They all make the same mistake - which no big league mathematician would make – they criticize Shannon’s theory for not addressing the meaning of the message and then deign to bring Shannon up-to-date.
Shannon’s theory, the mathematical theory of communications doesn’t care whether the message being transmitted is “The Greatest Story Ever Told” or “Debbie does Dallas” or DNA. It doesn’t matter if the message is Einstein’s theory of General Relativity (very complex by any measure) – or a single binary digit.
Moreover, the meaning of a very simple message could be earth-shattering. What if that single binary digit was the command from Obama's nuclear football to launch a thermonuclear attack on China?
Meaning goes to either or both complex systems theory and philosophy.
If Shannon’s theory included the meaning of the message, it would not be a transportable mathematical model. It would only be applicable to whatever class of message fit the complex systems theory or philosophy he embraced.
Remember there are two types of complex systems theories – least description and least time. How complexity is measured depends on what you are looking for, e.g. functional complexity, algorithmic complexity, Kolmogorov complexity, irreducible complexity.
The measure of complexity in DNA does not ipso facto apply to the measure of complexity in literature, algorithms, images, music and so on.
It is the strength of Shannon’s theory, not the weakness, that he didn’t include the meaning of the message. Criticizing Shannon on that point shows an extreme lack of good judgment and understanding of math theory.
In my view, it is as if these intelligent design or creationism theorists are doing the same thing we criticize Dawkins, Pinker, Lewontin and Singer of doing – pedaling atheism under the color of science. In their case, they are pedaling a complex systems theory under the color of information theory.
My disappointment with Myers and Williams is profound because their complex systems theories have merit on their own right – with Myers the geometry of biological information content and Williams the temporal displacement of metainformation in biological life.
They should have been presented them for what they are. They should have stood on their own two feet.
As it is, I doubt any of the big league mathematicians - who are notoriously open to new theories (e.g. they accepted in peer review for publication in 1994 Statistical Science the equidistant lettering sequence theory, aka Bible Codes) – would give their ideas a second look. If you want to play in their ballpark, you have to know the rules of the game.
It seems that both informaiton AND communication have always existed in Eternal God. They are as eternal as God. Without informaiton, Cuminication has nothign to do- without comunicaiton, informaiton also has nothign to do (and as you point out, isn’t information until comunicated)
Shannon was right to exclude meaning, because as you point out, it’s not hte content, it’s the method that he addresses- Williams was wrong to insinuate that Shannon theory was ‘out of date’ because it didn’t address meaning of content. Communication is infact the only thing that makes information meaningful, and quite frankly, the whole complex biological system of comunicaiton in species cries out Design (especially when that communication is species specific)
Will have to htink on htis more
[[and quite frankly, the whole complex biological system of comunicaiton in species cries out Design (especially when that communication is species specific)]]
Just quickly, the reason it screams design is that when trying to argue informaiton arose in a step-wise fashion, one owuld have to argue that trillions of ‘happy accidental’ occurances took place which enabled emerging cells to receive the correct information needed to keep the cells fit and thriving. If one is going to argue cells evolved, then they must either argue that nature was intelligent, and able to provide just the right information needed to sustain emerging cells, or that cells just popped up all over the place already happily enabled to receive the correct info from other cells. To suggest info evolved in a step-wise fashion is beyond being a reasonable argument concidering that the cells could not survive long enough until nature ‘got it just right’. the time needed for this to happen (being overly generous and allowing that it ‘could happen’ in the first place) for even one succesful construction, is just not a reasonable position to take.
I feel likewise, dearest sister in Christ! I was impressed by Williams' theory of inversely-causal metainformation, so was disappointed when he started ranting against Shannon's theories on the basis of a statistical argument (i.e., statistics doesn't give you "meaning").
Pace to GGG: "statistical aspects of information (i.e. Shannon information) is inadequate to evaluate that which makes information meaningful." True enough; but the meaning of informational messages was not Shannon's concern.
Shannon's information theory is not concerned with "meaning"; nor is it a theory of biological information per se. Rather, it's an "all-purpose" (i.e., universal) theory that applies to all forms of communications, biological, mechanical (digital, analog), verbal, literary, etc., etc. As far as I can tell, Shannon theory does not challenge any aspect of what Myers and Williams are doing in their own scientific activities; in no way could Shannon theory be considered as offering a "rival theory" to their own.
Why would these gentlemen criticize Shannon's theory if they truly understood what Shannon was doing? His mathematical theory of communications is the "beast of burden" of successful communication of any and all types of messages/signals; and, like a camel, is completely indifferent to the "burden" — i.e., the meaning of the message — it carries.
On the other hand, we need to remember that without successful communication, without the "reduction of uncertainty in the receiver," the question of meaning can never arise for that receiver. If one hasn't "read" the message, one has no opportunity to understand it (find meaning in it).
It seems to me that Williams failed to appreciate that his inversely-causal metainformation needs a medium of successful communication throughout the organism — it needs a "camel" to bear the metainformation, delivering it to the right place, at the right time. The "camel" itself is NOT the meaning of the message, just the "passive" or "neutral" carrier of it (so to speak)....
In short, it seems to me that Williams needs Shannon as much as Rosen does. Rosen doesn't make this need explicit in Life Itself. He's not dealing with that level of the problem (i.e., transport of messages) in this work; not only does he not criticize Shannon, he respectfully refers to him in his book, indicating that Shannon's problems were different from the ones immediately before him (causal structures in complex systems).
Another way to look at it: Shannon's information theory is rather like the post office — its job is only to "get a letter from a sender and mail it on to its intended recipient/receiver." Then — and only then — can the recipient "read it," discern its meaning, and execute it.
Well, that's sort of how I think about these issues, FWIW.
Thank you so very much, dearest sister in Christ, for your excellent essay/post!