react?) Genetic code was both extraordinary and unexpected.

2. 'So DNA not only replicates itself; separately, it dictates the manufacture of something entirely different. [2.]

- That the information for X existed before X, is preposterous isn't it? Indeed it's so preposterous the materialist can't explain it.
Information comes first; it had to. The materialist contends that organisms came first and then information somehow evolved from them. The creationist contends that information came first, and from it organisms were created. The materialist has things backward. (He's got the cart before the horse as the old saying goes.)

Notes;
1. The Information - James Gleick p.285
2. Gleick/286
3. Extraordinary;
- early 15c., from L. extraordinarius "out of the common order," from extra ordinem "out of order," especially the usual order, from extra "out" (see extra-) + ordinem (nom. ordo) "order" (see order).
Extraordinary;
a. 'Beyond what is ordinary or usual:
b. Highly exceptional
c. Being beyond or out of the common order or rule; not of the usual, customary, or regular kind; not ordinary
d. Exceeding the common degree, measure. or condition
e. Employed or sent upon an unusual or special service
- There has to be a special agent to create something special. i.e. life forms on the earth. Mere physical laws won't do the trick. Everyone agrees that we need code; but the materialist has no explanation for this extraordinary entity (i.e. DNA)
f. Far more than usual or expected.
4. Synonyms;
Unusual, singular, extra, unwonted, signal, egregious, marvelous, prodigious, strange, preposterous.
- I find the idea chemicals can formulate code a preposterous idea :=}
5. Preposterous;
1540s, from L. praeposterus "absurd, contrary to nature," lit. "before-behind" (cf. topsy-turvy, cart before the horse), from prae "before" + posterus "subsequent."
a. Contrary to nature, reason, or common sense;
- DNA is indeed contrary to nature (if we define nature as inert matter) We live in a preposterous universe in a sense.
6. 'The genetic code performed a function with uncanny similarities to the metamathematical code invented by Gödel for his philosophical purposes. - Gleick/285
- I think this deserves the name extraordinary :=}
- How could this be the product of mere matter in motion? Are the people who claim this being serious? (I know they pull long faces, and try to Look serious, when they make the claim, but can they really believe that DNA is a chemical accident?)
7. “Nobody had ever in the least suspected that one set of chemicals could code for another set,” Hofstadter wrote.
"Indeed, the very idea is somewhat baffling: If there is a code, then who invented it? What kinds of messages are written in it? Who writes them? Who reads them?" - Gleick/285
- Given this quote, what right has anyone got to mock ID? Why is it okay for Hofstadter to write like this, but not Stephen Meyer?