Looking forward to a DNA Hard Drive

[Omegaman 3.0]

Interesting factoid:
  
I was reading that one gram of DNA, can theoretically store 455 exabytes of information, the equivalent of over 8,403,726 times as much information as was contained in all of the books ever written, as of 2006.

I was doing further research on this and found a different statistic, it said that one gram of DNA can only hold a little more than 700 terabytes of data.

For a monent there, I was almost impressed at the efficiency of cosmic accidents!

Of course, as impressive as the storage capacity of DNA is, DNA in life forms, whether human or in a lowly, single celled bacterium, is just a storage medium. Apart from information, it is like an empty hard drive in a computer (except that it is a small part of something larger which is already microcsopic, and it holds a lot more data than a hard drive).

An empty hard drive is as useful as a paperweight, a DNA molecule cannot be used as a paperweight. For a hard drive (or a DNA molecule) to be useful, it has to have information written on it. Hard drives have information on them because we, as intelligent beings, have put information there. However, in order for us to do that, we need other intelligently designed mechanisms, to put the information in there. Computer programs do not exist, without computer programmers. Now, to be sure, those hard drives do not pop into existence, by themselves, they are manufactured by machinery that makes each individual part of the hard drive, and there is other machinery, that assembles all of the parts, assisted of course, by humans who are intelligent enough, to make the tools necessary to handle and assemble the hard drives. The machinery that makes and assembles the hard drive parts, is controlled by the information contained on (you guessed it) other hard drives, which have information on them, programmed by intelligent programmmers. 

Wouldn't be amazing, that if a long time ago, there was nothing. Then in the middle of nothing, something came to exist. Since there was previously nothing, then the existence of something, happened with out a cause, since there was nothing to cause it. After some more time, this something that now existed, became other stuff that came to be, different kinds of stuff. Then for a long time, this newer stuff, became even more stuff, and continued to change. 

Then of course, as amazing as this was, some of this stuff began to live. Here is the fun part:

In order for something like that to survive, it needed to have a way to store information, we call this DNA. The DNA though, is just the information storage medium, like the magnetic platters inside the hard drive, that store information that a computer needs and uses. 

So, this DNA not only came into existence, in came into existence, with a set of blueprints, that describe how the life form that this DNA existed in, was to be built. All the information needed to describe all the parts that the life form needed, to extract energy (food) from it's environment. were already in place in the DNA molecule. It also needed a mechanism, a life form, which would host the DNA, a mechanism that could flawlessly copy the DNA and replicate itself. Without this life form, the DNA molecule would just be non-functional matter. So, of course, this means the the DNA molecule, had to exist, with a program intact, in a functional cell, at the same time and place, or subsequent life and DNA would not continue.

In other words, nothing, with enough time, became life, with the ability to make copies of itself and to survive  in it's enviroment. All of this happened uncaused without any intelligent designer, and yet, at the same time, this simple life form, with nothing to assist it, became more and more complex, until one day, more sophisticated lifeforms would exist, who can read this page.

Yet, for all of the intellence that these later life forms posess, they cannot yet, explain nor understand how all of this really worked, they just know, that somehow, it did.

Personally, I think there are two perfectly good explanations how this might have all, come to pass.

The first explanation, we can call "magic without a magician", or the "big bang / evolution model".

The second explanation, we just call God.

Related: http://www.omegazine.com/blog/funwithnumbers.html 

[SavedOnebyGrace]

39 minutes ago, Omegaman 3.0 said:

Interesting factoid:
  
I was reading that one gram of DNA, can theoretically store 455 exabytes of information, the equivalent of over 8,403,726 times as much information as was contained in all of the books ever written, as of 2006.

I was doing further research on this and found a different statistic, it said that one gram of DNA can only hold a little more than 700 terabytes of data.

For a monent there, I was almost impressed at the efficiency of cosmic accidents!

Of course, as impressive as the storage capacity of DNA is, DNA in life forms, whether human or in a lowly, single celled bacterium, is just a storage medium. Apart from information, it is like an empty hard drive in a computer (except that it is a small part of something larger which is already microcsopic, and it holds a lot more data than a hard drive).

