In the Beginning Was Information

In the Beginning was Information

A Scientist Explains the Incredible Designs in Nature

Dr. Werner Gitt

Copyright Information

First Master Books printing, February 2006

Second printing, April 2007

Copyright © 2005 by Werner Gitt. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations in articles and reviews. For information, write Master Books, Inc., P.O. Box 726, Green Forest, AR 72638.

ISBN-13: 978-0-89051-461-0

ISBN-10: 0-89051-461-5

Library of Congress Number: 2005934372

Cover by Left Coast Design, Portland, Oregon

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is from the New International Version of the Bible.

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Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated to Rona and Jörn

Contents

Preface

Preface to the English Edition

1 Preliminary Remarks about the Concept of Information

Part 1: Laws of Nature

2 Principles of Laws of Nature

2.1 The Terminology Used in the Natural

2.2 The Limits of Science and the Persistence of Paradigms

2.3 The Nature of Physical Laws

2.4 The Relevance of the Laws of Nature

2.5 The Classification of the Laws of Nature

2.6 Possible and Impossible Events

Part 2: Information

3 Information Is a Fundamental Entity

3.1 Information: A Fundamental Quantity

3.2 Information: A Material or a Mental Quantity?

3.3 Information: Not a Property of Matter!

4 The Five Levels of the Information Concept

4.1 The Lowest Level of Information: Statistics

4.2 The Second Level of Information: Syntax

4.3 The Third Level of Information: Semantics

4.4 The Fourth Level of Information: Pragmatics

4.5 The Fifth Level of Information: Apobetics

5 Delineation of the Information Concept

6 Information in Living Organisms

6.1 Necessary Conditions for Life

6.2 The Genetic Code

6.3 The Origin of Biological Information

6.4 Materialistic Representations and Models of the Origin of Biological Information

6.5 Scientists against Evolution

7 The Three Forms in which Information Appears

8 Three Kinds of Transmitted Information

9 The Quality and Usefulness of Information

10 Some Quantitative Evaluations of Semantics

11 Questions Often Asked about the Information

Part 3: Application of the Concept of Information to the Bible

12 Life Requires a Source of Information

13 The Quality and Usefulness of Biblical Information

14 Aspects of Information as Found in the Bible

14.1 God as Sender — Man as Recipient

14.2 Man as Sender — God as Recipient

14.3 The Highest Packing Density of Information

15 The Quantities Used for Evaluating Information and Their Application to the Bible

16 A Biblical Analogy of the Four Fundamental Entities — Mass, Energy, Information, and Will

Appendix

A1 The Statistical View of Information

A1.1 Shannon’s Theory of Information

A1.2 Mathematical Description of Statistical Information

A1.2.1 The Bit: Statistical Unit of Information

A1.2.2 The Information Spiral

A1.2.3 The Highest Packing Density of Information

A1.3 Evaluation of Communication Systems

A1.4 Statistical Analysis of Language

A1.5 Statistical Synthesis of Language

A2 Language: The Medium for Creating, Communicating, and Storing Information

A2.1 Natural Languages

A2.1.1 General Remarks on the Structure of Human Language

A2.1.2 Complexity and Peculiarities of Languages

A2.1.3 The Origin of Languages

A2.1.4 Written Languages

A2.2 Special Languages Used in the Animal World

A2.3 Does "Artificial Intelligence" Exist?

A3 Energy

A3.1 Energy, a Fundamental Quantity

A3.2 Strategies for Maximizing the Utilization of Energy

A3.2.1 Utilization of Energy in Technological Systems

A3.2.2 Utilization of Energy in Biological Systems (Photosynthesis)

A3.3 The Consumption of Energy in Biological Systems: Strategies for Minimization

A3.4 Conservation of Energy in Biological Systems

A3.4.1 Animal "Chlorophyll"

A3.4.2 Animals with "Lamps"

A3.4.3 The Lung, an Optimal Structure

A3.4.4 The Flight of Migratory Birds

A3.4.4.1 The Flight of Migrating Birds: An Accurate Energy Calculation

A3.4.4.2 The Flight of Migrating Birds: A Navigational Masterpiece

References

Preface

Theme of the book:
The topic of this book is the concept of
information
, which is a fundamental entity on equal footing with matter and energy. Many questions have to be considered: What is information? How does information arise? What is the function of information? How is it encoded? How is it transmitted? What is the source of the information found in living organisms?

Information confronts us on all sides; newspapers, radio, and television bring new information daily, and information processing systems are found practically everywhere; for example, in computers, numerical control equipment, automatic assembly lines, and even car wash machines. It should be noted that the activities of all living organisms are controlled by programs comprising information.

Because information is required for all life processes, it can be stated unequivocally that information is an essential characteristic of all life. All efforts to explain life processes in terms of physics and chemistry only will always be unsuccessful. This is the fundamental problem confronting present-day biology, which is based on evolution.

Structure and purpose of this book:
This book consists of three main parts and an appendix. In the first part, the nature of natural laws is discussed. This introduction is indispensable for the subsequent formulation and evaluation of information theorems.