Posted on 04/02/2009 7:05:41 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
That's missing the point, I think.
This is "Chapter 6," by which point Mr. Witt has gotten well into the double digits of "theorems." The repeated use of the term is no accident -- it is meant to connote an underlying technical depth to his discussion.
His "theorems" are not well stated, though. More to the point: from reading through his tedious string of insults and sneering dismissals, I cannot avoid the conclusion that he is trying to fool a certain group of people into thinking he has a "technical" basis for his assertions.
For the most part, though, he seems strikingly uninterested in providing positive proof of his own claims. Instead, he is inordinantly interested in complaining about other people's ideas. Unfortunately, to say that some other guy is wrong in his claims, is not proof that one's own claims are correct.
Even semi-technical literature has a duty to be rigorous, especially when the statement of "theorems" is involved. A lay-oriented discussion of a theorem must still fairl express the proplem at hand; however, Witt's "theorems," do not lend themselves to any level of careful thought.
I'm certainly comfortable with the idea of "design," but I don't appreciate people like Mr. Witt, whose approach to the issue does more to muddy the water, than to pass along useful information.
Thank you so much for your encouragements, dear brother in Christ!
I always liked the idea that chocolate is created by stars.
God did a nice job with this.
Yes, AiG—the bastion of rationalization for the weak-in-faith.
Okay.
“It is certainly not about making fudge.”
No, it’s not.
Thank you for your encouragements in endorsing that point, dearest betty boop!
Information processing, yes; evaluations of informational content, no. Shannon has no relevance with respect to the latter. I wonder why Dr. Gitt wants to speak about it at all.
Shannon's model cannot be "tailored" to biology without risk of loss of its universality. To "extend it" in the fashion that Dr. Gitt imagines would make it less, rather than more universal.
Well ... because he demands a "mental source" for information, he actually conflates three things: medium, message, and source in his model.
His point, evidently, is that "random processes" (however defined) cannot encode meaningful "messages" into any medium whatsoever (since he says that biological information is no different from any other kind of information).
Put another way, he seems to be saying that "meaning" is only possible where the encoding occurs as a result of some positive intent and action.
While it is certainly true that "meaning" can be encoded through that process (e.g., as in this thread), he fails (as far as I can tell) to show that it can only be encoded that way.
What seems to be required is a proper "theory of encoding," which addresses processes by which messages are modulated onto a medium.
Mr. Gitt commits a cardinal sin there, by dismissing an entire branch of mathematics:
In his work on the self-organization of matter [E1], he uses an impressive array of formulas, but does not rise above the level of statistical information. This voluminous work is thus useless and does not answer any questions about the origin of information and of life.
How convenient... As if a theory describing random processes could be anything other than statisical. Mr. Gitt merely assumes the problem away.
Well, you can avoid it if you like -- but Mr. Gitt is being pretty dishonest in his discussion, and it's important to recognize that.
Agreed, dearest sister in Christ.
And you can have your own opinion. So what? Your view of his motivation is entirely your opinion.
To "extend it" in the fashion that Dr. Gitt imagines would make it less, rather than more universal.
Or perhaps Dr. Gitt simply doesn't appreciate the universality of mathematics?
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
==But at the moment I cannot tell. In any case, Shannon is concerned with communication which involves more than one entity.
This might sound a bit silly, but shouldn’t it also apply to self-consciousness? For instance, I am sending and receiving messages within myself all the time!
Those guides - which at the very minimum must include physical causation, space/time and physical laws - inform the rise of complexity by any model one chooses to embrace.
That insight should be set as a complementarity to self-organizing complexity not in lieu of it or a qualification of it.
Dr. Gitt and Alex Williams should not be attacking the very theories which can help their own arguments.
For a fellow who is clearly trying to present a "scientific" discussion, that is fatal to his argument -- whatever his motivations may be.
Another example would be the circuitry on your motherboard, or the kernel of your operating system. The degree of separation send to receive is time.
==Dr. Gitt and Alex Williams should not be attacking the very theories which can help their own arguments.
I don’t get the feeling that they are attacking Shannon’s theory. They just say that Shannon’s theory only speaks to the material/statistical aspects of information, and does not address what constitutes the actual message, which, as Gitt points out, is non-physical (and therefore has profound implications re: Creation/ID).
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