Hmmmmmm.
Posted on 01/12/2009 7:23:26 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
And isn't some of it evolutionary leftovers that no longer does what it was originally useful for but has been commandeered by the genome to do something else? I.e., repurposed junk? Or am I confusing two different things?
Yup- but let’s not gloss over the fact of metainfo and hte fact that bacteria- nature’s waste disposal units, can very rapidly deal with changing environments, and this suggests more metainfo allowing changed info (info that has been changed all within species specific parameters) to deal with changes in environment.
I think you’re tryign to take htis issue to a point of claiming it shows ‘new information’ has arisen, as I’ve seen your remarks on this issue before, but I think, when examined more carefully, that these bacteria stil lremain bacterai, and these changes happen very very rapidly, and indicate designed allowances via species pseific changed info-
FR seems to be havign trouble- very slow- so I’;; probably be back later tonight- I’ve lost a coupel of posts already, so I’ll wait till they get straightened out before tryign to post more- plus I need nap anyways-
“Junk,” by definition, must be non-coding, non-regulating and non-conserved. That still covers a lot of DNA.
If it has been repurposed, it can’t be considered junk.
The information would be in the environment, not in the DNA. The environment supplies the yes or no answer to whether a change is useful or not. That's the source of information.
[[The information would be in the environment, not in the DNA.]]
The info could very well be stored in the metainfo- Metainfo is the grand info which responds to info in the species that gets change or pressured to change rather- the environment is merely the catalyst the moves the species to change- Does that sound more reasonable?
[[The environment supplies the yes or no answer to whether a change is useful or not.]]
Not sure I can agree with that- the body of a species determines whether the change were useful to it in the presence of the changed environment- not the environment itself.
Well, yes, as a person believing evolution to be fact you see these genes as consistent with an evolutionary past just as a creationist would say, ‘This is evidence of God’s work’,
I lean toward the idea that’s nothing’s useless on the human body. Like all the parts of a well engineered machine,
some parts may be removed without stopping the machine but every part contributes to it’s functioning at the highest level possible.
I look forward to what might be learned.
I, too, was very pleased with Williams’ general approach to the elucidation of irreducible complexity (“IC”) in autopoeitic (i.e., living) systems (“AP”). [Thank you so much, GGG!]
You point to an interesting problem, that IC can be understood as either “backward-looking” or “forward-looking.” The “linear arrow of time” is the context, which provides a “past” and a “future,” relative to the observer’s “present.” In a sense, it seems that the “backward-looking view” states that irreducible complexity is somehow the product of a build-up of past biological events being “selected for” by Nature.
And yet a model like that would have no way to deal with the idea of information (or intelligence), nor could it explain purposeful, goal-directed behavior — something that is universally observed in animal life.
So I think the “backward-looking” approach will not do. So what does the “forward-looking” approach look like?
To boil it down, in a certain sense it would mean being “pulled” from the future. [But we won’t go into eschatological considerations here.] I gather this is what Williams was trying to get at with his term “inverse causality,” which pops up at level (v) of the AP hierarchy. But if you lay out “inverse-causality” on the “arrow of time,” past–present–future, it doesn’t make any intuitive sense.
Actually, I think Williams gets the problem right if we understand that it’s the “top” of the hierarchy — level (v) — that “pulls” the rest. In the “top-down” direction, none of the five levels is “reducible” to the next level “down,” not singly, nor in any combination of lower levels. Which suggests that each of the five levels possesses information not completely derivable from any or all of the lower levels.
In short, the AP model is "irreducibly complex" in two ways: (1) in terms of the totality of the hierarchical, five-leveled model itself; and (2) in terms of the recognition that no "explanation" of any given level of the hierarchy can be given by any lower level, singly or in any combination (in the range (v) "high" and (i) "low").
To draw an analogy from mathematics, given the origin point 0 (i.e., the "observer"), the “backward looking” view of IC is such that the “arrow of time” represents the “real” line of the complex plane, the x-axis, which deals with the distribution of real numbers. With respect to 0, “past” would be defined on the real line in terms of negative numbers….
So along the real axis, 0 defines the point in time where “future” (i.e, expressed as positive reals) and past (i.e., expressed as negative reals) each “begins”; i.e., are “split apart” into two distinct temporal entities. In order for a future cause to be found, 0 must translate (i.e., "move") along the real line in the positive direction. But the paradox seems to be that, when 0 “finds it,” it must be expressed as a negative real.
