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stevestory



Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,10:40   

Quote (cryptoguru @ Feb. 20 2015,06:53)
Wes, your world-view pre-supposes purely natural causation and excludes supernatural, intelligent causation ... as that is the purpose of the theory of evolution; to explain origins without the need for an intelligent agent.
Evolutionary theory is the science of atheists and fake atheists (agnostics), who need to find a way to explain the origin and diversity of life without a God.

Thus the need to explain that information can arise automatically from noise by purely natural processes.

hahahahahhahaha. Crypto, you're the best of the 3 creationists here, but you're still not any good.

   
cryptoguru



Posts: 53
Joined: Jan. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,10:47   

NoName: This statement is fact:
pure randomness by itself cannot account for the arrival of complex information ... evolutionists (educated ones) agree with this point

You are confusing what information is ... information is not simply something that is patterned or useful. A hammer is useful, it is not information. The instructions on how to build a hammer or how to use a hammer to make an object with nails and wood IS information.

Natural occurring patterns and stellar "signatures" are NOT information they have no intended meaning.
The pattern of stripes on a bee's body is not information, the way it moves its body to communicate to other bees where the honey is located IS information.
DNA is information because it means something to the living cell that is interpreting the data. The cell is running an instruction set (DNA) that it understands. The cell can't run ANY instruction set, the instruction set has to mean something to the interpreter, which goes about using that information to build proteins and assemble them into complex structures.

Randomness cannot create information.

Evolutionists assert that natural selection on randomness creates information by filtering out noise and leaving information through competition. I would like to see THAT happen without imposing intelligence on the system by telling it what it should be producing.

EXAMPLE (from InterStellar the movie):
pour dust on the floor, it makes a pile ... does that pile contain information? No. It's just a pile of dust.
interact with the dust to make it form piles that represent morse code and convey a message. It's information now!
What made it information? Has anything changed in the dust itself? No! Did the dust contain the natural properties to create the information itself? No! The information was enforced by an outside intelligence and had meaning to an intended recipient.

I assert that information cannot originate naturalistically, that it must be caused by an intelligence. That's exactly what SETI does ... the search for ET INTELLIGENCE is to find transmitted information or signs of intelligence.
What are they looking for? Messages or structure that you wouldn't expect to originate randomly.
They expect to be able to differentiate between the radio waves sent from stars and those sent from an intelligence. How? Because intelligence is identifiable by us. We understand that a letter that came through our front door with our name on it was sent by an intelligent sender and intended for us, it didn't happen randomly.

Evolutionists believe that natural selection is able to somehow steer the randomness to create information-rich systems that are functional and diverse. I don't believe that and I'm challenging you to show me that happening on a mathematical, information theory level.
Nothing you've mentioned is even in a similar problem space to what I'm talking about.

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,10:50   

Quote
pure randomness by itself cannot account for the arrival of complex information


Sure it can, and it does all the time. What you might say is that random process cannot accumulate long strings of "functional" information.

That takes differential reproductive success. And iteration, and time.

--------------
Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
OgreMkV



Posts: 3668
Joined: Oct. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,10:56   

I was going to right a big explanation, but I realize that I have before and crypto isn't interested in actually learning anything, he's just looking for something else to latch on to in order to try to discredit ideas he doesn't like (or understand).

I'll wait until the radioactive material comes back in vogue.

--------------
Ignored by those who can't provide evidence for their claims.

http://skepticink.com/smilodo....retreat

   
stevestory



Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,10:58   

Quote (cryptoguru @ Feb. 20 2015,11:47)
Natural occurring patterns and stellar "signatures" are NOT information they have no intended meaning.

wow that's clueless. Please keep going. We can laugh at you with much less guilt than we can laugh at Gary Gaulin.

   
cryptoguru



Posts: 53
Joined: Jan. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,10:59   

midwifetoad: oh my word, some of you guys are really dense on this issue!

I am differentiating between PURE randomness, that which can arrive through pure probability WITHOUT "differential reproduction success" (i.e. without natural selection e.g. monkeys on typewriters)

and randomness which you're saying CAN produce information by being acted on by natural selection. (which I don't believe)

How hard is it???
this is just a definition ... I'm just clearly delineating between the 2 different kinds of random event that we are talking about. There should be no disagreement here.