An empty hard drive is as useful as a paperweight, a DNA molecule cannot be used as a paperweight. For a hard drive (or a DNA molecule) to be useful, it has to have information written on it. Hard drives have information on them because we, as intelligent beings, have put information there. However, in order for us to do that, we need other intelligently designed mechanisms, to put the information in there. Computer programs do not exist, without computer programmers. Now, to be sure, those hard drives do not pop into existence, by themselves, they are manufactured by machinery that makes each individual part of the hard drive, and there is other machinery, that assembles all of the parts, assisted of course, by humans who are intelligent enough, to make the tools necessary to handle and assemble the hard drives. The machinery that makes and assembles the hard drive parts, is controlled by the information contained on (you guessed it) other hard drives, which have information on them, programmed by intelligent programmmers. 

Wouldn't be amazing, that if a long time ago, there was nothing. Then in the middle of nothing, something came to exist. Since there was previously nothing, then the existence of something, happened with out a cause, since there was nothing to cause it. After some more time, this something that now existed, became other stuff that came to be, different kinds of stuff. Then for a long time, this newer stuff, became even more stuff, and continued to change. 

Then of course, as amazing as this was, some of this stuff began to live. Here is the fun part:

In order for something like that to survive, it needed to have a way to store information, we call this DNA. The DNA though, is just the information storage medium, like the magnetic platters inside the hard drive, that store information that a computer needs and uses. 

So, this DNA not only came into existence, in came into existence, with a set of blueprints, that describe how the life form that this DNA existed in, was to be built. All the information needed to describe all the parts that the life form needed, to extract energy (food) from it's environment. were already in place in the DNA molecule. It also needed a mechanism, a life form, which would host the DNA, a mechanism that could flawlessly copy the DNA and replicate itself. Without this life form, the DNA molecule would just be non-functional matter. So, of course, this means the the DNA molecule, had to exist, with a program intact, in a functional cell, at the same time and place, or subsequent life and DNA would not continue.

In other words, nothing, with enough time, became life, with the ability to make copies of itself and to survive  in it's enviroment. All of this happened uncaused without any intelligent designer, and yet, at the same time, this simple life form, with nothing to assist it, became more and more complex, until one day, more sophisticated lifeforms would exist, who can read this page.

Yet, for all of the intellence that these later life forms posess, they cannot yet, explain nor understand how all of this really worked, they just know, that somehow, it did.

Personally, I think there are two perfectly good explanations how this might have all, come to pass.

The first explanation, we can call "magic without a magician", or the "big bang / evolution model".

The second explanation, we just call God.

Related: http://www.omegazine.com/blog/funwithnumbers.html 

Many of us believe in the Big Bang but don't believe in evolution.  I believe it is an error on your part to claim a linkage between the two.  OEC doesn't require the evolution in any of its forms, IMHO.

[Omegaman 3.0]

I do not mean to imply, that one has to deny a big bang (let there be light) nor evolution. Some beleive evolution, can be a tool that God used. Certainly, we know from observation, that life forms change. We ourselves (humans) have brought about how many breeds of dogs from their ancestors the wolves, or how many varieties of tomatoes, from one original stain? Biological diversity is a reallity, and some of it is from some sort of evolution. The universe is expanding, that does strongly imply a central point of origin. I am not making a case against a big bang and and evolution, I am attempting to make the case, that is it extremely unlikely, that they spontaneously happened, apart from an intelligent designer.

