Hi Bex

Hang on, if no meaning is required, then where did information come from in the first place....out of thin air?

You have to be very careful when you talk about this not to confabulate meaning and information. Information is just ordered matter/energy, put three atoms together in a particular arrangement and you have information in its raw form and we know how this forms by the Second Law of Thermodynamics (2LoT) in an expanding universe.

Meaning on the other hand is assigned by minds to the information in the universe. Without minds there is no meaning but there is still information unless you subscribe to the view that the tree falling unobserved in the forest makes no sound.

Did it think itself into existence and then into an ordered code

See that’s where confabulating meaning and information will get you. Thinking is about minds and there is no evidence that there were minds in the early universe. If you can slip minds in there without anyone noticing you can suggest that the universe must have been created as minds are necessary but we have no reason to believe that minds are necessary. Order and information are necessary but not minds. Minds are necessary for us to have this discussion but they came much later than the universe and life as far as we can tell.

...or did the ordered code evolve as time went on? Somehow shuffling itself until it hit the jackpot?

As far as we can tell that’s about it. The simplest self replicators are very simple indeed so the odds aren’t very long. And let’s not forget, if we take the gambolling analogy a bit further, that there were literally hundreds of trillions of gamblers playing millions of games per second. The earth is a very big place with lots of chemicals reacting so one of them was bound to ‘hit the jackpot’ given only a little time. The fossil evidence shows that it happened very quickly on earth and probably happened more than once as the earth was sterilized after life first arose by stellar impacts more than once.

And what is the point of information if there is no meaning?

Does it have to have a point? Does information cese to exist if we are not observing it? Are we back to the silent tree falls in the forest Bex?

No computer is of any point unless it has a programme and for a programme, it requires a programmer. The programme doesn't magically come together on its own given chance and random processes. No matter how many times you roll an imaginary dice.

Actually we have computers that can program themselves using evolutionary algorithms. They are very efficient at it too. Many of the programs they produce are smaller and faster than human programmers could achieve. It’s a fascinating field.

But of course we are not talking about computers are we. Life does not require a programmer, the environment programs life. Those organisms who can do those who can’t die exactly the same way that those computer programs I mentioned above work. Self replication is all that is required and the rest is up to evolution. Random chance plays a part the natural selection, which is a lawful process, is the real driver of evolutionary change. Dispite Russ T’s ignoring it Natural Selection has been observed, it does exist and it does work. Once replication exists ‘benficial’ changes accumulate and ‘detrimental’ ones are removed from the environment just as ToE suggests.

Where did the matter that created information, get it's information from?

2LoT in an expanding universe as I explained earlier.

What is this matter you speak of and what is contained within it that is capable of bringing forth anything, let alone what we observe around us....Whether it took thousands or billions of years still doesn't answer the question.

No it doesn’t, we need the laws of quantum physics, physics, chemistry and a few other fields to explain how matter arose then how order arose and how stars formed and how the matter that makes up this planet was formed. Then we get to abiogenesis which is not well understood. While we have yet to find any insurmountable obstacles for this to occure we have not worked out the details of how it could so it’s an open question. We do know that simple self replicators exist, simple enough that they don’t use DNA machinner as all modern living organsms do, simple enough to reproduce in an organic soup, replicators consisting of only a scant 30 or so bases and who knows if this is the simplest self replicator possible. Time may tell. Before life comes into existence it’s all about chemistry which is a very well understood and lawful field. Once life arose we need ToE to explain how life progresses to get us to where we are today.

Exactly and did the dice roll itself? Already it requires an outside force to start the ball rolling so to speak.

You didn’t answer the question. In the absence of minds what meaning do the numbers on a dice have? I would suggest that it is only through minds that meaning arises. Order and information exist independent of minds but meaning does not. That is the confabulation that is causing many of these misunderstandings.

Given that the universe contains a total of zero energy (negative gravitational energy appears to exactly balance the positive energy held in the matter and energy we can detect in the universe) no outside force is required to start it going.

Meaning is most definitely assigned by intelligent beings and we are assigned by an even more intelligent being (force). How can you be certain anything you think or say has any point or meaning to it if your origins are in chance?

Running off with the sophists are we? I don’t know with certainty that there is any meaning to anything that I think or say but the world I perceive behaves as if there is meaning to it so I may as well go with the flow and act as if there is.

And ultimately, if you came from chance and are heading for a future as worm food, I hardly see why you'd be worried either way.

Am worried? I wasn’t aware of that.

Since your beginning and end have no point....according to your beliefs anyway. How is this in yours or anybody's best interest?

I believe that the truth is an end unto itself. It is a goal worth achieving for the very sake of finding the truth.

Or do you feel that evolution will oneday go beyond such boundaries and you wish to contribute to the future of your fellow human beings, just in case there is a way of delaying their ultimate end as worm food?....

Hey that’s a worthy goal and one that my wife contributes more to than I. She works in medical research.

All the best Bex

Russell