Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Information: What is it?

  In a recent discussion, the issue about information came up. From a scientific standpoint, what is information? One of the most incredible discoveries in biological sciences was DNA and the fact that DNA contains information. DNA contains all the information that determines our height, build, hair color, eye color, skin color, curly hair, attached ear lobes, our joints, bones, and blood types. DNA contains all that information. But there is a problem. Many people have confused the information that DNA contains with the DNA itself. This is a common misconception but there are whole concepts and ideas that are built up and dependent upon this misconception. This misconception is the same as confusion the words on this blog post with the information contained within the words of the blog post.

  Information by definition is non-material. It does not have a physical definition. It is an idea. A concept. Information can be carried in a wide variety of ways and manners. Written language is an excellent means of describing this distinction. The English language consists of 26 letters which compose every word we use. The letters themselves are symbols that represent various sounds or ideas. Exactly how these letters developed is beyond my realm of knowledge. But to make a long story short, in the English language, the 26 letters and the words from which these are composed are unanimously agreed upon by those who speak English to represent the words and ideas we understand. When we see the word "car" in written language, we automatically will have a picture of a vehicle that has four wheels, an engine, and often will seat 4 passengers including the driver. When we see the word "red" we immediately think of the color. But "red" has more than one meaning. To most it is just a descriptive color. But to some, it means a symbol of war. To others, it means a warning. What the word "red" means will vary depending upon who is saying it, who is receiving it, and the context it is being used for.

  All forms of codes work the same way. Computer language, binary code, is interesting. We send a signal meaning 5V along a wire and the presence of the voltage is represented by a 1 and a lack of a 5V presence is represented by a 0. The sequence of 1s and 0s is not anything but a series of voltages and lack thereof. There is no information that itself. However, man has put meaning behind that sequence of 0s and 1s to create a massive complex of instructions that are now running our digital age. What is interesting is that the same sequence of 0s and 1s can represent a wide variety of different things. It can represent a color, it can represent a mathematical operation, it can represent a memory location or it can represent the contents of that memory location. How do we tell which is which? The same code is passed through different chips in the CPU and each chip knows exactly what it is dealing with. A memory chip knows by the order of 0s and 1s and the number of them if it needs to access a particular memory location or pull the contents of that memory location, or to store memory into that location. How? The easy answer is "we programmed it to do it". WE know what it means in that particular context so we can direct the chip to perform a particular action when it sees a particular sequence of 0s and 1s. And to make things easier, we represent these said action with a word used in our language which forms the basis of Computer Programming Languages. What is important is that the 0s and 1s are not the information itself but the medium through which the information is transmitted.

  Where the confusion between information and the medium of information plays a role is in the Theory of Evolution. DNA and Computer Systems are strikingly similar. Why? They are both read digitally. Computer Systems are read in a sequence of 0s and 1s. DNA is read on a double-helix of four chemical compounds A, T, G, and C. When DNA is passed through the cells, the organelles that read the DNA pick up the context stores in the DNA and perform the instructions they receive. Another organelle will receive the same code but get different instructions. How could this be? Context. The same code read by one person will get one meaning but the same code read by a second person will get a different meaning because the context of the reader will be different. This is how coded messages work. The people who know the "key" to the code will get information out of the text or sequence, bot those who do not know the "key" will only see gibberish.

  I have frequently seen people describe Evolution as the "gain of information". And they describe this "gain" with text. One example I have seen several times is if we have the word "red" but through a "mutation" we get "read", that is "new" information. But is it? Let's put that into context.
   "I was driving down the road and I saw a red light..."
   "I was driving down the road and I saw a read light..."
 If this were to be in any novel, it would take the reader out the story and make the reader go back and read it again. Information here was not gained by lost. In this example, most readers would be able to back and make a mental correction and read what is actually intended.

