Posted on 08/26/2004 7:41:29 AM PDT by Michael_Michaelangelo
The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories
Proceedings of the Bioligical Society of Washington August 25, 2004
Link to PDF only. No text.
(Excerpt) Read more at discovery.org ...
After two years in Berlin ending thirty years ago, I can still remember "Was kostet das Vernügen?"
To use an example, every letter and printable character reduces to a number in some base. The least base is binary, 0/1, on/off, yes/no. This post has a numerical equivalent which you could see by translating it to octal, binary, etc.
This means one can “digitize” any form of data – The Constitution, The Declaration of Independence, Hamlet, a photograph, music, movie, one’s DNA – and essentially perform any number of algorithms (the simplest being a binary counter incrementing by one) and at some point along the way the algorithm will arrive at the digitized object.
To the metaphysical naturalists, evolutionists, some mathematicians, etc. this gives rise to a great sigh of relief: "any data set can be accomplished by a variety of algorithmic craft and encoding therefore anything is possible."
But that relief overlooks a few elements which are very important to some of us and thus leads to miscommunication:
First, the algorithm itself must not have a “stop” – it must have an infinity of opportunity to assure that anything that is possible can happen or has happened (the plentitude argument). Every modern cosmology acknowledges that there was a beginning, thus there is not an infinity of opportunity.
Second, the mystery of information in the universe – and especially molecular biology – is not in the mechanics of it, but the initiation or origin or cause of it. In Shannon theory, information itself is a reduction of uncertainty in the receiver. This is the critical form of information theory in responding to the overarching question, ”what is life?” and can be visualized in the thought experiment of comparing a dead skin cell to a live skin cell. IOW, the life is in the successful communication both internally to the biological form and environmentally. No successful communication, no life. Successful communication, life.
Third, the unreasonable effectiveness of math itself – an example of which is this algorithmic approach to yielding all data sets – points directly to Max Tegmark’s Level IV Parallel Universe. IOW, every thing, every where and every when is a mathematical structure to an ultimate higher dimension. Not only can the Constitution be numerically apprehended by algorithm, so can every physical being, every geometry and every instance (including of course, the algorithm itself).
This is where betty boop and I engage in debate– not the mechanics of algorithm. AFAIK, neither of us dispute algorithmic information theory, Shannon, Kolmogorov, Solomonof, etc. And when we speak of ”meaning” in this context, we are frequently speaking to the level of communication which Tegmark views as a Level IV universe, Grandpierre approaches as Living Logic, Aristotle names as the unmoved mover, etc.
Of course, I know Him to be God and infinitely incomprehensible. But in these science discussions, we try to stay focused on that which can be comprehended, so we only skirt the question of first cause.
Is that really true?
[You have mixed a bunch of quotes from different people and attributed them to the wrong person.]
Woo, that's a zinger.
[Words have meanings that require context. Evolution can be a fact, a tag denoting a series of historical events, or it can be a process. There is no sophistry here, just words being used in the way words are always used.]
Save the baby talk. I doubt there are any first-graders on the thread.
[I assume that "properly understood", the Bible does not refer to a universal flood.]
You assume wrong. You know, I can summon more patience with the spontaneous generation optimists than with uniformitarian geologists. At least the stew-to-you'ers can't see the evidence against them every time they drive down a road cut between perfectly conformed/plastically deformed layers of hydraulically-deposited rock, or paddle a boat between the high banks of a grossly overfit meandering river (Have they located an underfit river yet?) virtually anywhere on the planet. Don't you have EYES in your heads?
"I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it", as they say.
You keep telling us that "evolution is a fact"; only the "mechanism" is still in question. That is utter sophistry & you know it; evolution IS the mechanism.
There are two questions routinely confused by creos. One is whether there is evidence for the descent of all life on Earth from some common ancestry. The answer, a resounding "Yes," is irrefutable by now. You'll never make a dent in the situation. It is accepted and the preponderance of evidence for it is absolutely crushing.
