News:

Welcome to our site!

Main Menu

The Problem of Information

Started by Paolo, April 26, 2021, 02:07:55 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Paolo

Quote from: SGOS on April 26, 2021, 09:38:12 PM
I googed "the problem of information," and it refers to so many areas.  If you read it all you'd be reading about business applications, politics, vaccine research, and God knows what else, but I did find this, and I think this is what Paolo thinks the problem of information is all about.  He's obsessed with crazy shit and thinks we need to step back and reconsider more crazy shit.  He will frame it as "for our own good," but really he just likes crazy shit.  I didn't bother reading it.  I glanced but it seems to be a summary of previously failed creationist arguments.  There's nothing new in it.  We've all studied this nonsense before way too many times.

https://www.trueorigin.org/dawkinfo.php

I didn't ask anyone to ''reconsider'' anything, I simply asked if anyone here had heard of it. Do you get off on putting words in my mouth or something?
Oh noes...I think I’m dead....

SGOS

Quote from: Paolo on April 27, 2021, 01:39:59 AM
I didn't ask anyone to ''reconsider'' anything, I simply asked if anyone here had heard of it. Do you get off on putting words in my mouth or something?
No, I just like speculating on the motives that drive unexplainable irrational behavior.  If something is weird beyond explanation, I have this need to explain it, just for the closure.  Don't make this about one isolated passive aggressive question.  It's you, not just one question.  You have managed to identify who you are in the forum.  Irrational passive aggressive makes me edgy, so I cope by trying to explain it.  So rather than whine about it, just admit that you are loving every moment of this exchange.  Yes, yes; I am guilty of feeding the troll.  Just enjoy it.

Cassia

Quote from: SGOS on April 27, 2021, 07:57:28 AM
No, I just like speculating on the motives that drive unexplainable irrational behavior.  If something is weird beyond explanation, I have this need to explain it, just for the closure.  Don't make this about one isolated passive aggressive question.  It's you, not just one question.  You have managed to identify who you are in the forum.  Irrational passive aggressive makes me edgy, so I cope by trying to explain it.  So rather than whine about it, just admit that you are loving every moment of this exchange.  Yes, yes; I am guilty of feeding the troll.  Just enjoy it.
This may not apply to Paolo but I think there are many young people searching for a meaning to life. As religion diminishes...it leaves a hole. To be happy in disbelief, many people would need a radical step change in their sense of purpose. This is why people cling to the fairy tails and a patriarch who is gonna save them despite what their rational brain says. My sweetheart always says it takes courage to be a happy atheist!

GSOgymrat

Quote from: Cassia on April 27, 2021, 10:01:05 AM
This may not apply to Paolo but I think there are many young people searching for a meaning to life. As religion diminishes...it leaves a hole. To be happy in disbelief, many people would need a radical step change in their sense of purpose.

That "hole" that many people experience is something I have seriously underestimated.

Mike Cl

For many, that hole could easily lead to being whole.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

SGOS

Quote from: GSOgymrat on April 27, 2021, 10:34:17 AM
That "hole" that many people experience is something I have seriously underestimated.
Quote from: Cassia on April 27, 2021, 10:01:05 AM
This may not apply to Paolo but I think there are many young people searching for a meaning to life. As religion diminishes...it leaves a hole. To be happy in disbelief, many people would need a radical step change in their sense of purpose. This is why people cling to the fairy tails and a patriarch who is gonna save them despite what their rational brain says. My sweetheart always says it takes courage to be a happy atheist!
It may not apply to Paolo.  If it does, it explains why he might cling to the unsolvable mysteries as important to his world view, as he seems too.  But he should not expect verification, approval or disapproval from atheists who simply can't give him any satisfactory verification for against what seems like mystery to him.  He needs those who have answers to everything, especially the unknowable, and atheists are the least likely group to provide that.

But I believe the part about that hole people experience.  Unlike Gymrat, I don't think I seriously underestimate that.  If anything I may exaggerate it's size and veracity.

Cassia

#21
Quote from: Mike Cl on April 27, 2021, 10:52:51 AM
For many, that hole could easily lead to being whole.
I think people who study science have reached the precipice of a major shift in the way we (some of us) think. Knowing things such as the fact that 50% of the cells in or on our bodies are not even human cells (walking mini biospheres) or that we do know what dinosaurs taste like when we eat chicken. How strange modern physics really is. The first look (really) into the complexity of neuroscience and our brains. There may be an ever widening divide between those who search out knowledge and those who retreat into false comfort. Almost like we will diverge into two different species..how is that for a sci-fi story?