In my post, I am pitting a philosophy of Godless, mindless, cosmic accidents, as opposed to the work of an intelligent creator. To be honest though, the case I was making, does not preclude the possibility or likelyhood, of the workings of an extra-universal, commitee of gods. The DNA facts, are not Christian specific, they do not tell us that we are sinners in need of a savior from the destruction we deserve, nor that God has provided such a savior in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

So, I think you are in error, to state that I claim there is a linkage, I never said that. I only address one common theory that people hold: 

In the beginning there was nothing.
Then, there was hydrogen.
The hydrogen expanded violently into the void, producing over 100 super hot elements.
Over time, these elements cooled, and formed gases and liquids and solids, and there was light, and the light was good.
Then stars and planets, galaxies etc. formed.
On at least one of these planets, conditions formed that allowed the possibility of life.
Then the unauthored laws of nature, hovered over the primordial soup, and life happened.
Life was difficult, however, mutations occurred, and sometimes, the mutations improved the survivability of new life forms.
One of these lifeforms, is reading this now.

Taken from one version of a theoretical atheist bible, Genesis, chapter one.

 

[post]

2 hours ago, Omegaman 3.0 said:

one common theory that people hold: 

In the beginning there was nothing.
Then, there was hydrogen.
The hydrogen expanded violently into the void, producing over 100 super hot elements.

. . . 

Taken from one version of a theoretical atheist bible, Genesis, chapter one.

 

(physics degree here, with minor in astronomy) -- this isn't even consistent with modern cosmology. 
accepted 'big bang' models certainly don't begin with hydrogen. that's waaay down the line in the first nanoseconds.

first, something not even properly called plasma -- nanoseconds after 'whatever' it was that originated from some cosmic point source ((you might say it's God's mouth, as He spoke the universe into existence)), the whole universe was much too hot and much too energetic to be something as stable and complex as hydrogen. first, cooling into baryonic & non-baryonic "stuff" - then, as space expands and everything cools, interestingly, the science points to a definable moment when the universe is cool enough and sparse enough for a photon to travel a whole planck length. i.e. God says, "let there be light" and for the first time, "light" exists. all this happens long before neutrons and protons and electrons form, and so long before any hydrogen atom. in the beginning, "waters" - assuming Aramaic doesn't have a better term for "quark soup" haha - and what could be "earth" - matter, as opposed to forms of radiative energy - was void. 

so later, hot, energetic hydrogen. and gravity pulls hydrogen atoms together into hot, dense clouds. and these become stars. and every element other than hydrogen is thought to have been formed by fusion reactions in stars - beginning with hydrogen fusing to become helium, going all the way down the fusion chain to lead - and then as these stars nova, these elements are spread out, even while space itself still expands. 

this kind of action needn't be mindless or Godless. in fact, a host of fundamental constants and balances of energy and substance had to be just so or hydrogen could never form, or stars could not form, or fusion couldn't occur that changed these elements into others - and on and on and on - and there is no physical reason that everything in the universe should be balanced just so. many see this fantastic organization and structure and unimaginably improbable sets of circumstances and measures as evidence of a divine Creator -- and those who reject Him, turn to things like multiverse theories, saying we only experience this one "perfect" universe, because, but the zillions of other possible sets of measures that by random choice are so much more probable, but leave us with a universe incapable of even forming the basic building blocks of matter itself, that all these also exist, but we can't perceive them, because obviously we could not exist in them. 

you also mentioned the idea that "nothing" became hydrogen. "poof" and there was hydrogen. this is completely inconsistent with any established or theorized cosmological theory. what's more correct to say is that no one except the theist has any idea about where the thing that went "bang" in the big bang came from. the atheist answer is "it has always existed" - and that's weak, and inexplicable - and the honest answer of any scientist, godless or God-fearing, is "we have no idea" - though we that believe, believe that God spoke, and it was - whether we know "how" or not, yet we believe. 

[FresnoJoe]

On ‎12‎/‎25‎/‎2015 at 8:23 PM, post said:

first, something not even properly called plasma -- nanoseconds after 'whatever' it was that originated from some cosmic point source ((you might say it's God's mouth, as He spoke the universe into existence)), the whole universe was much too hot and much too energetic to be something as stable and complex as hydrogen. first, cooling into baryonic & non-baryonic "stuff" - then, as space expands and everything cools, interestingly, the science points to a definable moment when the universe is cool enough and sparse enough for a photon to travel a whole planck length. i.e. God says, "let there be light" and for the first time, "light" exists. all this happens long before neutrons and protons and electrons form, and so long before any hydrogen atom. in the beginning, "waters" - assuming Aramaic doesn't have a better term for "quark soup" haha - and what could be "earth" - matter, as opposed to forms of radiative energy - was void. 