1) PURE UNDIRECTED randomness, which simply creates random output and not information
2) randomness with selection, which you're saying can make information

STOP TALKING ABOUT 1) CREATING INFORMATION ... NO-ONE BELIEVES THAT!!!!
WE SHOULD BE ARGUING ABOUT 2) NOT 1)

Can someone with half a brain chip in here to help your evolutionary friend understand what I'm saying?

  
stevestory



Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,11:05   

why don't you get a dictionary and look up the word information? You don't seem to know anything about anything.

   
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,11:07   

Quote (cryptoguru @ Feb. 20 2015,10:59)
midwifetoad: oh my word, some of you guys are really dense on this issue!

I am differentiating between PURE randomness, that which can arrive through pure probability WITHOUT "differential reproduction success" (i.e. without natural selection e.g. monkeys on typewriters)

and randomness which you're saying CAN produce information by being acted on by natural selection. (which I don't believe)

How hard is it???
this is just a definition ... I'm just clearly delineating between the 2 different kinds of random event that we are talking about. There should be no disagreement here.

1) PURE UNDIRECTED randomness, which simply creates random output and not information
2) randomness with selection, which you're saying can make information

STOP TALKING ABOUT 1) CREATING INFORMATION ... NO-ONE BELIEVES THAT!!!!
WE SHOULD BE ARGUING ABOUT 2) NOT 1)

Can someone with half a brain chip in here to help your evolutionary friend understand what I'm saying?

How long is the program and input needed to output a random string?




I don't think Cryptoguru knows as much about information theory as he is claiming.

--------------
"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
cryptoguru



Posts: 53
Joined: Jan. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,11:11   

Quote
why don't you get a dictionary and look up the word information? You don't seem to know anything about anything.


I did that earlier ...
"what is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement or sequence of things."
it necessitates that it has meaning.

What you're doing is the fallacy of equivocation.

we are not talking about
"facts provided or learned about something or someone."

We are talking about DNA ... DNA is information that represents the instructions on how to build an organism, it necessitates meaning for an intended recipient. The cell is the intended recipient and understands the meaning of the arrangement of nucleotides.

Guys, this is stuff we shouldn't be arguing about ...
sure let's argue about how Natural Selection is able to filter noise and create information out of randomness, but this attempt to say that everything is information is utter stupidity of the highest order and something a 5 year old would rightly laugh at.

  
stevestory



Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,11:16   

we shouldn't be arguing about this stuff. But you're clueless, so we are. Learn something, and be more interesting in the future.

   
cryptoguru



Posts: 53
Joined: Jan. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,11:19   

Quote
I don't think Cryptoguru knows as much about information theory as he is claiming.

Wes: There are things written on this discussion topic by those on "your side" which you shouldn't agree with; but you seem happy to kiss your brains goodbye and go along with insane theories like "randomness is information", instead of sticking to the sensible discussion topic which is "can information arise out of randomness via natural selection". Dawkins would laugh at the stupidity of some of the claims made in the last few posts by evolutionists.

This discussion has taken a surreal and utterly ridiculous turn for the irrational

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,11:23   

Quote
We are talking about DNA ... DNA is information that represents the instructions on how to build an organism,


And random changes to DNA test the neighborhood. Are there any sequences made by modifying one character that are equivalent or superior?

If you are blind, and want to know about your vicinity, you probe with your hands. You can only test the immediate vicinity. Evolution is a bit like that. It continually tests the immediate vicinity.

--------------
Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
stevestory



Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,11:29   

i'm hoping cryptoamateur is just a bible-soaked teen who will one day learn some stuff and join the discussion of interesting stuff.

   
N.Wells



Posts: 1836
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,11:29   

Quote (cryptoguru @ Feb. 20 2015,10:59)
midwifetoad: oh my word, some of you guys are really dense on this issue!

I am differentiating between PURE randomness, that which can arrive through pure probability WITHOUT "differential reproduction success" (i.e. without natural selection e.g. monkeys on typewriters)

and randomness which you're saying CAN produce information by being acted on by natural selection. (which I don't believe)

How hard is it???
this is just a definition ... I'm just clearly delineating between the 2 different kinds of random event that we are talking about. There should be no disagreement here.

