I think this meme says it all for you Sheldon.
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Sorry Sheldon, but this doesn’t answer the question to Eigen’s Paradox, we need information. Where did that information come from?
It probably originated through the laws of chemistry, where certain arrangements of atoms can form spontaneously. Once this happened, the chemical analog of biological evolution took over, leading to more complex arrangements of atoms and molecules, which eventually led to arrangements with the ability to replicate.
We need? You mean you want. We know information exists as an objective fact, just as we know natural phenomena exist as objective facts, you’re the one violating Occam’s razor by trying to add an unevidenced from an archaic superstition, using inexplicable magic.
I also never claimed there was answer to the paradox, since it is a paradox ffs, the clue in in the title, so you are responding with yet another straw man fallacy, though of course it answers your post, since it’s a paradox there are two conflicting ideas, we don’t know the answer to. It is irrational to claim, or imply not having an answer in any way evidences any deity or anything supernatural. THAT’S THE ANSWER TO YOUR POST, you just prefer to hold irrational beliefs, and make irrational claims, then pretend this is not the case by ignoring all response, as I said in that post. Then you immediately offer the same argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, a god of the gaps polemic.
Now there are several of my questions you have ignored.
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information is conserved 
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Here we go again with the apologetic garbage from the mythology fanboy …
Irrelevant.
First of all, the Sun has been operating as a nuclear fusion reactor liberating energy into the surroundings for five billion years. And is scheduled to continue doing so for another five billion years.
Once again, do you ever bother learning FACTS?
Do you have a functioning memory? Only the last time you peddled this irrelevance, I provided detailed reasons why it’s an irrelevance.
Though of course, in the realm of proper, rigorous information theory, as per the work of Turing, Kolmogorov and Chaitin (as opposed to scientifically illiterate creationist fantasies on the subject), Eigen’s “paradox” is an irrelevance from first principles, regardless of that detailed exposition I’ve just linked to above. See my exposition on Canard #23 in my list of creationist canards.
Forgotten my exposition of Canard #23 have you?
Information is NOT a magic entity. It doesn’t require magic to produce it. Ultimately, “information” is nothing more than the observational data that is extant about the current state of a system. That is IT. No magic needed.
When the state of a physical system of interest changes, new information is generated BY DEFINITION. Which again, is a direct outcome of the rigorous work on information theory provided by Turing, Kolmogorov and Chaitin. As a corollary of the operation of rigorous information theory, Eigen’s “paradox” is an irrelevance.
Indeed, I provided you with the requisite schooling on this topic here, which you appear to have forgotten about during your latest creationist reboot.
Are you ever going to learn, that we have here a permanent record of the multiple rebuttals of your nonsense? Which in the case of my own contributions thereto, I preserve offline in a nice little database of past posts? Do you ever bother LEARNING from the free schooling you’re receiving here?
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Telling me the definition of information “the observational data that is extant about the current state of a system” does not tell me where the information came from.
Ironic, you say there is information and not to conflate it with meaning but then go on to teach me about the amount of information found in dog turd which was rather interesting and what it means to a vet about the dog’s health.
Then you teach me about different computer processors in order to tell me that not to conflate it with meaning. But tacitly dismiss that computers are made with purpose and made by a mind as well as dismissing the fact that the information in does have meaning for the end user. Furthermore you don’t mention the fact that computer scientist are no where close to programming a computer the way our DNA is programmed.
Telling me about a chunk of code in a computer in a particular processor does not negate the fact that a software engineer who put that code together exists. You may never meet that engineer but can you say he/she doesn’t exist because you can tell me all the information in their lines of code? Does knowing the information in the lines of code negate the computer programmer’s reason or purpose? But you want me to use that line of logic for our DNA when you yourself are using it is a comparable example?
Neither does goddidit. Adding an unevidenced deity from an archaic superstition has no explanatory powers whatsoever, and it violates Occam’s razor, since it is an objective fact that natural explanations are possible, but you can demonstrate no objective evidence that any deity or anything supernatural is even possible.
Begging the question fallacy, you need to demonstrate DNA is programmed, not simply assert it. We also know for an objective fact that our DNA evolve slowly over time, the overwhelming objective evidence that supports this is irrefutable.
False equivalence fallacy, we have sufficient objective evidence that computer programmes are designed by humans, and like all things we can objectively evidence are designed, they don’t occur in nature. We have no objective evidence that anything in nature is designed, or for any of the countless deities human have imagined, or for anything supernatural.
You have no objective evidence for any deity, and your arguments are irrational so poorly reasoned. You keep parroting these creationist canards, yet when they are thoroughly debunked you simply roll on, and ignore this, now is that honest debate.
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DNA is not a code and it is not programmed! It’s just a molecule, interesting one to be fair, but just a molecule.