~

Amen~!

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” Luke 2:8-14 (New International Version)

~

The First

In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep water. The Spirit of God was hovering over the water.

Then God said, "Let there be light!" So there was light. God saw the light was good. So God separated the light from the darkness. God named the light [day], and the darkness he named [night]. There was evening, then morning-the first day. Genesis 1:1-5 (GOD'S WORD® Translation)

And The Fourth

Then God said, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years. Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.” And that is what happened. God made two great lights—the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set these lights in the sky to light the earth, to govern the day and night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

And evening passed and morning came, marking the fourth day. Genesis 1:14-19 (New Living Translation)

And It's So Simple

1n the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.

In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5 (Berean Study Bible)

Even A First Grader

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Revelation 4:11 (King James Version)

Can Get It

looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2 (English Standard Version)

[FresnoJoe]

On ‎12‎/‎25‎/‎2015 at 8:23 PM, post said:

and the honest answer of any scientist, godless or God-fearing, is "we have no idea"....
though we that believe, believe that God spoke, and it was....
whether we know "how" or not....
yet we believe.... 

~

How,

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
For by it the elders obtained a good report.

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God,
so that things which are seen were not made of things
which do appear. Hebrews 11:1-3

Honestly How

So then faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the word
of God. Romans 10:17

How Could One Ever Know

And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written,
That man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word
of God. Luke 4:4

How?

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made;
and all the host of them by the breath
of his mouth. Psalms 33:6

And Even Why?

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power:
for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure
they are and were created. Revelation 4:11

It Really Happened

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;

Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.

And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever. Revelation 5:11-14

Honestly

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;
who for the joy that was set before him
endured the cross, despising the shame,
and is set down at the right hand
of the throne
of God. Hebrews 12:2

~

Beloved

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things,
as silver and gold, from your vain conversation
received by tradition from
your fathers;

But with the precious blood of Christ,
as of a lamb without blemish
and without spot:

Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world,
but was manifest in these last times
for you, 1 Peter 1:18-20

Believe And Be Blessed

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Love, Joe

[Omegaman 3.0]

On 12/25/2015 at 6:23 PM, post said:

this isn't even consistent with modern cosmology. 
accepted 'big bang' models certainly don't begin with hydrogen. that's waaay down the line in the first nanoseconds.

It hardly matters to the point, what you call the first stuff, so my cosmology is decades out of current theory.

Having some pre-hydrogen proto-plasma, hardly makes everything from nothing more probable. In the beginning, God!

[other one]

I've been thinking about this and it seems to me that the thoughts of loosing a terabite of data is frightening enough....

 

do you know how long it takes to download a full terabite drive from Carbonite when just one of those fails...

[post]

10 hours ago, Omegaman 3.0 said:

It hardly matters to the point, what you call the first stuff, so my cosmology is decades out of current theory.

Having some pre-hydrogen proto-plasma, hardly makes everything from nothing more probable. In the beginning, God!

no, no matter how small the or strange the first "something" was - or how long ago or far away, science is still looking at creation "ex nihilo" and it's not explainable. even before the beginning, God! 

it's funny to me to see an 'atheist bible' have such a poor understanding of cosmology tho, to be starting with hydrogen & skipping stars, since they so often tout their 'superior knowledge'. but then, it's usually the case that someone who point and says "science explains creation" does not know as much science as they think they do. there are myriad problems with a biogenesis (life out of inorganic stuff) for example - and no 'big bang' theory - not even any 'multiverse theory' - is an origin theory. like you say, there's just no explaining where it all began - except that the universe is the creation of God. you can push it back to a few milliseconds after creation, maybe, but 'science' does not explain the initial act of creation - it only highlights details of the how after the fact. 

so it hardly matters whether it's hydrogen a billion seconds later, or a spin-down quark a million seconds later, or a higgs particle an hundred thousand seconds later - it's still later - after creation. 
i do have the feeling though that if we ever get all of that 'afterwards' right - that it should all jive with Genesis. and i think that it does, understood correctly. 

