In the Beginning Was Information: Information in Living Organisms (Ch 6)

AiG ^ | April 2, 2009 | Dr. Werner Gitt

[CottShop]

[[But Shannon theory is not about information per se (in the sense of an intelligible message), merely about how it is conveyed.]]

Bingo

[[ As such, it conveys both low-level and high-level information.]]

Again, as you and Alamo have pointed out before, both levels are useless without the ability to be comunicated

[[it is indifferent to questions of meaning altogether. That’s for the receiver to figure out, once successful communication has occurred.]]

Yup- hte info is static- the receiver is dynamic, ‘determining’ what to do with hte static message- but I think however that coded receiving cells however might act in a static manner? There might be several possible actions to ‘choose from’ when hte message is received, but they are static ‘choices’ already coded for

[betty boop]

Just as there are multiple levels in the autopoetic hierarchy, why would what place the statistical aspects of information occupy in the information hierarchy (for lack of a better word) be controversial?

Shannon information theory is fundamentally not "hierarchical." It facilitates all communications at all levels of the hierarchy; e.g., intended purpose –> achieved result; expected action –> implemented action; communicated ideas –> understood meaning; code employed –> code understood; signal transmitted –> signal received.

I dunno. Perhaps Gitt simply does not think like a mathematician.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Then how do stars create PAH’s?

You know, like caffeine and compounds in chocolate.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you oh so very much for sharing your insights in this important sidebar, dearest sister in Christ!!!

Truly, as you pointed out in a later post, the Shannon model is not hierarchical.

It is mathematics, universal - it simply does not care about the meaning of the message. The Shannon model applies whether the message is gibberish or Scripture.

In short, if I had to say where Shannon information theory fits into Dr. Williams' autopoetic model (and it seems it must, for the Shannon model is universal; i.e., applicable to all communications), I'd simply describe it as the means whereby the "message" of the inversely-causal metainformation is timely conveyed to the various levels of the autopoetic hierarchy. Shannon information theory is totally indifferent to the actual content of the message. Again, it is the medium of its conveyance, not the message itself.

Indeed!

[AndrewC]

To qualify Shannon's theory to include meaning (information content) in any application of it is to attack its universality per se.

I think that it would be helpful to keep in mind the title of Shannon's paper and this statement taken from it.

A Mathematical Theory of Communication

The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem. The significant aspect is that the actual message is one selected from a set of possible messages.

That said, it seems counterintuitive to accept information without meaning.(But that is actually what is happening when someone talks to me in Urdu)--no offense intended to Pakistanis

[GodGunsGuts]

That makes sense. But it seems to me that Gitt is trying to build upon Shannon by investigating the non-physical message that is carried on the physical medium that transports information. Although judging by what you said above with such words as intended, expected, ideas, understood, meaning, code, employed, etc, it may be that Shannon goes much further than simply the statistics of information. If so, I would be much obliged if you could provide me with a link so I can learn more about this aspect of Shannon’s work.

Also, I would be curious to get your take on Gitt’s “The Five Levels of the Information Concept”:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/itbwi/five-levels-information-concept

All the best—GGG

[betty boop]

According to Dr. Gitt, information is carried via a physical medium, but the information itself is non-physical.

And indeed, in this, I totally agree with him. The medium is thought to be the EM field. And messages are never physical.

Where I think he may go a bit astray is with his notion of Shannon statistics. He seems to believe these have some bearing on the message itself. That is, he conflates message and medium. Strictly speaking, Shannon statistics have bearing only on the movement of the message through the various stages of the Shannon model. E.g., statistics pertaining to, say, how the "noise" in the channel problem is handled. But these statistics have no bearing whatsoever on the content of the message. It is what it is, first and last. Shannon theory has no input whatsoever at the level of the message itself.

The transmission channel does not recognize the message, the information, it conveys. Its job is simply to facilitate the transmission of messages. Only the senders and receivers recognize the transmission as information.

In short, for some reason it seems Dr. Gitt has conflated "medium" and "message" in his model. Or so it seems to me, FWIW.

Thank you so much for writing, GGG!

[CottShop]

[[Both Dr. Gitt and Alex Williams have provided important insights into the meaning of biological messages. I was particularly impressed with William’s inverse causality, that the molecular machinery received repair and maintenance messages which are temporally non-local, i.e. the need hadn’t happened yet and it could not be anticipated. And their points should be raised far and wide.]]

I agree- His points are I beleive even more impoirtant than Behe’s singular exampels of IC

[[My criticism goes to their hand wave of Shannon’s Mathematical Theory of Communications, which is the door opener, the strength of their argument to a secular world.]]

Again, I have to agree here- As you said, it’s a vitally important issue that really should be intellectually stressed and presented to the secular world in a manner that forces them to take notice- Informaiton theory is I beleive the next most important step for BOTH sides, as information MUST be present BEFORE species can function and remain fit

[[As another example, Newtonian physics stands on its own as does Relativity as does Quantum Mechanics.]]

Imporant point here- Informaiton theory, and comunication mechanisms stand on their own merrits, and shoudl not be relegated to the back of hte room- William’s work is VERY important, BUT so is comunication theory- the two are VERY strong arguments against naturalistic materialism, and both shoudl be strongly stressed and fleshed out, because bBOTH defeat naturalistic materialism in their own rights

[GodGunsGuts]

Thanks for your insights, BB :o) However, it seems to me he is saying that the medium of the message and the actual (non-physical) information are separate entities. What gives you the impression he is conflating the two?