1) PURE UNDIRECTED randomness, which simply creates random output and not information
2) randomness with selection, which you're saying can make information

STOP TALKING ABOUT 1) CREATING INFORMATION ... NO-ONE BELIEVES THAT!!!!
WE SHOULD BE ARGUING ABOUT 2) NOT 1)

Can someone with half a brain chip in here to help your evolutionary friend understand what I'm saying?

You can't possibly want a mathematical discussion on the level of information theory if you reject basic definitions of information.  #1 creates a perfectly good form of information (Shannon information), but you don't like that definition.  You want information to have "intended meaning".  Well, at that point you've tried to rig the game, because how could can anything have intention if it isn't intelligent, so of course it seems to you that information has to be generated by intelligence.

However, on what basis do you determine that the existence of an organism carries intended meaning?

Seismic stratigraphy involves exploding some dynamite (or creating shock waves some other way), having the shockwaves propagate down into the subsurface, all the while bouncing off fractures, rock layers, and so forth.  This is a very noisy process.  A small fraction of the shockwaves make it back up to the surface, bouncing all over the place on the way back up.  The resulting signal has a huge amount of "noise", very little "signal", and absolutely no intended meaning.  However, it is all information.  Filtering it and processing it, using techniques created via information theory, allows geologists to reconstruct the thickness and orientations of the beds underground, which is extremely valuable and useful information, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, all with absolutely no intended meaning whatsoever.

The pattern of stripes on a bee's body is information: it communicates species membership to other bees.  (And the waggle dance communicates the location of nectar, not honey.  In fact, the bee's stripes, among other things, communicates to other bees whether it legitimately belongs in the honey location where it is doing its waggle dance.)

 
Quote
natural selection is able to somehow steer the randomness
You had it right with "filter": "steer" is very wrong.

Lenski's citrate-eating bacteria didn't have to happen.  They weren't bred for it.  Citrate was not present in the growth medium with the intention of providing a challenge to the bacteria.  The key mutation was unable to happen without a prior mutation that didn't appear to contribute anything. Both mutations occurred about as randomly as can be in mutations. That is new information.

Of course, the first mutation was new information too, even if it had no meaning, no function, and no benefit at the time.  Up until the second mutation, the first mutation was to all intents and purposes (phrase used advisedly) just noise.

Take a functioning gene.  Duplicate it (that happens all the time).  That is new Shannon information, because your compressed version has now been increased by the need to say "x2".  It probably doesn't do anything useful, although an extra copy of a gene can have its uses.  Now if one of the two copies suffers a mutation that disables its function, that's no longer a problem, and the duplicated can go on to suffer additional changes, some of which might develop other uses.  Actually, the first mutation probably didn't disable the primary function, but shifted it, thereby contributing to a different suite or range of capabilities.

Check out the story of the genetic accidents that created domesticated wheat.

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,11:36   

Quote (cryptoguru @ Feb. 20 2015,11:19)
 
Quote
I don't think Cryptoguru knows as much about information theory as he is claiming.

Wes: There are things written on this discussion topic by those on "your side" which you shouldn't agree with; but you seem happy to kiss your brains goodbye and go along with insane theories like "randomness is information", instead of sticking to the sensible discussion topic which is "can information arise out of randomness via natural selection". Dawkins would laugh at the stupidity of some of the claims made in the last few posts by evolutionists.

This discussion has taken a surreal and utterly ridiculous turn for the irrational

Do the names Kolmogorov, Solomonoff, or Chaitin ring a bell?

If Cryptoguru wants to discuss this stuff and not look ignorant, he ought to.

Again, this is a matter of disgreeing with Cryptoguru, not "kissing my brains goodbye". And, as it happens, I know that there is good reason to disagree, precisely on those mathematical grounds Cryptoguru likes to invoke in his cargo-cult fashion.

Again: How long is the program and input needed to output a random string?

--------------
"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
NoName



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Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,12:01   

Quote (cryptoguru @ Feb. 20 2015,11:47)
NoName: This statement is fact:
pure randomness by itself cannot account for the arrival of complex information ... evolutionists (educated ones) agree with this point

Citation needed.  
And just what do you mean by 'pure' randomness?
And just what do you mean by 'complex information'?
I gave a set of very clear questions which you did not answer.  Why?  They would clear up a great deal, but instead you fall back and make another run at, let's face it, vague and prejudicial verbiage.