The “forward-looking” view, on the other hand, seems to go along the “imaginary” line of the complex plane, the y-axis, which deals with complex numbers. And they really are complex, because a complex number consists of a “real” and an “imaginary part.” There’s a “boost” to complexity over the real numbers right there. Not only that, but the two parts are separable; and each has its own proper form of arithmetic operation: the real part is multiplicative; the imaginary part, additive. So, here we have yet another instance of the complexity boost of complex numbers as compared to the reals. Plus almost unimaginable “flexibility” of the ways in which these concepts can function in “real” contexts.
All of which is simply to indicate that, on my view, the “forward-looking” view would appear to be the more “informed” view, which is what we’re looking for at level (v) of the IC/AP hierarchy: For level (v) “pulls from the top” — and may itself be “pulled” from a source lying outside conventional spacetime….
And this leads me back to “the Platonic world of mathematical forms,” as Penrose puts it. Which still manages to "pull" me forward, in space and time....
Then again, maybe I just have too much time on my hands these days, to be investing it and energy in such problems (which I happen to find delightful)....
Thank you so very much for writing, dearest sister in Christ — and for your very kind words of support. I’ve missed you lately. I hope you’re feeling better!
Why don’t you stay on topic and contribute to the thread?
And grow up.
I think the environment would be the feedback mechanism. The metainfo provides information about what the possible options are. The environment provides information about whether a particular option is useful under current conditions. What's useful right now might not be useful later, and then it's time to start looking for better options.
So evolution is just hanging onto those genes just in case they're needed again some day?
"But hey, if the need arises, the Designer has foreseen it." ???
I think our past experience shows we don't understand all the Creator has designed into the human frame.
Genes in cells are often turned on and off. The “inactive genes” may just need the right switch to be reactivated.
I never claimed it was my statement. Does my use of the equation F=MA imply to you that I dreamed it up? LOL It seems to be the simple stuff that trips you ID'ers up.
Same issue here - your assuming that these necessarily destroy causality when that is only one of many possible interpretations. With the ToR, the issue isn't so much causality being messed with, but time itself, IIRC.
Events happening in different orders depending on the observers frame of reference falsifies the Law of Cause and Effect (not that there ever was a law of Cause and Effect). Sadly for you ID'ers your hypothesis seems to depend on it.
Anywise, if I press the button to summon the lift, and the lift comes to my floor, that is causality. If I press the button to summon the lift, and the lift doesn't come to my floor, this isn't necessarily proof that "causality has broken down". It's merely indicative of a deeper, nested causality that I may currently be unaware of. So also with the "breakdowns of causality" which you suppose are shown by QM - that intepretation is unlikely, and certainly doesn't even begin to address the causality issue of the creation of the universe (a macroscopic event to which QM doesn't apply). This is true whether one posits the creation of the universe by an intelligent Creator, or whether one posits its creation through random, materialistic forces.
First, there are clearly causes and effects. Secondarily, there are events (effects) with no cause, spontaneous particle - anti particle creation pops to mind. Thirdly QM does apply to macroscopic events, all of your senses especially sight depend on QM and the wavefunction collapsing, etc. etc.
The problem of first cause - what we've been discussing already, under a different name.
There doesn't have to be a first cause : ) The Universe may be infinite.
That is a perfect example of a frame of reference that illustrates that there is no universal now : )
Also, some Jewish mystics have proposed that the firmament of Genesis is the speed of light and not geometric, i.e. no "here" and "there" division between physical and spiritual reality.
My Sunday School teacher was a Rabbi and big into Aleph Null and Kabbalism : ) Loved his classes.
Moreover, no particles are at rest, space/time continually expands. For that reason, a photon sent by a star which was a billion light years away may not reach us for ten billion light years, long after the star is gone. The photon did not slow down, time did not elapse for the photon - but because space/time expands, it took longer to reach us.
Particles can be at rest in our frame of reference. Light can be slowed down too : )
Or to put it another way, rest frames in space/time are time relative - they only occur at a moment. For the observer "in" space/time, the rest frame is a mathematical construct.
They can have an infinite amount of moments : ) Those moments are not universal.
Only the observer outside of space and time - God - sees every where and every when, all at once.
If you are going to reference the Kabbalah use it properly, "Aleph-null is the primordal one that contains all numbers, everything in the Universe. Every angle simultaneously, without distortion, overlapping or confusion. Kaballa mysticism." According to the Jews God is everything, God is not outside space/time.
That is just it. It isn't Universal, it is Relative.
