theology of animalistic religion

Dear colleagues,

I cannot avoid the impression that some of us have not yet stepped past the
magic-mythical phase of the childhood evolution. In this first attempt of
explaining the world, one assumes that things have a will, an intellect and
forces. (That is, one cannot distinguish Mother from Non-living yet.)
If making a system of beliefs out of this idea, one talks about an
animalistic religion. In this religion, one worships specific trees,
forests, hills, waters, global truths and the like.
Newton has put an end to all this by declaring that things do not move by
themselves, or, if they move, they cannot alter their course out of their
free will.

Please let us not go back beyond Newton and
specifically please let us stop discussing whether a
    protein recognises the correct amino acid,
    a molecule imitates an enzyme's natural substrate,
    one enzyme fools another enzyme,
and the like animalistic concepts.

Things have no souls and no free will and will not exert any forces and have
no insight.

Do we want to start talking about what can be otherwise? Information is the
pointing out of one realisation out of many possibilities. That is,
information points out something which could (have been) otherwise.

Let me point out again that a contemporary collection of objects carrying
symbols can be lined up in many different ways and thus serves quite well to
demonstrate the concept of what could be otherwise. One specific line-up
carries information insofar as it is one specific realisation out of many
possible line-ups. One specific overlap structure carries information
insofar as it is one specific realisation out of many possible overlap
structures. You can stretch a structure out into a linear sequence and you
can fold up a linear sequence into a structure and hereby both ways generate
information. This is what genetics is all about. The relation between
contemporary and temporally sequenced symbol carrying media is the task to
concentrate on (and not whether trees and waters have an insight and
recognise each other).

Phantasising about forces coming out of thinking and recognising molecules
is a waste of time.
Hope you want to let loose childish concepts of things having a free will
and an insight. We are grown-ups now. Things have no properties on their
own, only those we look into them. The proposition is to look properties
unto such things as have no properties so far, that is, into numbers. There
will be excitement enough with numbers, once we want to start working.

Best wishes
Karl
Received on Mon Jul 1 19:54:38 2002