[betty boop]

Yup — the info is static — the receiver is dynamic, ‘determining’ what to do with the static message — but I think however that coded receiving cells ... might act in a static manner? There might be several possible actions to ‘choose from’ when the message is received, but they are static ‘choices’ already coded for.

As ever, a fascinating insight, CottShop! Indeed, I wouldn't rule it out of the realm of possibility.

Thank you ever so much for your perceptive essay/post!

[GodGunsGuts]

It seems to me that the Urdu message still has meaning to the sender, no? It also makes me wonder if every aspect of matter and energy is sending messages, many of which we intuitively understand, others via the scientific method, and all of them understood by God.

[GodGunsGuts]

I must agree with you, BB. Cott shop is choke-full of fascinating insights (as are you :o). All the best—GGG

[r9etb]

Where's your proof? If you don't have any proof, it's not a theorm.

I think in this case we need to be careful with terminology. A generally acceptable definition of a "theorem" is as follows:

A theorem is a statement that can be demonstrated to be true by accepted mathematical operations and arguments. In general, a theorem is an embodiment of some general principle that makes it part of a larger theory. The process of showing a theorem to be correct is called a proof.

The mathematical standard of proof can be stated as follows:

"A rigorous mathematical argument which unequivocally demonstrates the truth of a given proposition. A mathematical statement that has been proven is called a theorem."

With those in hand, we can look at what are stated as "theorems" in the article.

One immediately sees that they are not really "theorems" at all -- at least, not according to the definitions above.

Instead, they are merely (mainly negative) assertions, proof of which would seem to be intractable according to the requirement for rigorous mathematical argument.

For example, look at "Theorem 26: The information present in living beings must have had a mental source."

"Theorem 26," as stated, does not appear to be a theorem at all.

How does one rigorously prove that information "must have a mental source?" How does one even mathematicize "mental source" to the point of being able to describe it mathematically? The authors conveniently leave out all relevant information....

For some reason, the authors spend an awful lot of time on "biological information," despite the fact that earlier they present "Theorem 25: Biological information is not an exceptional kind of information...."

So what they're really saying is, "All information (of whatever type) must have a mental source."

But as Alamo-Girl points out, "information" is a word that must be handled with great care -- it has a specific mathematical meaning, and a great deal of theory (and theorems!) to back it up.

Mr. Witt's commentary is unfortunately very short on "proofs," and very long on silly gems such as the following:

Scientists who submit themselves to such a mental corset and support it uncritically, degrade themselves to mere vassals of a materialistic philosophy. Science should, however, only be subservient to the truth, and not to pre-programmed folly. Evolutionary theory bans any mention of a planning Spirit as a purposeful First Cause in natural systems, and endeavors to imprison all sciences in the straightjacket called the “self-organization of matter.”

Cut the crap, Dr. Witt.

You really need to prove that random processes cannot create "information," according to some clear definitions of "random process" and "information."

[GodGunsGuts]

PAH’s?

[AndrewC]

It seems to me that the Urdu message still has meaning to the sender, no?

I should hope so. But at the moment I cannot tell. In any case, Shannon is concerned with communication which involves more than one entity.

[Alamo-Girl]

As you probably know, the Shannon Mathematical Model of Communications includes these elements: message, sender, encoding, channel, noise, decoding, receiver.

On the Chowder Society forum attended by both Yockey and Schneider, language was the illustration of the encoding/decoding elements. It does no good to send a message in Urdu to a receiver who only understands English.

One of the important observations coming from Creationists is that the receiver (molecular machinery) had to become capable of receiving before the first message was sent.

Also repeatedly stressed in the forum by Yockey is that the meaning of the message (syntax, complexity, etc.) is completely irrelevant to the model.

The model holds whether we are speaking of biological messages, key pressing on a keyboard, hard drive to CPU, telephone calls or U.S. mail.

Under the Shannon model, information (successful communication) is the reduction of uncertainty (Shannon entropy) in the receiver (or molecular machine) as it goes from a before state to an after state.

It is the action not the message.

The letter in your mailbox does not become information until you read it.

[betty boop]

...he is saying that the medium of the message and the actual (non-physical) information are separate entities. What gives you the impression he is conflating the two?

Because he characterizes Shannon information as "low level" information, and then speaks of it in a way that seems to make it intrinsic to the substance of biological information. He is right to see that the medium and the message are separate entities. And yet the bearing of his argument seems to conflate them.

[AndrewC]

It does no good to send a message in Urdu to a receiver who only understands English.

I disagree with that. For the moment it would appear to be useless, but then how do we learn each other's languages? It would seem to me to involve at least a third form of information, but it would still be necessary to communicate the other two.

[Alamo-Girl]

But it seems to me that Gitt is trying to build upon Shannon by investigating the non-physical message that is carried on the physical medium that transports information.

He should have developed his theory as a complementarity to Shannon's theory - not a qualification or extension of it.

[betty boop]

One of the important observations coming from Creationists is that the receiver (molecular machinery) had to become capable of receiving before the first message was sent.

Yet another instance of Dr. William's "inversely-causal metainformation?"

Fascinating observation, dearest sister in Christ!