dheddle
Posts: 545
Joined: Sep. 2007
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| Quote (olegt @ Jan. 23 2011,11:10) | Noesis calls Dembski on the carpet:
| Quote | You define the active information of an algorithm in terms of its performance. Then you say that an algorithm performs well because it has active information, when it actually has active information because it performs well.
It seems to me that you’re caught up it circular reasoning. What have I missed? |
DrDr replies:
| Quote | | There’s no circularity here, but there are two senses of active information at play. Think of kinetic energy — there’s the measurement of kinetic energy of a system, which can be defined operationally, and then there’s the underlying entity — the actual kinetic energy of the system. Active information is, in the first instance, defined relationally: there’s an inherent difficulty of a problem as gauged by blind search; there’s the reduced difficulty of a problem as gauged by an alternate search. This reduction in difficulty or improvement in search capacity is measurable and, indeed, is measured by active information. But then the question arises, what enabled the second search (the alternate search) to perform better than the first search (the blind search). Here we posit that the second search had an infusion of active information, now treated as a hypothesized entity. This is in keeping with standard scientific practice of treating measurements as reflecting underlying entities. |
This is silly. In physics, kinetic energy K is useful not because it reflects some other "underlying entity — the actual kinetic energy of the system" (what the heck is that?). The work-energy theorem states that a change in K equals work W of a force acting on the object. It is crucial that W can be computed independently of K as the integral of the force over distance traveled. That makes the work-energy theorem a nontrivial statement.
There is nothing of the sort in the latest shenanigans of Dembski and Marks. They have no way of quantifying "active information" other than the difference between the performances of a blind search and a search in question. Unlike conservation of energy, their "conservation law" is a mere tautology. |
Spot on. What lunacy regarding kinetic energy.
There is something I have missed being out of this arena for a while--has Dembski come out of the closet as a YEC?
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Mysticism is a rational enterprise. Religion is not. The mystic has recognized something about the nature of consciousness prior to thought, and this recognition is susceptible to rational discussion. The mystic has reason for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical. --Sam Harris
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