© Cedarville University International Conference on Creationism. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of Cedarville University. McIntosh, A.C. 2023. Language, coded instructions and the interaction with thermodynamics. In J.H. Whitmore (editor), Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Creationism, pp. 316-326. Cedarville, Ohio: Cedarville University International Conference on Creationism. LANGUAGE, CODED INSTRUCTIONS AND THE INTERACTION WITH THERMODYNAMICS Andy C. McIntosh, Emeritus Professor of Thermodynamics, School of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Leeds, LEEDS, U.K., Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Engineering at Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia, USA. andy.c.mcintosh@gmail.com ABSTRACT We examine the interface between the thermodynamics of the material substrate and the non-material and yet very real, coded instructions (information) written on that material. Coded instructions are neither matter nor energy and yet are real and vital to all that exists in living systems. Contrary to naturalistic thinking, matter and energy cannot on their own evolve information and it is shown that just as there are laws of thermodynamics, there are parallel principles governing information gain and loss. It is shown in this paper that in living systems the language / coded instructions constrain the local thermodynamics and not the other way round. Thus there is a top-down flow of control such that the thermodynamics is essentially governed by software in a remarkably similar way to man-made digital computers being controlled by programmed algorithms originating from intelligent minds. The information within all living systems expressed through the non-material DNA coding is a product of a Mind confirming John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Scripture teaches that Intelligence comes before matter, and living systems demonstrate this principle. This paper explores recent advances showing that the presence of information in any system constrains the free energy by a measurable amount on the substrate of that location. We also report that in living systems the non-material DNA coding leads to extremely efficient replication and translation machinery. KEY WORDS Information, Language, Intelligence, Coded instructions, Thermodynamics, Engineering, Biochemistry, Entropy. I. INTRODUCTION This paper seeks to establish a rigorous and systematic approach to the important area of information and its interface with the substrate on which the information is expressed. Much has been written in two papers by the author (McIntosh 2009, 2013) and more recently explained in a recent volume (McIntosh 2023), so here we briefly outline the major thrust of earlier work and if more details are needed of those arguments, we refer the reader to the above references. A. Hierarchical layering of living systems. To understand the way that non-material coded instructions (information) interact with the thermodynamics of the substrate on which they are held, it is helpful to conceptualize the layered systems involved as shown in Fig. 1. The evolutionary model refers to ‘emergence’ of codes which is bound to be the view from the mindset of the philosophical naturalist because he/she cannot conceive of a “Divine foot in the door” (Lewontin 1997) when the evidence is in fact strongly indicating that codes have to come from a mind. It is the interaction between these levels shown in Fig. 1 and especially the principles of thermodynamic interchange between the substrate and the non-material information, which show that the top-down model is the correct understanding of the science of living systems. B. Thermodynamic Principle for non-isolated systems The free energy (g) locally is defined as the net energy available to do work. It effectively takes away the unusable lost energy (associated with entropy) from the overall enthalpy h (which can be regarded as the total thermodynamic energy available). There are a number of formulations which can be used, e.g. Helmholtz free energy and other schemes where electrical and magnetic energies are involved. As we are concerned with chemical reactions, we use the Gibbs formulation, g = h – Ts, and Δg = Δ − T Δ s (1a,b) where equation (1b) follows for a fixed reaction temperature T. With this formulation we can now state a very important observation concerning the nature of the change in the free energy ∆g for a given chemical reaction: Spontaneous chemical reactions move towards equilibrium and lower the free energy. These are called exergonic reactions. The opposite is true for endergonic reactions which raise the free energy — they are not spontaneous. 9th 2023
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