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Dear Pervaiz,
If you like you can share this article with the
FOTH.
it is relevant to the debate on Evolution and Religion.
The Information Beyond Matter &
Lawh-i Mahfuz
HARUN YAHYA
Information… This concept today means a lot more
than it did even a half century ago. Scientists are developing theories
to define information. Social scientists speak of "the information age."
Information is becoming a very important concept for humanity.
The discovery of information in the origin of both
the universe and life itself is what makes this concept so important in
the modern world. Scientists today are realizing that “matter, energy
and information form the universe" and this is replacing the
materialistic philosophy of the nineteenth century that defined the
universe as being made up entirely of "matter and energy."
So, what does this all mean?
Let's explain through an example, that of DNA. All
living cells function according to the genetic information in the double
helix structure of DNA. Our bodies are also formed by trillions of cells
each with its own DNA, and all the functions of our bodies are
registered in this giant molecule. Our cells use protein codes inscribed
in the DNA to produce new proteins. The information that our DNA
possesses is so large that if you wanted to write it down, it would fill
up 900 volumes of encyclopedias, cover-to-cover!
So what is DNA made up of? Fifty years ago,
scientists would have replied that DNA is formed by nucleic acids called
nucleotides and the chemical bonds holding these nucleotides together.
In other words, they used to list only the material elements of the DNA.
But today, scientists have a different answer: DNA is composed of atoms,
molecules, chemical bonds and, most importantly, information.
It's just like a book. We would be quite mistaken
to say that a book is only made up of paper, ink and binding for,
alongside these materials, it is the information that truly makes it a
book. It is information which separates a volume of the Encyclopedia
Britannica from a "book" formed by randomly arranged letters like
ABICLDIXXGGSDLL. Both have paper, ink and binding, but one has
information while the other does not. The source of information is the
author of that book, a mind with consciousness. Therefore we can't deny
that an intelligent being placed the information in DNA there.
The Information Dead End of Evolutionary Theory and
Materialism
The discovery of this fact has sent materialist
philosophy and Darwinism, its application to the natural sciences, into
a dead end, because materialist philosophy claims that matter forms all
living things alone and that genetic information appeared somehow by
"chance." This is like saying that a book could be formed from a random
assemblage of paper and ink.
Materialism subscribes to the theory of
"reductionism," which claims that information can ultimately be reduced
to matter. For this reason, materialists say that there's no need to
look for any source of information besides matter. But this assertion
has been proven to be in error, and even materialists have started to
owe up to this truth.
One of the leading defenders of the theory of
evolution, George C. Williams, pointed in a 1995 essay to the mistake of
materialism (reductionism), that is, assuming everything to consist of
materials:
Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize that
they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of
information and that of matter… These two domains will never be brought
together in any kind of the sense usually implied by the term
"reductionism." …The gene is a package of information, not an object...
In biology, when you're talking about things like genes and genotypes
and gene pools, you're talking about information, not physical objective
reality... This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and
information two separate domains of existence, which have to be
discussed separately, in their own terms. 1
Stephen C. Meyer, a philosopher of science from the
Cambridge University and who is critical of the theory of evolution as
well as materialism, says in an interview:
One thing I do in classes to get this idea across
the students is that I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with
software, the other one is blank. And I ask, "What is the difference in
mass between these two computer disks as a result of the difference in
the information content that they possess"? And of course the answer is
zero, none, there is no difference as a result of the information. That
is because information is a massless quantity. Information is not a
material entity.
Then how can any materialistic explanation explain
its origin? How can any material cause explain its origin?... This
creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic evolutionary
scenarios.