 

[siegi91]

On 24 December 2015 at 11:12 PM, Omegaman 3.0 said:

Interesting factoid:
  
I was reading that one gram of DNA, can theoretically store 455 exabytes of information, the equivalent of over 8,403,726 times as much information as was contained in all of the books ever written, as of 2006.

I was doing further research on this and found a different statistic, it said that one gram of DNA can only hold a little more than 700 terabytes of data.

For a monent there, I was almost impressed at the efficiency of cosmic accidents!

Of course, as impressive as the storage capacity of DNA is, DNA in life forms, whether human or in a lowly, single celled bacterium, is just a storage medium. Apart from information, it is like an empty hard drive in a computer (except that it is a small part of something larger which is already microcsopic, and it holds a lot more data than a hard drive).

An empty hard drive is as useful as a paperweight, a DNA molecule cannot be used as a paperweight. For a hard drive (or a DNA molecule) to be useful, it has to have information written on it. Hard drives have information on them because we, as intelligent beings, have put information there. However, in order for us to do that, we need other intelligently designed mechanisms, to put the information in there. Computer programs do not exist, without computer programmers. Now, to be sure, those hard drives do not pop into existence, by themselves, they are manufactured by machinery that makes each individual part of the hard drive, and there is other machinery, that assembles all of the parts, assisted of course, by humans who are intelligent enough, to make the tools necessary to handle and assemble the hard drives. The machinery that makes and assembles the hard drive parts, is controlled by the information contained on (you guessed it) other hard drives, which have information on them, programmed by intelligent programmmers. 

Wouldn't be amazing, that if a long time ago, there was nothing. Then in the middle of nothing, something came to exist. Since there was previously nothing, then the existence of something, happened with out a cause, since there was nothing to cause it. After some more time, this something that now existed, became other stuff that came to be, different kinds of stuff. Then for a long time, this newer stuff, became even more stuff, and continued to change. 

Then of course, as amazing as this was, some of this stuff began to live. Here is the fun part:

In order for something like that to survive, it needed to have a way to store information, we call this DNA. The DNA though, is just the information storage medium, like the magnetic platters inside the hard drive, that store information that a computer needs and uses. 

So, this DNA not only came into existence, in came into existence, with a set of blueprints, that describe how the life form that this DNA existed in, was to be built. All the information needed to describe all the parts that the life form needed, to extract energy (food) from it's environment. were already in place in the DNA molecule. It also needed a mechanism, a life form, which would host the DNA, a mechanism that could flawlessly copy the DNA and replicate itself. Without this life form, the DNA molecule would just be non-functional matter. So, of course, this means the the DNA molecule, had to exist, with a program intact, in a functional cell, at the same time and place, or subsequent life and DNA would not continue.

In other words, nothing, with enough time, became life, with the ability to make copies of itself and to survive  in it's enviroment. All of this happened uncaused without any intelligent designer, and yet, at the same time, this simple life form, with nothing to assist it, became more and more complex, until one day, more sophisticated lifeforms would exist, who can read this page.

Yet, for all of the intellence that these later life forms posess, they cannot yet, explain nor understand how all of this really worked, they just know, that somehow, it did.

Personally, I think there are two perfectly good explanations how this might have all, come to pass.

The first explanation, we can call "magic without a magician", or the "big bang / evolution model".

The second explanation, we just call God.

Related: http://www.omegazine.com/blog/funwithnumbers.html 

There was a time, not long ago, where the same intelligences could not figure out where lighnings came from. There were only  two possibilities:

1) magic without a magician

2) A lightning emitting pagan god (e.g. zeus)

 

where would you have put your money?

 

 

Edited December 30, 2015 by siegi91