I'm not sure if I'm truly understanding what you are saying. It appears to me that you're just accepting DNA and then you're off to the races after that.

I'm asking how DNA itself could have come to be in its earliest form. A molecule that can form coherent lists of instructions to replicate itself and become ever increasingly complex is already like way over the line of pure "happenstance".

Assuming that the very design of atoms themselves was a mere happenstance.

In fact, we know that the latter is not the case!

And that's the key to the mystery of evolution.

Now all we need to do is find the key to why atoms are not happenstance. But that's Quantum Mechanics, and its secrets are off limits.

I consider 'usefulness' to be a matter of point of view. I don't see any reason that data can't exist, without a mind, and have an impact on matter. (In this case, the organization of matter itself is what's being termed 'data'.)

We can say the amino acids are 'useless' without a mind, but that wouldn't prevent them from being 'active' (and interactive) without a mind.


(BTW, I don't accept most of the premises in any of these lines of thoughts, not even that life arose from amino acid-like molecules - I'm just exploring alternatives.)

I'm saying that when things did form each time a foward moving link as made - it survived to replicate. Each time it added something that led to survival and survived... it became more complex.

If something was added that helped survival that something was kept.

It is not pure happenstance... Given time it must happen... Life is.

Jeremy,

I'm still waiting for your answer.

Also you said:




Perspective? Point of view? Observer? Guide? Must there be a guide to be able to use all of the information floating about in the chaos of the universe?

How then was matter formed? How was intelligent life then guided into existence?

Who guided it? If it happened on accident then your statement that "data is useless without the qualities of perspective" is incorrect.

Who's perceptive are you referencing?

Why? Why was it kept? Who made that decision to keep it? Was the 'stuff' conscious? Was it intelligent? Did it prefer survival over not surviving? If so, why?

I have been waiting for answers from Jeremy and Creative concerning the grounds for their assertions and beliefs and they have both been missing in action.

I am hoping they don't think I am just going to forget about my questions.

Perhaps they are just too busy.

If it added to survival it survived. If it did not it did not survive. (did not get passed to the next generation or made it through one or two generatons and petered out)

Life chooses.

Yes I know. Life chooses. That means that it is not an accident. There is conscious choice involved.

Does a strainer make a decision to separate out particles of differing sizes?
Is a fractional distillation tower conscious?

Personally, I can see this going either way, its semantics to me. But I don't see any need to anthropomorphize (which evidently isn't a word, but should be) the process. A process which selects something doesn't require a 'conscious deliberate chooser'.



I don't mean to disregard the importance of these questions, but for me its also a semantics issue. If we say it is 'intelligence', we need to remember what kind of intelligence we were talking about when we say that, and not confuse it with other kinds of intelligence.

Why must there be conscious choice?

Why can it not have been an accident?

Those combinations that did not support a living universe simply did not survive a living universe.

Those that did survive grew in complexity with each generation... Will we survive the next step in that growth.

pass the mash potatoes please

Here ya go...



Salt?

gravy also if you have

White or brown?

I have both.



Butter or margarine? I like real butter myself...

I am trying to make a philosophical choice at the moment

Thanks for the laughs. Have fun on the forums.

I have no problem understanding this idea of how things would naturally evolved based on being able to survive and replicate.

That's not the point that I'm getting at.

From my point of view that's aready "after the fact".

The very idea that atoms can join together in ways that would become molecules that can even 'replicate' themselves is already "useful".

Even before they start evolving into more complex things.

The "usefulness" was already in motion.

But like, Massagetrade suggested, the very term, "useful" is a highly subjective. From my perspective, being able to replicate a complex chain of information is already a "useful" process.

So I guess the very term useful is a bit vague.

I was responding directly to Jeremy's comment:



Just based on this thought it seems to me that molecules that can become increasingly complex and efficent at 'doing things' would be an example of 'data' that as become 'useful' without the qualities of 'perspective' to guide its own 'use'.

I'm just saying that it seems to me that this isn't exactly something that can be just passed by without at least some serious consideration.

It's not at all 'obvious' to me why the world's data should be considered to be "useless" without qualities of perspective to guide it.

Or, if we accept that this is true, then we must accept that some "quality of perspective" must have guided the universe to get to a point where its very own "data" could self-replicate in ways that are 'useful' at least with repsect to perserving it's ability to replicate and become more complex.

I just don't think anything is obvious enough here to draw any firm conclusions.

However, it seems to me that if we allow that the ability to self-replicate and grow to increasingly complexity to the point where these molecules build structures that become sentient, as being nothing more than 'unguided' happenstance.

Then it sure seems to me that it would utterly silly to claim that "All the world's data is useless without the qualities of perspective to guide the use of data."

Because clearly molecules that evolve over time to become sentient beings would fly in the face of this statement.

At least this is my opinion.

That's all I can say.

If it comes down to a matter of semantics like MT suggests, then I supposed we'd have to sort all of that out by defining our terms more precisely in hopes of better communicating our thoughts and ideas.

But this is where I stand with it thus far. I just don't see where this the statement is obvious; "All the world's data is useless without the qualities of perspective to guide the use of data.",

That's all I can offer.

I'm just not prepared to accept that statement based on my understanding of what it might mean or imply.

It's just not clear to me that it should necessarily be true. At least not unless we refine some of the definitions of the terms used.

Wow this thread has moved since last I checked in on it.

Abra I myself do not hold that mind is necessary for something to be knowledge. Again I am not committed to defining knowledge, just taking what other people here in this thread are stating and summarizing it.

I am playing Socrates.

I am a staunch Methodological Naturalist and so Do not hold that any metaphysical mind is required for anything that we see and call nature. That I am happy to make clear.

How we define knowledge, data, usefulness, and matter is a whole other ball of wax that I am happy to continue to expound upon.

It does seem that we have gotten WAY a head of ourselves.

Not a bad thing, but I will have to take some time to answer many of these posts that are directly asking me questions. I will do my best today hopefully it will be slow at work.



Abra- it actually was not my thought, but JaneStars, I believe. And a great very true statement from the perspective of a mind. Very interesting point you make there Abra in taking it to a fundamental!!!!

Yes there is a problem with the idea of useful data being knowledge, if knowledge is only something Minds may make use of . . .

I think useful data is simply information if there is no mind to make use of it.

Then the question becomes how we define information, and how we define knowledge.

Is knowledge information used by a mind?
Is information the relationship that informs, if so informs what? A process? A mind? A structure?

I already did that in another post.



Sounds reasonable to me.



Information is data or programs that have been compiled,used, and stored by a mind.