   
Quote
You are confusing what information is ... information is not simply something that is patterned or useful. A hammer is useful, it is not information. The instructions on how to build a hammer or how to use a hammer to make an object with nails and wood IS information.

Natural occurring patterns and stellar "signatures" are NOT information they have no intended meaning.

That's a highly prejudicial, and short-sighted, and ultimately wrong, definition of information.
A hammer is information -- it tells you a great deal about the kind of creator who created it, the kinds of technologies involved, the intended uses, other possible uses, etc.  There is a host of information in everything we encounter.
But now you want 'information' to apply only where there is intent.  And worse, only when the intent is known beforehand.
That's bullshit, because it requires prior knowledge of intent in order to determine anything whatsoever.  We did not know the intent behind the construction of the Antikythera mechanism, but we knew a great deal about it regardless.
Similarly, we knew a great deal about stellar spectra before we knew what they meant.  They have meaning, and you have not addressed that salient fact.
You want to fall back to the ridiculous notion that information requires prior intent.  In a world filled with information, that amounts to assuming your conclusion.
I am rejecting your notion of 'information' as not only not helpful or useful, but wrong.  Flat-out wrong.

 
Quote
The pattern of stripes on a bee's body is not information, the way it moves its body to communicate to other bees where the honey is located IS information.

How do you know?
A very few years ago you could have made a similar argument about the stripes on a zebra.  But it turns out the stripes fulfill a purpose with respect to pest attacks.
You want to restrict 'information' to 'informative'.  That requires knowledge that may or may not exist, which means the same item may be information to one person and not to another.
The exact same case as your foolishness with DVD players.
Worse, the information content of the dance of the bees did not change when we learned it was meaningful to the bees.  That information content was always there, but we only learned it recently.  This fact blows your pseudo-definnition out of the water.  Our knowledge of a thing does not change the nature of the thing, it only changes what we know.  
You're simply wrong here, wrong because you are using non-standard, prejudicial, and ultimately useless definitions that are derived not from the facts of the matters at hand but from your prejudices.  
   
Quote
DNA is information because it means something to the living cell that is interpreting the data.

So meaning is use?  That's rather odd, because that amounts to saying that oxygen is meaningful to hydrogen because it means something to the water molecule they form when they bind.  Gary Gaulin is at the end of that path, and it's wrong.  Worse, it is absurd; absurd because it can only be applied selectively and with intent aforethought.  
   
Quote
The cell is running an instruction set (DNA) that it understands. The cell can't run ANY instruction set, the instruction set has to mean something to the interpreter, which goes about using that information to build proteins and assemble them into complex structures.

That is so wildly oversimplified that it is false for the uses you require of it.
The DNA and the cell are not independent artificial constructs that are 'brought together' to fill a function.  They are part of one whole, and there is zero reason to suppose that any external intent was required for that to happen.  Worse, for you, there is absolutely zero evidence not only for the need for an external intent, but absolutely no evidence of any possible external intent that could accomplish this, nor any traces of such intent.
The actions and behavior of the separable parts of the whole that is a cell are as explicable, and as natural, as the binding of hydrogen and oxygen to form water or the binding of sodium and chlorine to form salt or the atomic decay of certain isotopes of uranium that generated the natural nuclear reactors at Oklo.
One might think, not knowing any better, that something as complex as a nuclear reactor, in a system that is self-damped and that cycles on and off, requires external intent and assembly by external forces.  One would be wrong, as Oklo conclusively demonstrates.
You're wrong here and we've explained why.

   
Quote
Randomness cannot create information.