SGOS

Quote from: Cassia on April 27, 2021, 12:47:39 PM
Almost like we will diverge into two different species..how is that for a sci-fi story?
Well, it's happened before.

Mike Cl

Quote from: Cassia on April 27, 2021, 12:47:39 PM
I think people who study science have reached the precipice of a major shift in the way we (some of us) think. Knowing things such as the fact that 50% of the cells in or on our bodies are not even human cells (walking mini biospheres) or that we do know what dinosaurs taste like when we eat chicken. How strange modern physics really is. The first look (really) into the complexity of neuroscience and our brains. There may be an ever widening divide between those who search out knowledge and those who retreat into false comfort. Almost like we will diverge into two different species..how is that for a sci-fi story?
Seems plausible to me. Throw in another factor--thinking takes time and energy while believing doesn't.  Theism--the lazy person's vice. :)
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Paolo

Quote from: SGOS on April 27, 2021, 07:57:28 AM
No, I just like speculating on the motives that drive unexplainable irrational behavior.  If something is weird beyond explanation, I have this need to explain it, just for the closure.  Don't make this about one isolated passive aggressive question.  It's you, not just one question.  You have managed to identify who you are in the forum.  Irrational passive aggressive makes me edgy, so I cope by trying to explain it.  So rather than whine about it, just admit that you are loving every moment of this exchange.  Yes, yes; I am guilty of feeding the troll.  Just enjoy it.

Then I could be of great entertainment to you. Can I share some bizarre things I have done over the years? Or you'd rather take this to PM, since it's personal?
Oh noes...I think I’m dead....

Paolo

Quote from: Blackleaf on April 26, 2021, 10:15:28 AM
I assume the "problem of information" being talked about here is the problem Creationists say we have if we pretend that DNA is just like computer code in every way. But it's not like computer code. At all. So there is no problem. DNA "adding or subtracting information" (ie DNA getting longer or shorter) happens all the time. It's nothing special.

That's exactly what I was talking about. Thank you.

Now that that's been clarified, what do folks here think about it? I am asking everyone.
Oh noes...I think I’m dead....

GSOgymrat

I believe this video addresses the crisis of meaning that we are discussing here.

https://youtu.be/vqJQvJ7i7Ek

Cassia

#27
Quote from: Paolo on April 27, 2021, 02:43:53 PM
That's exactly what I was talking about. Thank you.

Now that that's been clarified, what do folks here think about it? I am asking everyone.
You will often hear that our genes are a blueprint or a software algorithm for life, especially if someone wants to argue an intelligent god has created us. Yet DNA is not at all like software code or a set of blueprints. Nobody is reading the blueprint and nothing like a computer chip is executing 'code'. There is no centralized set of instructions that controls the development and maintenance of the human body.

DNA controls the growth and maintenance of the body indirectly using proteins and other chemicals. RNA viruses are so simple they need to hijack the DNA of their host to thrive and thus barely quality as 'living'.
Our bodies are made mostly of proteins. The messaging and gene expression (timing) process for growth and cell replacement occurs at a cellular level (cell division...no brains needed) via DNA. The encoding when cells divide is not always perfect and mutations can happen. Some mutations may be beneficial, some make no difference to survival and some go against survival.

Beneficial mutations can lead to variations in the short term and evolution (speciation) over a long time. The environment is loosely driving evolution. If the environment changes faster than evolution process can adapt then extinction occurs. Ninety nine percent of all species are extinct.

In short, there is no specific goal or structure like software or a blueprint yields. The only result might be survival (or not) and there is no way of predicting what form will evolve. There is no design.

Mr.Obvious

And to put it less eloquently: métaphores are good stories to comprehend things but do not get lost in the details.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Mike Cl

Quote from: Paolo on April 27, 2021, 02:43:53 PM
That's exactly what I was talking about. Thank you.

Now that that's been clarified, what do folks here think about it? I am asking everyone.
I don't think about it.  It's a fiction, so why dwell upon it?  It simply does not enter into my mind.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?