Existence of God - the Information problem.

[tedgrant2]

It has come to the attention of scientists in the last few decades, that "information" is much more important than was previously thought. Humans, of course, create and use information in many ways. Books, newspapers, television, radio, telephones, emails, computers are some familiar "carriers" of information. But a much older carrier of information is speech via air waves. Before speech was invented, one assumes that humans were still able to think about things, such as how to find food and where to sleep for the night. Thinking, is a complicated subject, but it obviously involves processing information. Your brain is a carrier of information. Anyone who has been unconscious (I don't mean sleeping) will know that there is no awareness of any sensation, thoughts and there is no sense of the passage of time. It is clear that if your brain was starved of oxygen for a very short time, you would become unconscious and quickly die, losing your existence as a living being in the process. The reason is your consciousness carrier is your brain and requires a great deal of energy in order to maintain your thinking life. In fact about a quarter of all the energy obtained from your food intake is consumed by your brain. All information, which includes your thoughts, requires a carrier. Information is a special arrangement of matter (or energy). So for example, a magnetic disk containing information is different from a blank one because the magnetic charges are orientated in particular ways that can be interpreted by some device and converted to a form that beings can "read" using sense organs. We might think that a disk contains music or a video game, but unless it is interpreted and converted then propagated in some way, it might as well be nonsense. It's the same with your brain. It stores information, processes new information and is able to recall information from memory and pass it on to someone else or write it down on paper etc. Without your brain, none of these things would be possible. We are all familiar with the concepts of Hardware and Software. When you buy software, you are really buying hardware that carries the software, even if it's a "download". When you download software, what really happens is a string of electrons travel "down" to your computer where they are converted to "signals" on a storage device, such as magnetic charges. The electrons are the carrier of the information. Without a carrier, information cannot exist. If you imagine a universe with no matter (or energy), then it is obvious that such a universe could not contain any information. In addition and more importantly, a mind could not exist in a universe lacking matter. If a mind doesn't exist, independently of matter, then it follows that a mind could not create matter as matter is required first. It follows that the matter in the universe could not be created by a mind. Therefore the "creator" doesn't exist, therefore God doesn't exist.
Think about it (using your brain matter).

[Zzyzx]

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[Divine Insight]

If a mind doesn't exist, independently of matter, then it follows that a mind could not create matter as matter is required first. It follows that the matter in the universe could not be created by a mind. Therefore the "creator" doesn't exist, therefore God doesn't exist.

Everything you've stated in the quote above is speculation based on unproven assumptions.

You are assuming (without sufficient evidence) that matter must have existed before mind. But when physicists try to pin down this thing we call "matter" they quickly discover that it becomes extremely elusive.

What exactly constitutes "matter" other than a specific state of "information".

For example. Do particles actually exist? Insofar as we can tell all that exists are "points" of information that describe physical properties that we tend to call "matter".

As an example, what gives a particle the property of "mass"? This was a very elusive question until Peter Higgs proposed a possible answer. But even Higgs answer does not assign mass to individual particles, but instead it describes a "field" that apparently gives all particles their "mass". And the property of "mass" that a particle exhibits appears to be related to the "information" associated with that particle.

So here we have information giving rise to mass, rather than the other way around as you have suggested. Also, mass itself does not give particles any actual physical reality. Even massive particles can pass right through each other like ghosts. Mass does not prevent two particles from occupying the same place at the same time. For that we need the Pauli Exclusion Principle. And the Pauli Exclusion Principles depends on information once again. We call this the "Spin State" of a given particle. But mathematically it's just a quantum number. Information that we call "spin".

The same can be said about electrical charge, etc.

The question of whether any actual "particles of matter" exist, or whether all that exists are points of information is actually often debated among theoretical physicists.

In fact, close examination of everything I've stated above reveals that matter cannot even exist unless information exists to describe it. Therefore one could easily argue that it's not even possible to have informationless matter.

All matter must exhibit information.

This could then be used as the basis for a philosophical argument that information must necessarily precede physical matter. Precisely the opposite of what you have just proposed.

Think about it (using this information).

[tedgrant2]

[Replying to post 3 by Divine Insight]

You say that I am assuming (without sufficient evidence) that matter must have existed before mind. But I've just re-read my original thesis and cannot find any such assumption. If you can point to it, I will consider your claim.
I will state, quite clearly, now, that there is no reason to think matter existed before information. I guess you will agree, easily that there are two species of information, Viz: Information designed by minds and information not designed by minds. So, for example, this sentence was designed by my mind, but the information that describes the shape of a random rock on the planet Mercury was not designed by a mind. I am only interested, in my thesis, in the former, viz: information designed by minds. For the purposes of identification, I will call such information "DI". You may say, that perhaps all information is DI, in which case, a mind designed that random rock on Mercury. You will have trouble convincing me that is is even remotely possible, but it doesn't affect the thesis, it merely expands the scope of DI. Given that DI always originates with minds of beings, an assumption I think you will accept and given that beings are carriers of such information (by definition), it follows that without beings, there could be no DI. I think you will also agree that beings consume energy when producing DI and that without the matter that carries the information, there could not be any information as the DI is a special kind of arrangement of matter. I say "special", because beings can make sense of the information. We can write it down or transmit it down a copper wire, or create a beam of photons from a mobile phone etc. But the key point is this: without the CARRIER, there would be no information, simply because the information is simply a special arrangement of the carrier. So I am not saying matter existed before information. I am saying information could not exist without matter. If matter was created at some time, then Non-DI information was created at the same time, but DI wasn't, as there were no minds until brains were created because brains are the carriers of minds. According to all the scientific evidence that is commonly presented in UK state schools, brains took a long time to evolve. Billions of years passed after the Big Bang before any thoughts appeared in the universe. Those thoughts were created by brains made of matter. I see no reason to think a mind could exist without a brain. A mind is often thought to be the conscious part of the brain, but we know a lot more goes on, such as automatic monitoring and control of bodily functions, without which we would die. Clearly, we could live without the conscious part, but that would be rather boring. It's that conscious part that makes life worthwhile. We know that it is possible to lose the conscious part, for example when there is severe brain damage. It is obvious that the conscious part requires a healthy brain, in the same way that your computer will only work properly if all the necessary parts are functioning properly. All those parts are made of matter. It makes no sense to think that your computer could work without matter !