Why not?  Pi is information.  The digits of the expansion of pi include the first n digits of the expansion of pi as a subset.
There is a table of random numbers that contains a series of integers in numeric order; randomness has no difficulty accomplishing that other than sufficient runs, sufficiently long outputs.
You keep asserting that 'randomness cannot do x' without ever proving it or referencing a proof.  I've rejected it and I've offered reasons to reject it.
Worse, you toss around 'randomness' without ever relating it to natural law, and you toss around 'natural law' without ever relating it to randomness.
You objected to my phrase 'constrained randomness' when I used it during your first visit here.  Let me elaborate.  You seem to be taking an extreme view of what 'random' means, a view that amounts to 'anything at all is possible as the next result in a random  series'. That is nonsense.  'Constrained random' is always and only what we get.  A series of random numbers does not run '1, 2, e*, eggplant**, supernova**, 57, '57 Chevy'**, the law of non-contradiction**, wind from the NW at 5 knots**, etc.'
**where each of these terms is the thing named, not the name of the thing named
Random does not mean "anything at all without limits and  selected from all possible existent items".  The DNA codons are random, but you only ever encounter A,G,C, or T in the natural case.  Constrained randomness.
And what of natural law and randomness?  Clarify what you mean by the two, what their relationship is, how they operate together or in opposition.
You appear to have lost on this point.
   
Quote
Evolutionists assert that natural selection on randomness creates information by filtering out noise and leaving information through competition. I would like to see THAT happen without imposing intelligence on the system by telling it what it should be producing.

If your sense of 'intelligence' is sufficiently broad as to include nature, you can't.  If it's not, you're not talking abut the real world.
We've seen it, we have no reason to doubt it, and you have no alternative mechanism that is supported by evidence of ever having occurred.
You lose on this point.

   
Quote
EXAMPLE (from InterStellar the movie):
pour dust on the floor, it makes a pile ... does that pile contain information? No. It's just a pile of dust.

Shortsighted and incredibly wrong.  Dust is made up of stuff.  The kinds of stuff that make up the pile of dust is information about who has been in the room, what else has  been in the room, how long the room has been left uncleaned to some degree of precision, etc.  The size and shape of the pile contain information about how the pile was formed, as does the position of the pile with respect to the larger context (doors, windows, walls, floor, ceiling, etc.)  You're picking and choosing what you choose to call 'information' by eliminating all the things that you aren't focused on.  Not focusing on it, not being able to see it, doesn't mean it's not information.  Consult a forensics team and tell them a pile of dust has no information.  Once they get done picking their jaws up off the floor, they'll be laughing hysterically.

   
Quote
interact with the dust to make it form piles that represent morse code and convey a message. It's information now!
There's different, possibly more, information now, but that's because you're playing fast and loose with what you're prepared to count as information at any given point.  And what you choose to consider as information is entirely constrained by what you know now.  That's a precarious, at best, meaning of the term 'information'.  It again hearkens back to 'informative' rather than 'information'.
What if you don't know Morse code?  What if Samuel Morse had chosen different patterns for the code?
It's the Simpson's episode with Kang and Kodos looking at a skull shaped island and  saying "shaped just like our number 4.  Really makes you think, doesn't it?"

   
Quote
What made it information? Has anything changed in the dust itself? No! Did the dust contain the natural properties to create the information itself? No! The information was enforced by an outside intelligence and had meaning to an intended recipient.

Wrong, across the board.  There is nothing that prevents the wind, or the pattern of broom strokes, to create patterns in the dust that can be taken to be  Morse Code.  Or some analog to Morse code that we don't know.
Just as the stellar spectra were information even before we knew what they meant.
If natural laws do not lead to information, science is not possible.
   
Quote
I assert that information cannot originate naturalistically, that it must be caused by an intelligence.

And that's where you define science as impossible.  Your assertion is a blatant unsupported and unsupportable assertion.  It is not supported by evidence, it is only supported by the rejection of evidence and the acceptance of culturally driven fictions.
   
Quote
That's exactly what SETI does ... the search for ET INTELLIGENCE is to find transmitted information or signs of intelligence.

Misinterpretation.  SETI is looking for patterns such as we know could be produced by intelligence.  This does not restrict the field of information to what can be produced by intelligence, yet with that caveat accepted, your argument falls.  Stellar spectra are information and they are not assumed to be the product of intent.  There is no need to make such an assumption because natural law suffices.  We have learned that over time; the information content of starlight has not changed, our ability to extract the informative from it has.

   
Quote
What are they looking for? Messages or structure that you wouldn't expect to originate randomly.

Not quite.  Structure that are highly unlikely to originate randomly, but not  structure that is impossible to randomly occur.  The processes we understand, by the information we have extracted from natural laws, place limits on the probabilities.  If we knew less, the probabilities we used would be other than they are.  When we know more, they will be different.
It is an absurdity to tie information to the receiver of it.  To think otherwise is to reject the possibility of science and of knowledge.
   
