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To: Amos the Prophet

"We do not know how to define intelligence because the Darwinian choke-hold on scientific thought has not allowed us to develop a scientific model that even asks the question. Darwinianism has become an antiquated dogma preventing science from moving into areas that it denies, such as intelligence theory."

Intelligence theory? Ok, what is the definition of intelligence in this field? I am pretty familiar with information theory by the way and though this would be the most plausible track to pursue this question it is ultimately a dead end. Why? Becuase it is mathematically provable that there exist no computable test that can differentiate between a random sequence and a highly complex sequence. This means that even if God is encoding "messages" into the seemingly random perturbations of nature that drive the various biological processes it is impossible to test for them, because arbitrarily complex sequences cannot be distinguised from random sequences.


66 posted on 10/07/2005 5:27:11 AM PDT by Avenger
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To: Avenger

"Becuase it is mathematically provable that there exist no computable test that can differentiate between a random sequence and a highly complex sequence."

But that may be because a random sequence doesn't really exist in the first place and that they are ALL highly complex sequences. Have you been trapped by your own logic?


132 posted on 10/07/2005 6:38:00 AM PDT by babygene (Viable after 87 trimesters)
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To: Avenger
This means that even if God is encoding "messages" into the seemingly random perturbations of nature that drive the various biological processes it is impossible to test for them, because arbitrarily complex sequences cannot be distinguised from random sequences.

Nop. This means that you have not developed a model to distinguish between random and seqwuential. It is intellectual bias that prevents this from being developing.

139 posted on 10/07/2005 6:46:22 AM PDT by Louis Foxwell (THIS IS WAR AND I MEAN TO WIN IT.)
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To: Avenger
This means that even if God is encoding "messages" ... it is impossible to test for them

Not necessarily. If the "message" is of sufficiently low complexity, we could conceivably stumble upon it. Some argue that the so called fine-tuning of physical constants is just such a "message." I think that's bunk - I see no way to test for this "message" being a message from God. How does one go about constraining a supernatural, omniscient, omnipotent being sufficiently to make a testable prediction?

But obviously one could choose to accept it as such on a philosophical basis.

201 posted on 10/07/2005 9:47:11 AM PDT by edsheppa
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