  One of the most amazing things about DNA is that is can self-repair. How does it do this? I'll be honest, I don't know the details. I just know it can and does self-repair. If DNA can self-repair, it must have a context, it must have some kind of mechanism that tells it something is wrong. What is more is that it must have some sort of standard to compare to in order to determine if something is wrong. The fact that DNA can self-repair flies in the face of Evolution, because the theory requires the mutations to gather over time. If DNA can self-repair, it would seek to fix any of these mutations. When it can't, it means something is wrong with the standard or the mechanism that does the self-repair.

  There is a Law about Information. It states that every piece of information must originate from an intelligent mind. Considering information is the meaning behind the symbols/code/language, regardless of whether that information comes through a medium of written language, computer code, Morse Code, music, audio waves, digital waves, light signals, or whatever medium you choose, if you trace back information it will always come to an intelligent mind. Let's trace the history of the information contains in the movie "Troy" (2004 with Brad Pitt). The movie concept came from mind of the director, who before that got the picture of the movie from the screenwriter. The Screenwriter got the information from an audio copy of the book The Iliad or read the book. That book was translated from a copy of the original Greek to English and that copy can be traced eventually back to the mind of Homer. But there is more. Where did Homer get the information for his story? Obviously not all of it was true, but the information still had to come from somewhere. Part of it was traced back to a likely war between the Greeks and the Trojans. Homer goes into some of the reasons for that war. What inspired Agamemnon to attack Troy? Where did the ideas of the Greek gods come from? The latter question is rather interesting. Some more research needs to be done but some of the Greeks gods in name and origin actually trace back some of the names listed in the Table of Nations in Genesis 10. If we continue this path, we eventually will find ourselves with Adam and Eve and God. Adam and Eve's knowledge and information had to come from somewhere and the only logical conclusion is that their knowledge came from the source of all knowledge: God himself. Otherwise we will end up with an infinite regression that eventually will collapse on itself.

  The study of information is incredible. How we can convert the meaning behind one medium of information to another without losing the meaning is proof that information is not the same thing as the medium through which it is carried. One must be careful not to confuse the medium of information with the information itself. When the two are separated into their proper places, it is all solid evidence that God is who he says he is in the Bible. Evolution cannot stand if these two are in their proper place. It must equate the two in order to try to make sense. But the two are not interchangeable and because of this, we have another reason why Evolution cannot hold water. I trust God is who he said he is and he meant what he said. And because information can be known, I have no excuse to not trust him.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

The Authority of Scripture

  I often participate in various discussions on-line about the Creation vs Evolution debate. One of the issues that is critical in this discussion is the authority of Scripture. I am not out to prove that the Bible is reliable in this post (and I would need a MUCH longer post to demonstrate that), but I am going to compare three different ways the Bible is used in terms of being an authority in someone's life, using the Creation/Evolution debate to illustrate. The three ways are
  1). The Bible is the Ultimate or Final Authority
  2). The Bible is a authority.
  3). The Bible has no authority.

  In the first case, there are very few Ultimate or Final Authorities. As a Christian, the Bible is my Ultimate Authority. An Ultimate (or Final) Authority cannot reference anything else that is higher, otherwise that authority would be the Ultimate Authority. An Ultimate Authority can only appeal to itself. Two examples of this are mathematical axioms and the Rules of Logic. In math, an axiom is a statement that is assumed to be true but cannot be proven by outside means. It does however prove itself. Logic is the same way. There is nothing we can use to prove the laws of Logic other than with the laws of Logic. The same concept applies with the Bible. If the Bible is an Ultimate Authority, there is no authority that can prove it other than itself. It can only appeal to itself. Some may argue "God wrote the Bible, and as the author, he must be higher." That is true, but God by his nature cannot contradict his word. So I have to consider God and the Bible to be on the same tier in terms of authority and they do circularly appeal to each other. One thing I need to make clear is that ONLY with an Ultimate/Final authority does circular reasoning apply validly. Because an Ultimate Authority can only appeal to itself.