Quote
They expect to be able to differentiate between the radio waves sent from stars and those sent from an intelligence. How? Because intelligence is identifiable by us. We understand that a letter that came through our front door with our name on it was sent by an intelligent sender and intended for us, it didn't happen randomly.

There's that abuse of 'random' again.
As well as the prejudicial ad hoc selection of what counts as information.

   
Quote
Evolutionists believe that natural selection is able to somehow steer the randomness to create information-rich systems that are functional and diverse. I don't believe that and I'm challenging you to show me that happening on a mathematical, information theory level.

With a precise operational definition of 'information', 'meaning', and 'random', the answer is 'stellar spectra', 'belousov zhabotinsky reactions', 'DNA patterns between parent/child and between individuals with more distant relationships', ecosystems, the Oklo reactors, etc.

   
Quote
Nothing you've mentioned is even in a similar problem space to what I'm talking about.

That's largely because you choose your problem space ad hoc, as you go, redefining terms, excluding data, and setting up contradictory conditions, or conditions that have far more extreme results than you would be willing to accept as you go.
Your problem  space is imaginary.  It is the child insisting that *this* wolf is friendly and will look out for people because of a disney movie he has seen, while that wolf is bad and will hurt people.  It is the refusal to accept data, to accept and acknowledge evidence, and the continuous generation of new pseudo-problems in a futile attempt to find a thought experiment that will invalidate 150 years of biology.  Lenski alone suffices, and he is not alone.
You're simply wrong.
You can't accept that, so you keep making up pseudo-problems and rejecting the answers you get because they're not the answers you want.
You can't counter the evidence we've provided, so you keep trying to recast the shape of the problem.
Stellar spectra are complex information, produced by natural law, without intent.
If information relies on the knowledge of the person who encounters it, you are accepting an extreme subjectivism of the worst sort, and rending science and human knowledge impossible.
Deal with it.

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,12:30   

Zebra stripes are so 15 minutes ago. Maybe yes, maybe no.

Larry Moran says the verdict is not in.

--------------
Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
stevestory



Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,12:42   

I think NoName and N.Wells deserve some sort of lifetime achievement award for doing the tedious explanatory work the rest of us shrug off. And Wesley of course, but we're working with his primary care physician to take his ultra-comprehensive OCD down to healthy levels.  :p

   
N.Wells



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Joined: Oct. 2005

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,12:49   

Quote
It is an absurdity to tie information to the receiver of it.  To think otherwise is to reject the possibility of science and of knowledge.

That does explain how he is able to dismiss all the responses to his stuff: he isn't receiving the information, therefore there isn't any.

  
OgreMkV



Posts: 3668
Joined: Oct. 2009

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,12:59   

Quote (N.Wells @ Feb. 20 2015,12:49)
Quote
It is an absurdity to tie information to the receiver of it.  To think otherwise is to reject the possibility of science and of knowledge.

That does explain how he is able to dismiss all the responses to his stuff: he isn't receiving the information, therefore there isn't any.

Apparently, the only information (meaning) that he accepts is that generated by himself.

I do think that he's the only person I've seen who has said (in effect), "yes, all your points are correct, but you're still wrong".

It's pretty impressive actually .

--------------
Ignored by those who can't provide evidence for their claims.

http://skepticink.com/smilodo....retreat

   
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,13:00   

Quote (N.Wells @ Feb. 20 2015,13:49)
Quote
It is an absurdity to tie information to the receiver of it.  To think otherwise is to reject the possibility of science and of knowledge.

That does explain how he is able to dismiss all the responses to his stuff: he isn't receiving the information, therefore there isn't any.

I think you're right.
I'm about done here, at least at the level of detail I've been providing up to now.  If he's not willing to directly address the direct questions aimed at him, it's pretty clear he's not arguing in good faith, he's not really carrying on a discussion.

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,13:00   

Cryptoguru:

 
Quote

I assert that information cannot originate naturalistically, that it must be caused by an intelligence. That's exactly what SETI does ... the search for ET INTELLIGENCE is to find transmitted information or signs of intelligence.
What are they looking for? Messages or structure that you wouldn't expect to originate randomly.
They expect to be able to differentiate between the radio waves sent from stars and those sent from an intelligence. How? Because intelligence is identifiable by us. We understand that a letter that came through our front door with our name on it was sent by an intelligent sender and intended for us, it didn't happen randomly.


