I'm all for a proper epistemological approach to any subject but the ability we have to draw conclusions from what we don't "in fact" know can be unwise?
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Because we don’t know what we don’t know, we have to take our conclusions on faith, not as proof in the sense of absolute certainty. Which is why when we n look for evidence, all of it must intersect to validate conclusions. If we sneak in something only because of our bias to prove a point and strengthen our argument, we risk creating a circular argument. We will only be trying to confirm our bias rather than seeking the truth. There is a difference; we must be willing to be wrong.
"we don’t know what we don’t know" - do you mean that some things about which we have no knowledge are themselves unknown to us? I.e. we're not always aware of the things we do not understand.
Or the self-evident 'that we cannot yet explain is unexplained'?
The quantum world of the elemental particle is far from being well understood, yet with the understanding we have we can create devices such as the ones we're currently using!
We understand language is not something that just happens; it is habitually the product of a mind in the sending and receiving of information, so when we see information that produces specified instructional commands, for complex work, that is not the product of chaos. So, start-stop mechanisms controlled by conditional events are only possible with information processing.
That depends on what we define as 'language'! It's all very well for those who are not well-versed in the processes involved in some outcome, insisting that a 'mind' must have been involved but those who spend their lives studying it come to a very different conclusion.
The behavior of the code is something that can be read. It also directs the informational processes, you call that what?
It's the arrangement/sequence of complex molecules that can be "read", there is no "code" as such.
The illusion of "code" comes from the way we label things.
It is not an illusion; it is a denial on your part of what is right in front of you. The delusion is that professing something like this could occur without a mind directing it.
Explain how anything in organic chemistry does not depend on the forming and breaking of bonds between complex molecules?
"Code" is the analogy used to describe this process, that's all.
The word “language” is an analogy for how we communicate, and the informational processes in DNA have everything that any other language or code does.
But beyond the process of making and breaking chemical bonds, where exactly are you claiming this "code" resides?
You fail to grasp that some chemical reactions will occur without intent in numerous ways; they will simply react, and they will react in any number of ways, while the correct ways for life are very limited. Failing to find the correct ways to form the proper bond will not lead to life. Then there are those things in DNA that can be bound up in any way, and the arrangement with them spells out all we know about the lifeform in question now, by reading it. Astronomically, there are more ways to fail than to succeed.
And yet despite all your claims of "expertise" in this subject, professional chemists/biologists clearly don't agree.
I prefer to be guided by the expertise of trained professionals rather than yours!
People don’t agree; you are using that as an excuse. How many things do people all agree on?
What qualifications do you have? If highly trained professional researchers disagree with you, show a little humility and admit they may well know better.
stephen_33 wrote:
What qualifications do you have? If highly trained professional researchers disagree with you, show a little humility and admit they may well know better.
You are asking the wrong questions because many do agree with me. In addition to that it is in the area where I do have some level of knowledge is where I plant my complaints, you bring what to the table?
I bring a healthy scepticism to all such issues. But as I've warned time and again it's unwise to try to infer from what we do not know.
Example: We do not know that it's impossible for life to have emerged by means of natural processes.
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When we seek the truth about anything, we look for multiple lines of evidence that converge. When independent facts intersect in consistent ways, our hypothesis becomes more credible. True claims tend to coalesce; they can be integrated into a single account without contradiction, because true things do not contradict other true things.
A healthy set of propositions supporting a hypothesis should also be able to fail—clearly, loudly, and publicly—so that if what we are proposing is false, that falsity becomes obvious. If our framework cannot fail, we can become highly confident in mistaken assumptions, which is far worse than an honest error. It is like building a calculation that always produces the answer we want; instead of exposing flaws, it rewards our bias and can lead us to ignore red flags that we have misunderstood something.
When we set up experiments, we should design them to break under the pressure of counterexamples. Claims that cannot be falsified can appear to “give an answer” every time, rather than warning us that our questions fall outside the scope of what the method can reliably test. In that way, we can be deceived.