   When someone places the Bible as their Ultimate Authority, it is the deciding factor on all cases. On any issue, an Ultimate Authority trumps what any other authority says. In the Creation/Evolution debate if the Bible is the Ultimate Authority, it must trump what any other person says, no matter their degree or field of expertise. The Age of the Earth issue is frequently brought up in these discussions. The Bible gives a historic account through the Genealogies (repeated three times in Genesis 5 and 11, in 1 Chronicles 1-9, and in Luke 3. In the Genesis accounts we have the ages of the father when the son was born and it does not take much to add them up and discover that the Bible records a history that is only about 6000 years old. There are many scientists that will tell us that the earth is billions of years old. If the Bible is the Ultimate Authority, then the Bible's take on it will trump what the scientists say about it. The Bible is not a science textbook, nor a history textbook, but it does say enough to give us guidelines on how to interpret and discern what man says in fields the Bible is not very specific on. The Bible contains a lot of history, but it is not about history. The Bible does not talk about how gravity works or about the history of the Mayan Empires. But it does give a timeline for when the major people groups dispersed and it gives guidelines that God is a God of order and structure, and that his creation reflects that character. It does talk about what took place and when and gives a clear enough picture to establish when and how any other events would take place.

  Many however do not treat the Bible as their Ultimate Authority.  They just use it as a authority. When it is just another authority, when you have to conflicting data points, it is arbitrary which authority is taken. I often hear people claim they can believe both "science" and the Bible at the same time, as though they think those who hold the Bible as their Ultimate Authority pit the two against each other. (Those who hold the Bible as the Ultimate Authority see science as supporting the Bible but must be carried out with the understanding that the Bible is the Ultimate Authority on the issue. That is: Science that reveals conflicting data with what the Bible declares needs to be revisited.) The primary argument sounds like this. "God is the author of the Bible and the author of nature and nature is a valid as a 67th book of the Bible." What this actually means is "the science done by secular means that does not consider the Bible as an authority is as valid as a 67th book of the Bible". The claim is that our studies of science (which does not consider input from the Bible) is on the same tier of authority as the Bible itself. And in actual practice, when something comes up that is debatable, very rarely is the Bible's take accepted. The Theory of Evolution states that all life came from a single common ancestor. The Bible says that all the life forms reproduce after their kinds. In comparing the two, more often than not, the Evolutionary approach will take precedence over the Bible when the Bible is just a authority and not the Ultimate Authority. When the Bible is just a authority, it gives liberty to pick and choose which parts are worthy of being authoritative and which ones are not. This makes the person the judge of which is a quality authority on whatever subject they want which makes themselves the authority. Many people say the Bible is only authoritative on religious matters but does not have the authority on history, science, etc. It just does not work that way. The Bible's religious matters are rooted in the historical documentations. Many will say the Genesis account of Creation, Noah's Flood, and the Tower of Babel are just myths based on other Middle-Eastern cultures. It does not take a genius to follow that logic and say the same thing about Christ. Many do make the arguments that Jesus' birth, life, death, and Resurrection were just a myth as well. If the Bible is just a authority, there is no logical place to determine where you use it and where you don't. And most of the time, in actual practice, it is "don't".

  The last case is those that do not consider the Bible to be authoritative at all. These are the people that never open up the Bible, never read it, and do not seek to follow it in any regard. They see all the historical accounts as myth at best, or just fairy tales. They have no regard for the Law established by Moses, which Jesus upheld. They only follow the parts of that Law that coincides with what society has already established. When one does not have the Bible as any authority, discussions with said people can be a challenge. Paul had this challenge in Athens in Acts 17. He was dealing with the best of the best of the best of the philosophers in the world who had never heard of the Biblical account. It was foolishness to them. So Paul had to address them by establishing a new worldview for them, referencing the "statue to the Unknown god" and then making a Gospel appeal from there. He did not win many converts like Peter did in Acts 2.