Answers to IDC questions

 
Quote

2. RELEVANCE OF SETI. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a scientific research program that searches for signs of non-human intelligence from distant space. Should biologists likewise search for signs of non-human intelligence in biological systems? Why or why not?

A. SETI is a good example of scientific approaches to "detecting design". SETI works precisely by taking information from human experience and using that to help decide what would constitute a signal that would indicate the existence of a non-human extra-terrestrial intelligence. SETI does not use procedures such as those talked about by "intelligent design" advocates. Instead, SETI looks for narrowband radio sources, the sort of radio sources that humans would build if we decided to send a radio message to other intelligent beings in space. This has nothing to do with the content that may be broadcast in such a signal, but rather this distinguishes a manufactured radio source from natural radio sources, which typically are spread over many frequencies. Most biological systems do not produce appreciable radio waves, and certainly not narrowband signals of the sort that the SETI project looks for.

Additional reading: SETI Project FAQ that notes the search for narrowband carriers, and that their current equipment is not even capable of recording signal content.


See also The advantages of theft over toil for more about the distinction between ordinary design hypotheses and rarefied design conjectures.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,13:04   

Quote (stevestory @ Feb. 20 2015,13:42)
I think NoName and N.Wells deserve some sort of lifetime achievement award for doing the tedious explanatory work the rest of us shrug off. And Wesley of course, but we're working with his primary care physician to take his ultra-comprehensive OCD down to healthy levels.  :p

Why thank you!
I actually kind of enjoy it, there are so many things  an interested amateur, and that's all I am, can bring to the table.  
Cutting through the bafflegab and getting to the core issues and the direct implications of statements made is a useful skill to hone.

  
JohnW



Posts: 3217
Joined: Aug. 2006

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,13:05   

Quote (stevestory @ Feb. 20 2015,08:40)
Quote (cryptoguru @ Feb. 20 2015,06:53)
Wes, your world-view pre-supposes purely natural causation and excludes supernatural, intelligent causation ... as that is the purpose of the theory of evolution; to explain origins without the need for an intelligent agent.
Evolutionary theory is the science of atheists and fake atheists (agnostics), who need to find a way to explain the origin and diversity of life without a God.

Thus the need to explain that information can arise automatically from noise by purely natural processes.

hahahahahhahaha. Crypto, you're the best of the 3 creationists here, but you're still not any good.

Better than Joe and Gary.  

When are the trials for the US Olympic Damning With Faint Praise Team?

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Math is just a language of reality. Its a waste of time to know it. - Robert Byers

There isn't any probability that the letter d is in the word "mathematics"...  The correct answer would be "not even 0" - JoeG

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,13:11   

Quote (stevestory @ Feb. 20 2015,12:42)
I think NoName and N.Wells deserve some sort of lifetime achievement award for doing the tedious explanatory work the rest of us shrug off. And Wesley of course, but we're working with his primary care physician to take his ultra-comprehensive OCD down to healthy levels.  :p

What was it this time? The "typing monkeys" essay?

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
cryptoguru



Posts: 53
Joined: Jan. 2015

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,15:16   

Wes, you really are confused mate! (re: Kolmogorov et al)
Fractal algorithms and stochastic algorithms are very cool and all ... I've written plenty of them over the years. In fact my PhD is in Chaos Theory amongst other things. What those fields show is that the information is in the algorithms. This is what we see in AVIDA, what we see in Weasel etc.
I'm not impressed with you name-dropping as though they support your theory. Sure, machine learning and inductive reasoning are great optimisation techniques, but you're still optimising using intelligent algorithms and decision making written by the designer. Look at Quantum computing, we use a probabilistic method to produce a deterministic result. The system is probabilistic, but our algorithms are written to harness the predictability even though the qu-bits are in a superposition and we can't know deterministically which superposition will be observed, we write algorithms to force the outcome deterministically. Information does not simply appear from nowhere .... information does not emerge from noise (unless it was deliberately put there) and random processes cannot generate meaningful information without being acted upon by an intelligent process. You claim that Natural Selection is that intelligent process, I'd like to see it work without the known targets, rewarding for functions that you know will get you to the solution. But don't try claiming that a random distribution contains information ... that is absurdity of the highest degree ... randomness (disorder) is the exact opposite of information (enforced order)


N Wells: Shannon would laugh in your face, the whole point of Shannon's theory is that a purely random distribution has maximal entropy (i.e. no information) ... he's saying the exact opposite of what you are trying to get him to say.

