Hi Bill,
Well, in this discussion, here are the meanings I give to these two words:
Signifier: something that points to something else by mean of representation or indication (ex: tree rings indicate whether conditions, codons represent amino acids)
Signified: the thing that the signifier points to.
Yes. And like you, I don’t know why some people here don’t seem to grasp this simple point.
And smoke represents fire, right?
Could you, then, explain why you believe there is an intelligent agent involved when a pile of burning leaves produced smoke?
Possibly because it appears to be nothing more than a bald, unsubstantiated, assertion. 
And amino acids can represent codons, just as codons can represent amino acids.
No. In the cell, representation flows one way—codons dictate amino acids, not vice versa.
Amino acids don’t stand for codons in the translation process.
At best, amino acids might be seen as indexes for they might point to codons by mean of indication, but only in a retrospective, human-interpretive context, not in the biological mechanism.
No, smoke points to fire by mean of indication, not representation.
One doesn’t have to explain what he doesn’t believe, does he?
Please explain the difference, and how you have determined that applies to burning leaves producing smoke thru physical processe, but not to codons producing amino acides thru physical processes.
Yes. This is just an obvious fact anyone who isn’t cognitively diseased can fathom. An amino acid can represent a codon.
Aaaand we’re back to the direction of causality rule.
You said because fire causes smoke, we can use the order of causes to classify the smoke as the signifier (that which is caused by something else), and the fire to be the signified.
Applying this rule to translation, since amino acids are caused by codons (as you say, dictated by codons), amino acids would be the signifier, and the codon the signified.
But you want to say the codon is the signifier, and the amino acid the signified. In contradiction to your rule about the order of causes.
So you’re contradicting yourself. Stop contradicting yourself. You’re an embarrassment to everything you claim to stand for.
No, in the cell, aa don’t represent codons. I challenge you to find a single publication where the author says that aa represent codons.
You didn’t pay attention to what I wrote for if you did you would have avoided two big errors here. First, I’ve nether said that because fire causes smoke, we can use the order of causes to classify the smoke as the signifier. Second, I’ve never defined signifier as that which is caused by something else.
Given that the rule is false, no surprise that the conclusion is false.
Again, the rule you falsely attribute to me is false. A priori, the causal relationship that may exist between a signifier and a signified tell you nothing about the directionality of the relationship. It may be that the signifier is caused by the signified, as it is the case when dealing with indexes (smoke, the signifier, is caused by fire, the signified; or tree ring, the signifier, is caused by whether conditions). Or it may be the other way around, as is the case when dealing with symbols (amino acids, the signified, is caused by codons, the signifier)
I invite you to ponder more deeply the elements of this conversation before making these baseless claims.
You know no such thing of course.
Yes. When we are talking about representation I couldn’t give any less of a rat’s arse what anyone has written in any publication, even less what happens to occur in the cell. In terms of the concept of representation, which is just that, a concept, amino acids can represent codons just as well as codons can represent amino acids.
Then what the flying fork is this?:
You literally and explicitly define signifier and signified in terms of the direction of causal relation. And then you immediately go and contradict yourself.
Your behavior is that of a clown. One with either an extremely poor memory, or liar. Either way I’m done. Talking to you, since you behave this way, is beneath me. I’m out. Bye.
I note that you never bother to actually respond to those who have been citing the evidence to you. I take that as your recognition that you are unable to productively respond to them. Why don’t you do that, now, rather than just uttering the equivalent of “NUH-UHHHH!”
Perhaps you don’t take in the evidence; if so, then I suppose it may be true that YOU do not know any such thing. But you should not impute that to others.
But, Rum, if you do that how will @Giltil remember what he’s written here? He obviously can’t do it himself. He keeps denying and contradicting what he’s written.
Apparently consistently reminding him of his own words and shoving evidence in his metaphorical face has no effect. These people are cowards.
Their “worldview” is quite literally make-believe. They seem to think they have the power they ascribe to God: That they can just speak reality into manifesting their will. Gilbert said it and it was so.
The biggest irony of it all is that it’s basically a postmodernist approach to discourse, or facts. It is as if they actually don’t believe in objective facts. We all just decide what is true based on personal desires, and this then makes it true for us.
What I don’t understand about this is how applying a bunch of made-up concepts and rules re: semiotics to molecular biology gets us any closer to demonstrating a designer?
Just because you can invent concepts and apply them to manufactured objects and living organisms tells us nothing about the origins of those things. This is just an attempt at an argument based on equivalence.
Yes, that is something that has struck me as well.
Not quite the same thing, but I am currently involved in a discussion with a guy who wrote a book on the resurrection of Jesus.. He claims that the cures reported by people who bathed in the waters of Lourdes are good evidence that miracles occur. He emphasizes that, when deciding whether an actual miracle cure has occurred, the Church relies on something called the Lambertini Criteria, which are summarized as follows:
According to the Lambertini criteria, the disease must be serious and impossible to cure by current human means as well as not be in a stage liable to remission. The cure must be instantaneous, complete, permanent, and must not be preceded by treatment to which the cure could be attributed. In order to comply with these criteria, the cases can sometimes take decades of follow up and observation before they are “cleared” by the Medical Bureau.
Lourdes: A uniquely Catholic approach to medicine - PMC
My point is that these are just some criteria the Church made up in the 18th Century, and they have not been validated as a means of distinguishing natural spontaneous remissions from those caused by the Christian god or some other supernatural being.
It’s not dissimilar to how @Giltil just makes up some criteria that he then declares as definitive of “intelligence.” However, at least the Church doesn’t keep revising and reversing the Lambertini criteria with every new paragraph.
HI E
The transcription/translation mechanism is evidence that there is something going on beyond the laws of the natural world in explaining the origin of this biological mechanism. This is a mechanism that if removed will kill any cell. Gil through his arguments has been trying to show it emulates human designed complex systems. I think the closest equivalence is the 3D printer.
The reality is all origins are hard to explain. If I asked you to explain the origin of the electron you might cite the Big Bang but that does not tell us much.
I think there are two possible answers that make any sense as the random accident multiverse explanations do not IMO.
-We don’t know.
-There is an intelligent creator(s) behind it all.
I have personally over time landed on the second conclusion.
Is it? I’m not seeing it. Perhaps you can help:
Premise 1: X exists.
- - - fill in the blank - - -
Conclusion: Therefore something is going on beyond the laws of the natural world in explaining the origin of X.
Any cell? Even cells that do not have DNA in them?
Can’t speak for EP, but I for one would not do that in response. I would ask you first to clarify what you mean by “to explain” in general and by “to explain the origin of the electron” in particular, because I genuinely do not know what criteria a message must satisfy in your opinion, so as to qualify as an attempt at a response to this query.
Just like “This one goes to eleven,” from Spinal Tap.
I was thinking along the lines of Monty Python and the “she’s a witch!” bit.