  So where does the Bible fall in your list of authorities? Do you ever think about it or follow what it says? Do you only follow some of it, the parts that seem and feel good to you? Or do you let it guide and direct every area of your life? The Bible is my Ultimate Authority. I do not always follow it as I should and when I fail, that is sin. And that is also WHY I need a Savior. But because I place the Bible as my Ultimate Authority, I must align my worldview and how I look at things in accordance to how the Bible does it. I must conform to what the Bible teaches, which will also conform myself to Christ himself. Now all this being said, if the Bible is the Ultimate Authority, it does not strip away what anyone else has to say. But as the Ultimate Authority, what anyone else has to say must be aligned with the Bible, and if what they say contradicts the Bible in any way, then they are wrong. Romans 3:4 says "Yea, let God be the truth and every man a liar." This includes me. What I say is subject to be tested in accordance to Scripture. If what I say goes against what the Bible says, I am wrong, period. If what I say is not explicitly stated in Scripture but does not go against what the Bible says, then I could be right. And if what I say matches what is explicitly stated in Scripture, then I cannot be wrong. What is your ultimate authority? Many people when they dig down will often find it is themselves which is arbitrary and often "what feels good at the moment". For me, I know I fall short. I know I am not a reliable judge of my own abilities. I stand in accordance to what the Bible teaches and when I judge, I seek to judge using the Bible as the standard. And when I call out a sin for what it is, I must also remember that I too am just as guilty and apart from the Grace of God, I would be no different than said person.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Celebration of the 4th of July

 Today is Independence Day for the Unites States. While I am not please with the direction this nation is going, I have to give God thanks for placing me in this country where I have to freedom to express myself and to worship Jesus Christ freely without fear of government oppression. I do believe that time is limited and I have taken for granted this freedom too often. It is frustrating to see the hate and mockery spewed towards Christians, but I have to remember that the freedom I enjoy both enables them to do what they do, but it also enables me to do what I do. I also recognize that if the people who hate Christianity so much are barred legally from doing so, it would be a precedent that would end up being only used against Christians. That is the reality that we face. We live in a world that loves their sin, that wants to do things their way, and do not want to hear or see of the things of God. I often hear people talk about how the US was founded on Christian principles and I do believe that to be true. But reality is we live in hostile territory. We live in enemy territory with an enemy that hates us with a spirit and passion that most of us don't understand. And regardless of political pressures, it is our job as Christians to share the Good News and bring God's message as his Ambassadors into this fallen worldly system.

  And this month I will get two opportunities to express this freedom we have in the US. On Tuesday, July 23, I will be interviewed on a new internet radio show for Christian writers. The show, The Write Stuff, started this week and runs on Tuesdays at 5:00pm Mountain time.I will be interviewed about my testimony, my fencing ministry, and about my journey as an author. I will be posting details about it as we get closer to that time. Then at the very end of the month, Wednesday evening on July 31, I will get the privilege to preach at my church. We are having a Wednesday night service throughout the summer for the purpose of evangelism and inviting non-believers to come to church in a more family-friendly environment. On the last date of those summer services, I will bring my fencing gear and bring a message about spiritual warfare. But I won't be merely talking about theory. I will be preaching on down to earth practical stuff, as I use the moves I do in competition as a visual demonstration of practical life lessons. I will only have 20 minutes which will be a challenge for me to determine what to include and what not to include. Since the last time I gave my presentation, I have picked up some new things so some of the material I will be using is brand new. The service that day will end with a baptism and I am praying and seeking how to use that moment for part of my sermon. I am really excited about these two opportunities.

  God has been really good and there is far more to what God has in store for me than I know of at this time. I am enjoying the ride he has put me on. There are highs and there are lows. I feel like I have been in a low after coming back from the Colorado Christian Writer's Conference last month and with my birthday. I recognize the spiritual battle going on as I am seeking to take my faith to a deeper level. And the enemy has been waging war against me as I strive to head that direction. And laziness has been rearing its ugly head. It's a battle I must push through to overcome and it won't be an easy fight. But I know who has the ultimate victory and I have declared my allegiance to the King of Kings who will not lose. And as I use my speaking skills later this month, it will be God who gets the glory. I know none of what I will be sharing in the interview and when I preach is from me directly. It is all from God so all I can do it give it back to him. It is going to be a great to see God move.