“The expression ‘effected spoken word’ . . . means this: an agent, in forming an intention [a thought of a cognitive mind], accomplishes it by first articulating the intention as a word [for example, the linguistic neural code I have discussed in my books and in many blogs], then transmitting that word through a speech act [for example, the transmission of neural codes through synchronous synaptic networks], and finally ensuring that this spoken word achieves its desired effect [the action end point that completes the definition of information, as discussed by Werner Gitt]. . . . When the agent is God intent on creating a world, creation likewise becomes an effected spoken word. Compare Isaiah 55:11, God speaking, ‘So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.’” (William A. Dembski)

Dembski asks a challenging and important question, “. . . what is more real, material objects or the information characteristic of material objects? I would say the information. . . . We live, move and have our being inside a matrix of information. We have no way of getting outside that matrix. Moreover, according to the Judeo-Christian account of creation, there may be no outside. If creation is, as this religious tradition teaches, an effected word spoken by God, then creation itself is a primal informational act. Moreover, the outworking of this creation in all its details will then be a series of echoes stemming from that primal act. Given such an account of creation, the search for a substratum of reality more basic than information would be futile.”

Dembski’s comments speak to the reality that the ultimate source of information is a mind, in this case the Mind of God. In the next blog post I will include Dembski’s comments in a footnote that expand on this point.

Dembski discusses the patterns of information that are problems for materialism:

“The problem for materialism and empiricism in reconstituting the world, whether in terms of elemental matter or elemental sensory experiences respectively, is ultimately informational. When we do science, we don’t encounter matter in its raw state nor do we encounter sensory experiences in their raw state. Rather, we encounter certain patterns to the exclusion of others [Dembski’s “small probabilities” selected by an intelligent mind]. In other words, we encounter information. The material and sensory features associated with these patterns are secondary. Indeed, those very features are themselves patterned and thus informational. The patterns, or equivalently the types of information conveyed, are primary.”

Dembski cites cybernetics founder, Norbert Weiner, who “thought that information could not be subsumed under matter: ‘Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day.’”

Dembski addresses God’s creations as teleological:

“. . . from the vantage of Christian theism, I . . . see nature as a created order endowed by its creator with certain powers, all of which may be regarded as teleological since they were intended by God. But Christianity goes further, holding to a supernatural deity, with God acting in ways that transcend nature’s inherent powers. . . . Christian theism therefore regards nature as inherently incomplete, finding its completion in God. . . . Christian theism is compatible with God delegating to nature many of its powers (cf. the medieval distinction between primary and secondary causes, secondary causes operating under their own power, instituted by the primary cause, God).”

Dembski presents an interesting and informative discussion of intelligence as it relates to nature:

“In everyday experience, we distinguish between two sources of information: intelligence and nature. . . . an intelligence, to advance a purpose, may identify one possibility to the exclusion of others and thereby produce information. Alternatively, nature, as a system of causes and effects, may bring about some event to the exclusion of others, and thereby produce information. . . . a human intelligence, to advance a purpose, performs a conceptual act, identifying one possibility to the exclusion of others. Such an act requires thought and consciousness, and yet in humans makes use of neurophysiology [encoded spike trains of action potentials that transmit information through synaptic networks, as discussed in my books and specific blog posts], which in turn is part of nature. Human intelligence may therefore be regarded as natural even if it is not purely material. . . . According to information theorist Douglas Robertson, the defining characteristic of intelligent agents . . . is their ability to create and communicate information. That’s what intelligences do for a living. . . . it follows that if nature is itself the act of a creative intelligence, then nature is a form of information and nature’s operations may themselves be regarded as intelligent and teleological. Nature’s intelligence would in that case be a derived intelligence. . . . Because materialism gives primacy to matter, it downgrades the role of intelligence in nature, conceiving of nature in purely material terms, thus making intelligence a byproduct of material nature rather than its source and purpose. Materialism sees matter as fundamentally non-intelligent, and it thus needs to constitute intelligence out of matter.”

I cite Dembski, who states, “As a Christian theist, I’m happy to regard the collection of all possible worlds as residing in the mind of God and then see God, in an act of creation, as actualizing one world, ours, to the exclusion of others. . . . Unlike materialism, which makes matter the starting point for inquiry, information makes the actual world and the possibilities associated with it the starting point. Information thus allows the world to be whatever it is. . . . We know that a world exists and that it realizes certain possibilities to the exclusion of others, thereby generating information.”

“[Dembski’s] argument is that intelligence creates information, which in turn can manifest itself materially, and that intelligence is thus the preeminent first cause. This puts matter causally downstream from both intelligence and information, making it a subordinate and derivative concept. . . .Dembski not only takes information to be the fundamental substance, but also clearly believes . . . that this substance ultimately originates with a personal God who intentionally gives being to the world, ordering its material structure and guiding its inhabitants for a purpose.”

I will now post selected excerpts from Dembski’s book, Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information, some of which I have included in my books and have made reference to in blogs. I strongly recommend this book to those who wish to understand the theory of communication. “For a thing to be real it must be able to communicate with other things. If this is so, then the problem of being receives a straightforward resolution: to be is to be in communion.” [Taken from the back cover piece] Dembski compellingly documents that “information in nature is ‘communion,’” and this extends to communion between the Mind of God and the mind of Man by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

I am sharing a quote from Christof Lameter, whom I cited in my second book:

“If God can act in reality through coordinating large amounts of quantum events for a purpose at a higher level then it is possible to assume that the same can be done with the human brain. God can effectively communicate with humans by direct stimulation of neurons in the human brain generating images and memories. God is able to communicate with humans in a direct way. May this be an explanation for the working of the Holy Spirit? Visions and other religious experiences could be understood through this process.”