The other question, really an infinite sequence of questions, is "What are the details of mechanism and history?" Generally, the mechanism is Darwin's "variation and natural selection." There are still questions about the role of neutral drift, whether all variation is random all the time, etc. The specific and detailed history of just how it happened on Earth is getting increasingly filled in as well but there will probably always remain gaps in the geological record.
Since some parts of this will never be fleshed out, creationists have an opportunity to pretend that any squabbling about any part of question two just sent the answer to question one crashing to the ground. This does not fool too many non-creationists but it works on all the creation/ID types every time.
Question at issue: How (BY WHAT MECHANISM) did it come to be?
Your analysis about the origin of the universe would seem to be rather off-topic and lacking in intellectual rigor in any event. In fact, your post just sort of dissolves in foaming at the mouth creationist strawman-burning from there.
I'm not convinced the imaginary time model requires a beginning. I'm not asserting it's correct, just that I don't see how it requires a beginning.
young earth wasted bandwidth placemarker.
If space and imaginary time are indeed like the surface of the Earth, there wouldn't be any singularities in the imaginary time direction, at which the laws of physics would break down. And there wouldn't be any boundaries, to the imaginary time space-time, just as there aren't any boundaries to the surface of the Earth. This absence of boundaries means that the laws of physics would determine the state of the universe uniquely, in imaginary time. But if one knows the state of the universe in imaginary time, one can calculate the state of the universe in real time. One would still expect some sort of Big Bang singularity in real time. So real time would still have a beginning. But one wouldn't have to appeal to something outside the universe, to determine how the universe began. Instead, the way the universe started out at the Big Bang would be determined by the state of the universe in imaginary time. Thus, the universe would be a completely self-contained system. It would not be determined by anything outside the physical universe, that we observe.
I would say the primary purpose of the imaginary time model is to describe observations in a mathematically consistent and useful way. No one is accounting for the ultimate cause of existence, but if spacetime does not require a singularity, then it does not require a singularity.
Just because we know something doesn't mean it is necessarily true. That goes for the theory of evolution--an immature theory, more of a hypothesis. Goes equally for ID.
What should have been the object of the model is a rebuttal to the loss of information in singularities. This has been a big problem all along for those trying to account for the origin of the incredibly convenient physical laws and physical constants. In the lecture, Hawking goes far afield of this goal and addresses directly the belief in a Creator.
I think you might be confusing the popular definition of "imaginary" with the mathematical definition.
I'm right "with you" on your speculations and in agreement to the need for Grandpierre to address transcendence. He is so very close. It would be sad for him not to finish the trip.
Speaking of trips, I wish you a wonderful and relaxing vacation! Because you will be leaving soon, I'm being intentionally brief with my reply here and instead am addressing some of your points in replies to others, copied to you to be read at your convenience.
Please bookmark this thread and when you return, perhaps you'll have yet another marvelous essay for us!!!
Your sister in Christ.
That would be because we can disagree without launching a flame war.
Bwahahahaha! You sir are a world class twit, valiantly tilting at windmills.
You do realize that information theory is pervasively used in many fields of science, engineering, as well as a myriad of "soft" fields don't you? We've done a hell of a lot of cool things in the last half century that was theoretically based in "BS". You must be surprised that all these fancy computer thingies work.
So let me get this straight. A broad field of mathematics that has been heavily used in engineering doesn't support some empty and whimisical conclusion you are enamoured with, and so the entire field of mathematics is "BS"? William of Ockham would have something to say about that. Oh wait, I forgot, you don't believe in this "mathematics" stuff.
And people wonder why I am cynical about the Republican party...
I will add that Dembski is in love with the idea that information theory only deals with "average information", and makes that a major premise of his argument.
Apparently he is entirely unaware that Kolmogorov extended the field to include absolute information and pointwise information (i.e. literal instance information, not "average" information) circa 1965. Only a world-class ignoramus could claim to be knowledgeable about information theory while premising his entire argument on a conceptual notion of information theory that was obsolete in the 1960s. All of his notions and ideas have been addressed in mathematics in the 40 years since he stopped paying attention to the field.
Science doesn't 'propose' anything. Science is not a sentient being. Accepting or dismissing ideas is something a sentient being would do.
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