Are you aware that “rules” of chemistry, atomic valency, numbers of electrons in clouds, their spin, they all represents a sort of selection, molecular selection or chemical selection. Constant circular pumping of energy from Sun completely logically and expectedly so eventually developed chemistry that actually mimics the original energy source by making entire Biosphere from circular chemistry by all means available. Guidance was never needed!
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Simple example: put lipid molecules in water and they will spontaneously arrange into membrane-like structures. This happens purely through the laws of chemistry. No cartoon magic man required.
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Or does goddoit, using magic n’stuff? 
It does. It comes from the physical system you’re observing. Are you really this stupid?
I said "conflation with ascribed meaning. Do learn the basics here.
If the data from the dog turd tells whoever examines it, that the dog has Salmonella bacteria in its gut, then pretending that this isn’t informative about the dog’s health is merely more duplicitous ex recto apologetics on your part. What part of “we have a wealth of prior data informing us that numerous Salmonella serotypes are pathogenic” did you deliberately avoid considering when posting this mendacious apologetic bum custard?
Because, to those CPUs, the bytes manifestly have a different meaning. But the stream of bytes is the exact same sequence in each case. Do you need spoon feeding with the blatantly obvious?
Again, are you being merely stupid, or dishonest?
Bare faced lie. I’ve never uttered such an assertion, this is a blatant fabrication on your part.
But you are tacitly dismissing the fact that testable natural processes can behave in similar ways, without a “purpose being involved”.
When a rock falls under the influence of gravity, was that interaction the result of a “mind”? No.
Wow, data tells us something. Way to go, Captain Bleeding Obvious!
Oh wait, bacteria can detect the presence of different chemicals in their surroundings, and behave accordingly, yet manage to do this without a “mind”.
Got any more ex recto apologetics to subject to well-deserved pounding?
Look up evolutionary algorithms, which are used by scientists to “design” a wide range of artefacts.
I never asserted otherwise, once again, you’re lying for Republican Jeebus.
The difference is, we have evidence for human software engineers. We don’t have evidence for an imaginary cartoon magic man from a goat herder mythology.
Oh, and “humans produced X by pressing testable natural processes into service, means that my cartoon magic man exists and poofed things into existence” is an integral part of Canard #20 in my list of creationist canards.
Oh do continue lecturing someone who has actually written sotware for a living in the past, on the basis of “I know better than you because I treat a goat herder mythology as fact”, it’s so amusing.
Once again, I never presented this assertion. Stop lying.
No, but then once again, we have evidence for the existence of human software engineers. We have ZERO evidence for a cartoon magic man from a goat herder mythology.
Oh wait, scientists have known that DNA is the product of chemistry for decades. Or are you going to dismiss this fact, in pursuit of your shitty apologetics?
By the way, have you forgotten that the goat herder mythology you masturbate over so much, contains an explicit Commandment against lying?
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I literally just laughed out loud. Thank you.
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HUH? The information came from observation. Our observations came from our tools of observation. Our tools are biological and mechanical, and include the language we use to explain our environment.
What are you talking about? “Where information came from?” What do you think information is?
Why would you assume there is information in dog turd. Information is ascribed to dog turds. What definition of infomation are you using?
I would just reference the article, but I think readers should be aware of the facts. So I will post it in its entirety.
DNA : When Is A Code Not A Code ?
Stephen C. Meyer is an intelligent design advocate and a co-founder of the Discovery Institute.
The core argument of Stephen Meyer’s book, Signature in a Cell, written in advocacy of intelligent design, is this: DNA is a code and a computer instruction is a code. Since computer code requires an intelligent designer, and DNA is a code, it follows that DNA is a product of, or is controlled by, an intelligent designer.
This argument has no foundation if one does not accept its basic premises: that DNA is a code that a computer instruction is a code, and that the term ‘code’ is applicable in exactly the same way to both uses.
Men take the words they find in use amongst their neighbours; and that they may not seem ignorant what they stand for, use them confidently, without much troubling their heads about a certain fixed meaning; whereby, besides the ease of it, they obtain this advantage, That, as in such discourses they seldom are in the right, so they are as seldom to be convinced that they are in the wrong;
John Locke. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book III, Chapter X.
Browse By Author: L | Project Gutenberg
Before leaping to any conclusions based on our use of the word ‘code’, we must, if we are to be scientific, first define ‘code’.
A code is a member of the class ‘symbols’. A first level symbol is a label which is used in place of the thing which it identifies. For example, suppose a building with a sign over the window which bears the word ‘pharmacy’. We can use the symbol ‘pharmacy’ in language as a symbolic substitute for any real pharmacy. Suppose now that we invent a slang term ‘pill-farm’ to mean ‘pharmacy’. We now have a secondary label ‘pill-farm’ which is a second-level symbol for ‘pharmacy’. ‘Pharmacy’ in its turn is a first level symbol for a real building of a specific type.
