Is the deduction that codes require "coders" a rational deduction that can be made, or is it simply "religion" masquerading as science?

Answer 1

What an interesting question. Let's start by saying that codes are things that mean something. For something to "mean" something, you've got to have a receiver or decoder. You could call that thing a computer, or a mind or consciousness. Here, I'll just call it a mind.

If a code is something that registers meaningfully on a mind, then poof, there must be a mind (somewhere) in order to have a code (by definition). That implies a de-coder at least.

It doesn't imply an encoder, at least not until you define the decoder. If you define the decoder, you have to put it into terms that make sense. That means that you're decoding the decoder, and so (by definition) the decoder is also encoding.

Now, you might think that this basically proves that code implies encoders, but it doesn't! Logical systems have lots of undefined constructs. For example, dividing by zero is undefined in arithmetic, yet nothing falls apart.

Answer 2

To me, this seems like a similar argument to William Paley's watchmaker, a scenario that was designed to prove that something as complex as nature must have a designer, the same way a watch must have a watch maker.

To take the title of an entire book by Richard Dawkins as my answer, it's very likely that all life life is the result of a "blind watchmaker," in that the complexities of life result from natural selection, which has no clear goal in mind for what the outcome will be.