I hope You’ll step in and clarify where I misunderstand- The following is to help me too as I’m thuinking about this (Thanks to aq Youtube Video here which simplified the kolmogorov complexity here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyB13PD-UME )-
Python wqorks liek so:
non Random:
ABABABABABABABABABAB
>> “AB*10” =Description= which is a ompressed shrot description which results in the following string
ABABABABABABABABABAB =String
Random:
ABAAABABABABABABABABAB
>>’AB’+’AA’+’AB*9’ =Description
ABAAABABABABABABABABAB =String
Longer Random Description with same amount of letters as first string:
ABAABBABBAABABABBABA
Since the description woudl be logner than the string, the shortest way to write the string in the python program is to simpyl write it out without a description) It is concidered ‘Irreducibly Complex” at this point
Reader Dave- if you’tre still readign htis- Can you tell me, why Id is misrepresentign Irreducible complexity? You’ve shown us that a String of information can be compressed to the shortest description possible, but you haven’t shown us how nature could produce all the information necessary nor all the parts of of an irreducible system, assemble them quyickly enough so that the system doesn’t just wither away and die while awaitign asswembly- The whole concept of ID’s irreducible complexity states that soemthign like the ‘outboard motor’ in ecoli has parts that are irreducible- and if missing htose parts, the species woudl perish
ID’s Irreducible complexity premise is that any complex organism coudl not possibly survive while awaiting the next crucial irreducibly complex part to be ‘created’ by the long slow process of macro-evolution.
I’m not exactly sure hwat your beef with ID is? Are you insinuating htat, as I said in previous posts, that Nature is capable of ‘creating’ irreducible complexity? You didn’t give an example of how it could, how nature could ‘create’ new information, you just kinda berated ID, showed some algorithmic complexity, and left it at that-
[[Personally I hold the view that neo-Darwinism implies intelligent design (look up the definition of intelligent agent used in modern AI work]]
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to be implying that nature is capable of beign hte ‘intelligent designer’ based on soem algorithmic programs CREATED BY INTELLIGENT DESIGNERS (Not yelling, just stressign hte key words here)- These algorithims have been shown to be anytrhign but random generators, and have been shown to need some strict a priori planning and construction to arrive at soemthign that LOOKS LIKE randomness- Unless I’m mistaken, there’s no program in the present which is fully random which produces irreducibly complex structures? The only programs I’m aware of ARTIFICIALLY seleect which ‘mutations’ to keep in order to arrive at a preselected goal (ie: once the ‘right mutation’ is selected, the program ensures it remains safe whiel it awaits the next ‘right mutation’) And sicne we know NATURAL SELECTION doesn’t select anything and hang otno anythign that is NOT benificial or useful, the program doesn’t actually represent what happens i n the real world
You said [[In the end, the whole “crevo” debate is quite frankly stupid. It is based on two false assumptions shared by literalist six-day creationists,]]
Well since you insinuate the opinions of Literalist Creationists is stupid, one coudl say your biblical deconstructionist opinion is stupid because it ignores God’s word which tells us that death came AFTER the fall of man- It ignores that God Hismelf said this (Soem even goign so far as to claim God’s word is merely the thoughts and words of men as passed down to htem in stories) You claim there is an ‘enlightened way’ to read God’s word, and I’;m assumign htat ‘enlightened way’ means the way which holds hands with evoltuionary beleifs (and which is also an accusation to htose who ‘aren’t enlightened’ that they are ignorant
anyway- looking forward to your reply if you’re still here i nthe thread- Mainly I’d liek you to explain how ID’s use of Iredicible complexity somehow does discredit to kolmogorov’s definition of irreducible complexity, and whether or not nature is capable of producign NEW NON SPECIES SPECIFIC information (which woudl be absolteuly necessary to move a species beyond it’s own KIND)
woops, in my secodn string (the ‘NON RANDOM one) in previous post, one of the “AB’s” needs to be removed for it to be the same length strign as first non random string- first strign had 20 letters, secodn random string had 22- it was suppsoed to be 20 letters just liek hte first non random string-
My beef with the versions proposed of ID is that it doesn't produce a falsifiable theory. This is also a beef I have with many versions of Darwinism (both neo- and classical), including all the universally explanatory versions that occur in atheistic polemics. Sir Karl Popper was correct both in his dismissal of Darwinism as a "metaphysical research program" rather than a scientific theory, and in his subtly worded "recantation" of that position: that it could be reformulated as a falsifiable theory [in specific instances]. I feel the same way about ID being a metaphysical research program, and very much wish that its advocates could reformulate it as a falsifiable theory in specific instances, since as I pointed out, I am sympathetic to ID -- such a reformulation needs to begin with a scientific theory of intelligence. There is one on offer in the work of Marcus Hutter (who works on AI and for all I know doesn't care a whit about the "crevo" debate) on maximal intelligent agents, but applying it leads to my position that neo-Darwinism implies intelligent design: it is fairly easy to argue that the biosphere itself, as conceived by the neo-Darwinian synthesis, fits the Hutterian definition of an intelligent agent.
The problem that genetic programming reveals with critiques of Darwinism is that the critiques try to show that the mechanism -- stochastic variation and selection -- can't produce novel complex functional structures (novel in the sense of having functionality no precursor structure had). You are right to note that this is done by showing that in a cleverly designed environment a Darwinian mechanism of stochastic variation and selection produces novel functional structures meeting some criterion (the criterion in nature is producing more approximate copies over a long period of time, or as the Scriptures put it in the case of plants "bring forth seed according to their kinds" -- the criterion in genetic programming might be picking winners on the stock market). Thus, at the level of philosophical debate, genetic algorithms actually support the existence of a intelligent creator, since the only place we know a Darwinian mechanism produces novel complex results is in a cleverly designed context, and provide no aid or comfort at all to atheist polemicists however much they might fancy it does, except in as much as it overthrows any attempt to argue the contrary position on the basis of specific features needing to be directly designed (which is what ID folk seem to want to argue).
The point of my critique of the debate was not that either position in the debate is per se stupid, but that the contradictions between theistic creation and neo-Darwinism both sides harp on are based on false assumptions. (Much though I might wish the Scriptures said "He who says in his heart there is no God is a fool," they don't say that, they say "The fool says in his heart there is no God," so I won't even attribute stupidity to the atheist polemicists, even though they are wrong.)
If one wants to believe on the basis of reading the Scriptures -- ignoring the views of the Fathers of the Church that "It matters not whether you say 'day' or 'aeon' the thought is the same" (St. Basil the Great); that the first two chapters of Genesis are "doctrine in the guise of a narrative" (St. Gregory of Nyssa); or that they cannot be literally true (Blessed Augustine of Hippo); ignoring the fact the Hebrew word Englished as "day" is ambiguous in denotation; ignoring the fact that rabbinic commentators hold that only the first sentence of Genesis actually describes creation -- that the universe is a prepared system about six thousand years old, that the preparation of the system took 144 hours, and that retrodiction by the laws of physics further back than that produces an illusory history, there is nothing stupid per se about that as a philosophical position. It is not, however, a scientific position, as it is not falsifiable: no conceivable experiment or observation could show that the universe is not a prepared system, or show that any details of an account of its preparation are false.
As the main point of this thread is ID, as to your other point on the origin of death, I will not go on at length, but refer you again to Kalomiros's The Six Dawns, who does a much better job of dealing with the matter than I (hardly surprising, he being the best Greek Orthodox lay theologian in recent years).