It seems what we're looking for is a higher frame of reference. If indeed it is true that the universe is one single, integrated, dynamic, "informed" system — as modern theory suggests — then that frame of reference would need to extend to the whole; as such it would be universal.
That is the point. There is no universal (higher) frame of reference.
You wrote this puzzling line: "Not everything, simply everything that is not identical." No explanation given. Is it reasonable for me to infer that here you are making a case for some kind of novel, spontaneous emergence? Or do you really believe in "special creation" for "non-identical" entities? If the latter, how would that work?
If ID and IC are correct, then there had to be distinct and separate creations complete and fully formed. Evolution from simpler to more complex organisms is ruled out. The Design had to be in place at the beginning, IC rules out modifications.
You're asking me how it would work? I have no idea, other than the story of creation and we know that that story doesn't hold water : )
I'm sorry you did not appreciate the way I "imagined" the structure of the IC/AP system. It could be imagined differently. But I thought this might be a good way to tackle the issue, especially because it makes explicit work done in the assessment of the algorithmic complexity of living systems, and suggests how unimaginably vast is the "available potential information" of Nature.
Did you take into account the Sum of all paths, as posited by Feynman and Penrose as information? Potentially that would be an infinite amount of information right there. Like I said, guesses dressed up in an equation : )
More like machines wearing out and breaking down. Remember their view is that life is created it cannot evolve.
But that's an observable, quantifiable phenomenon. Genetic entropy makes no sense in any frame of reference.
They don't think the genes control the cell.
I think the information metaphor is more harmful than helpful for discussing what happens in evolution. But for those who insist on using it, the information flows from the environment to the genome, as you say by supplying the answer to whether a change is helpful, neutral or harmful.
This flow isn't really contested any more by ID proponents. Dembski has even written a paper on it.
ID proponents are now discussing the laws of nature as the ultimate repository of information.
Is there a theory on how many layers of abstraction you can stack on top of each other before you lose track of what it is you're looking at?
[[But for those who insist on using it, the information flows from the environment to the genome, as you say by supplying the answer to whether a change is helpful, neutral or harmful.]]
Again- the info doesn’t come from nature- Environment can’t introduce info into the species- If you have an example of ‘information flowing fro mthe environment into the geentic info of a species,’ I’d certainly liek to see this. you make it sound as though the environment is endowed with some kind of metainfo that was intelligently designed, and when secies run into problems, the environment jumps into action with corrective information which it somehow inserts into the genetic info of species.
Demski wrote a paper on htis? Hmm- then that settles it apparently. Got a link?
ID doesn’t contest it anymore? Says who? You? Demski’s hypothesis is I’m afraid far fetched, and has no support- He is simply assuming information is stored in nature, or hte universe, and quite frankly, His hypothesis is detached from the reality of Biology:
“Biologists don’t know all the details of the solution of the first question: the origin of life. The simplest free-living organism, Mycoplasma genitalium, has 468 genes. This would exceed Dembski’s boundary of 500 bits, I guess. Could this evolve gradually? We need data and experiments.
Now the second question. Although Dembski tries to escape a positive answer to the second question, he finds himself saying: “selection introduces new information” (p177). Dembski also seems to accept that information can flow from the environment to an organism, thereby increasing the organism’s information content. Both statements contradict his main thesis that natural processes cannot generate CSI. On other pages he is so attached to the Law of Conservation of Information (’Only Information begets Information’, p183) and the belief that CSI cannot be generated by natural processes, that he is forced to believe that CSI existed before the origin of life: CSI could be ‘abundant in the universe’ and ‘CSI is inherent in a lifeless universe’. This amounts to free-floating ghostly information in space, which is too far removed from down-to-earth biological science. The whole idea that information in DNA has any meaning outside living organisms is caused by pushing the information metaphor too far. The information in DNA is meaningless outside the cell. Just like the instructions in software do not have any meaning outside the very specific hardware environment in which they are executed. Further Dembski believes in ‘discrete insertions of CSI over time in organisms’ (p171). In that case I prefer Fred Hoyle’s panspermia theory, which is as unearthly but closer to observational science.”
http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho44.htm
The only thing I can find is that Demski thinks info flows from a ‘creator’ to ‘the created’ (Think of a mother and fetus- the fetus gains info from the mother, the egg gains info from the father etc) and that he thinks CSI is ‘out there somewhere’ but doesn’t state where. IF then Info flows from creator to created, then this just supports metaifno concepts being discussed in this paper in htis htread, as metainfo has to be present first in order for info to flow to each level for hte development of each level.
Hmmmmmm.
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