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,15:31   

Quote
But don't try claiming that a random distribution contains information .


I don't think anyone is claiming a random distribution contains information that would make a useful target.

But that isn't relevant to evolution.

For any working genomic sequence there are almost certainly going to be equivalent sequences within one point mutation. That's why drift is possible and why we have alleles.

There is no target. There is chemistry and the properties of amino acid sequences. If you wish, you could say that a library of alleles contains information about sequences that work. And dead organism contain information about what doesn't work.

That's a pretty primitive metaphor, but some simplification seems necessary to communicate.

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Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
NoName



Posts: 2729
Joined: Mar. 2013

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,15:36   

Quote (cryptoguru @ Feb. 20 2015,16:16)
Wes, you really are confused mate! (re: Kolmogorov et al)
Fractal algorithms and stochastic algorithms are very cool and all ... I've written plenty of them over the years. In fact my PhD is in Chaos Theory amongst other things. What those fields show is that the information is in the algorithms. This is what we see in AVIDA, what we see in Weasel etc.
I'm not impressed with you name-dropping as though they support your theory. Sure, machine learning and inductive reasoning are great optimisation techniques, but you're still optimising using intelligent algorithms and decision making written by the designer. Look at Quantum computing, we use a probabilistic method to produce a deterministic result. The system is probabilistic, but our algorithms are written to harness the predictability even though the qu-bits are in a superposition and we can't know deterministically which superposition will be observed, we write algorithms to force the outcome deterministically. Information does not simply appear from nowhere .... information does not emerge from noise (unless it was deliberately put there) and random processes cannot generate meaningful information without being acted upon by an intelligent process. You claim that Natural Selection is that intelligent process, I'd like to see it work without the known targets, rewarding for functions that you know will get you to the solution. But don't try claiming that a random distribution contains information ... that is absurdity of the highest degree ... randomness (disorder) is the exact opposite of information (enforced order)


N Wells: Shannon would laugh in your face, the whole point of Shannon's theory is that a purely random distribution has maximal entropy (i.e. no information) ... he's saying the exact opposite of what you are trying to get him to say.

You, sir, are an idiot.
You have gotten Shannon entirely incorrect, leading to serious doubts about your degree claims.
A random distribution has maximum entropy.  It thus has maximum uncertainty about the next piece of data, and thus has maximum information.  It is incompressible.
A random distribution has maximum entropy and thus has maximum Shannon information.  Quoting Wikipedia, sans link, "In information theory, entropy is the average amount of information contained in each message received."
Which means, to speakers of standard English and those whose IQ is greater than room temperature, that maximum entropy is maximum information.  That is is also likely to be 'minimum meaning' obliterates your entire sad schtick that information equals meaning.
You continue to confuse information with meaning, with 'informativeness'.   Address the facts on the ground, which you seem anxious to avoid for some reason.

  
midwifetoad



Posts: 4003
Joined: Mar. 2008

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,15:44   

Hey, you are interfering with a perfectly good instance of equivocation.

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Any version of ID consistent with all the evidence is indistinguishable from evolution.

  
Wesley R. Elsberry



Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002

(Permalink) Posted: Feb. 20 2015,16:02   

Sorry, Cryptoguru, but your Ph.D. apparently gave you little insight into algorithmic information theory (AIT). (Maybe it's from the one of the fine institutions that "Drs." Barnes, Baugh, Bliss, Burdick, and Hovind got their paper from? BTW, my Ph.D. is from TAMU, and that can be confirmed easily.)

The appendix to this essay could be helpful, if Cryptoguru were looking to learn something. In particular, what is defined as a random string in AIT is mentioned in there.

The notion that information production by algorithms is bounded is mistaken. Algorithms with random inputs can generate "arbitrarily more Kolmogorov complexity than the total information contained in the algorithm and input combined". We present such an algorithm as an example there.

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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker

    
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