By convention, a primary symbol is a name, but any secondary symbol is a code : a symbol which stands in place of another symbol. For purposes of clarification, I will give another example. ‘And so forth’ is a primary label or symbol for an idea. By converting it into Latin, a language spoken by few speakers of English, we encode it as ‘et cetera’. We now abbreviate it to ‘etc.’, a second level coding.
A code is not a symbol. A symbol is not a code. A symbol stands in place of an object or idea. A code stands in place of a symbol : it is a symbol for a symbol.
In computer instructions, we start with the simplest possible representations of what is going on inside a computer chip. We observe that a location in a computer chip can be at one of two voltages. Taking these voltages as our idea we invent symbols for the two voltages: ‘1’ and ‘0’. These are our primary symbols and they can only be written as binary expressions.
As a convenience, we can use a form of abbreviation which is easier for humans to handle than binary. The most common such abbreviation is hexadecimal code, or hex. As an example, the binary 1010 0101 can be written as A5 in hex. Note that hex, being a secondary symbol level is a code.
When dealing with binary as computer instructions rather than as numbers it is convenient to use mnemonic codes. It may be that the binary string 1111 0000 1100 0100, or F0C4 in hex, is an instruction to the computer core, expressed as F0, to jump to memory location C4, but only IF a previously computed result was non-zero. We can write that as a mnemonic code: JNZ C4.
Such mnemonics are called assembly language. The ‘assembly’ part of the name comes from the fact that this mnemonic code needs to be assembled into a package of binary numbers in order for the computer to be able to use it as a program.
DNA is a string of molecules. There are four main components: guanine, adenine, thymine and cytosine. Those names, the words ‘guanine’, ‘adenine’, ‘thymine’ and ‘cytosine’ are primary symbols invented by humans to identify the physical molecules which are found in DNA.
For convenience, we often abbreviate these symbols to CAGT, so that we can more readily handle the huge volume of data which we have accumulated about DNA. Please observe: there exists a long molecule of a type which we label DNA. It has four major components to which we assign symbols as names. We next assign symbols to the name symbols as an abbreviating code. We humans have agreed to assign the four letters CAGT as a code for the symbols which in turn stand for the molecular components of DNA.
A code is a symbol which stands in place of a symbol. The four letters CAGT most definitely form a code, being symbols for the names of the four major components of DNA. The names guanine, adenine, thymine and cytosine are not codes: they are primary symbols . Primary symbols stand for real things and not for symbols. The real physical entities guanine, adenine, thymine and cytosine are not codes . If anyone wants to call them codes, let them point to the symbols which might be replaced by these ‘codes’.
A computer code is a set of numerical values sufficient and necessary to the production of an end state from an initial state.
DNA is necessary but not sufficient to the production of an end state from an initial state.
To claim that computer code and DNA are both codes is an abuse of the power of words. It is decidedly not scientific.
Concluding remarks:
Anyone who already believes in intelligent design will derive no new knowledge from Stephen Meyer’s book.
Anyone who believes in a rigorous approach to science will derive no new knowledge from Stephen Meyer’s book.
I conclude that no value is to be obtained from Stephen Meyer’s book by any thinking person.
Edit: further reading
More articles in the debate about whether or not DNA is “really” a code.
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/dna-is-not-a-code/
http://www.naontiotami.com/?p=612
http://ds9a.nl/amazing-dna/ - a highly recommended read!
DNA IS NOT A CODE!
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the information comes from the information creator not necessarily from the observer. Neither does it come from the system it came from. It was placed there in the system by a designer.
It is an objective fact that the observer exists, while there is no objective evidence at all for any “creator”, the fact this must be explained over and over just underlines your rank dishonesty throughout this discourse. You are violating Occam’s razor with the same irrational bullshit, over and over again, even after your error has been explained each and every time.
Utter gibberish…?
Since you have failed to demonstrate any objective evidence or even rational argument to support this claim, it’s baffling that you imagine repeating your unevidenced assertion makes it at all compelling.
Your just making assertions. Do you have any evidence? I can say, whatever it is you are calling information was put there by a potato, and our arguments are exactly the same.
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Not sure I agree, since we know as an objective fact that potatoes exist, and are therefor possible, we have no such evidence for any deity. So your version has one less violation of Occam’s razor than his.
Winner winner chicken dinner! All hail the mighty creator potato.
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I thought I referenced the magic flying, invisible, non-corporal, omnipotent, one eyed but all seeing, purple potato that exists beyond time and space. I just assumed you understood me.
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I don’t think you know what information is.
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