In the 19th century, we thought that there were two
fundamental entities of science: Matter and energy. At the beginning of
the 21st century, we now recognize that there is a third fundamental
entity, and it is information. It is not reducible to matter; it is not
reducible to energy. 2
All theories put forward in the twentieth century
to reduce information to matter-like the random origin of life,
self-organization of matter, the biological theory of evolution that has
tried to explain species' genetic information through the mechanism of
mutation and natural selection-have failed. Professor Phillip Johnson, a
leading critic of Darwinism, wrote:
The real duality at every level of biology is the
duality of matter and information. The philosophers of mind-science fail
to understand the true nature of information because they assume that it
is produced by a material (i.e. Darwinian) process and hence is not
something fundamentally different from matter. But this is merely a
prejudice that would be swept away by unbiased thinking. 3
As Johnson states, "information is not matter,
although it is imprinted on matter. It comes from elsewhere, from an
intelligence...." Dr. Werner Gitt, a director and professor at the
German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology, expressed much the
same thought:
A coding system always entails a nonmaterial
intellectual process. A physical matter cannot produce an information
code. All experiences show that every piece of creative information
represents some mental effort and can be traced to a personal idea-giver
who exercised his own free will, and who is endowed with an intelligent
mind.... There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known
sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in
matter... 4
As we discussed above, a book is formed by paper,
ink and the information it includes. The source of this information is
the mind of the author.
And there is one more important point: This mind
comes prior to the material elements and it decides how to use them. A
book first appears in the mind of the person who will write that book.
The author makes logical connections and comes up with sentences. Later,
in the second stage, he gives these ideas a material form. By using a
typewriter or computer, he turns the information contained within his
mind into letters. Later these letters go to a printing house and they
make up a book.
So here, we can reach the following conclusion: "If
matter includes information, then that material has been pre-organized
by a mind possessing that information. First there was a mind, and then
the owner of that mind turned that information into matter and thus
created a design."
The Mind That Existed Before Matter
Therefore, the source of the information in nature
cannot be the matter itself, as the materialists claim. The source of
information is not matter, but rather a supra-material Mind. This Mind
existed before matter. The Mind created, shaped and organized the whole
material universe.
Biology isn't the only branch of science leading us
to this conclusion. Twentieth century astronomy and physics also
demonstrated the existence of an astonishing harmony and design,
pointing to the existence of a Mind that existed before the universe and
created it.
Israeli scientist Gerald Schroeder who studied
physics and biology in universities like the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), and the author of the book The Science of God, makes
some important remarks on this subject. In his new book entitled The
Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth, he explains the
conclusion reached by molecular biology and quantum physics as follows:
A single consciousness, a universal wisdom,
pervades the universe. The discoveries of science, those that search the
quantum nature of subatomic matter, have moved us to the brink of a
startling realization: all existence is the expression of this wisdom.
In the laboratories we experience it as information that first
physically articulated as energy and then condensed into the form of
matter. Every particle, every being, from atom to human, appears to
represent a level of information, of wisdom. 5
According to Schroeder, the scientific results of
our age lead science and theology to meet at a common truth. This is the
truth of Creation. Science is now re-discovering this truth that divine
religions have actually taught to humanity for millennia.
The Lawh-i Mahfuz (The Preserved Tablet)
So far, we have looked at science's conclusions
about the universe and the origin of living things. The conclusion is
that the entire universe and life itself were created using a blueprint
of magnificent information that existed before.
This conclusion reached by modern science is
strikingly in agreement with a secret that was laid out in the Qur'an
some 14 centuries ago. In the Qur'an, a book sent to people as a guide,
God announced that the Lawh-i Mahfuz (the Preserved Tablet) existed
before the creation of the universe and that it furthermore explained
all creation and events in the universe.
The Lawh-i Mahfuz was "guarded" (mahfuz) so the
things written there were not changed or spoiled. In the Qur'an, this is
called "Ommu al-Kitabi" (The Mother of the Book), "Kitabun Hafeethun"
(All-Preserving Book), "Kitabin Maknoonin" (Well-Protected Book) or just
the book. It is also called Kitabin min Qabli (The Book of Decrees)
since it also tells of the events that humanity will face.
In many verses, God tells about the characteristics
of the Lawh-i Mahfuz. First of all, there is nothing missing from this
book:
The keys of the Unseen are in His possession. No
one knows them but Him. He knows everything in the land and sea. No leaf
falls without His knowing it. There is no seed in the darkness of the
earth, and nothing moist or dry which is not in a Clear Book. (Qur'an,
6: 59)
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