Posted on 10/28/2010 10:49:08 AM PDT by betty boop
Thanks for your pings and great posts.
First, he points in the article I linked earlier in the thread that mutation is the equivalent of noise, which always, without exception, degrades the information. It is like tape hiss on a cassette tape. I am a professional recording engineer and a musician. I know what he is talking about. So do you, if you have ever listened to a cassette tape. He discusses a possible exception in digital recording - dither:
"And again, once the noise is there, it is absolutely impossible to get it back out. And I’ve never met any engineer who ever said the signal could be better after you added noise to it. The only exception to this is something called dither which does add noise to the signal before [me: or after] it’s recorded, but that is done to neutralize distortions in the recording equipment. It’s “dither” in digital recording, and “bias” in analog recording. But it does not increase the information; it degrades the signal, albeit in a useful way.The challenge is:So I’m hunting for a flaw in this theory. Can anyone show that noise increases the useful information in a signal?"
“Show me an example where random mutation actually increases information”Second, with reference to any code, he points out in other articles that in every case where the origin of a code is known, it is always, without exception the product of a mind. The challenge is:
Provide one example of a code, defined as "a channel with an input alphabet A and an output alphabet B" that is not the product of a mind.
Cordially,
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear spirited irish!
Truly, in my view the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics (Wigner) is like God's copyright notice on the cosmos.
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. - Psalms 33:6
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. [There is] no speech nor language, [where] their voice is not heard. – Psalms 19:1-3
Other elements are message, source, encoding, channel, decoding, receiver.
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 not the message.
The unopened letter in your inbox is a message, information happens when you decode the message and become "informed." Coffee spilled on the letter would be "noise" in that channel, affecting your ability to decode the message.
In information theory as applied to molecular biology (Schneider, et al) "noise" is the path whereby biological mutations are introduced.
But physical "noise" in a channel is not encoded. It is gibberish that cannot be decoded. That was the point betty boop raised. It cannot add to the message.
In order for whatever is received as "noise" to add to the message, it must be encoded. In short, it must be a broadcast (non-autonomous) encoded message. For instance, a radio message being received by your television.
H.H. Pattee (syntactical autonomy) and Rocha have both commented on this very point. In order for information content to accumulate in an RNA world, objects must toggle back and forth between autonomous and non-autonomous. Even so, the encoding of the noise must be explained.
you: I think it's correct to say that "any extremely unusual or extraordinary thing or occurence" is a random phenomenon.
As for me, I shall continue to protest the misappropriation of words rooted in mathematics.
Thank you for sharing your views, dear hosepipe!
I like that metaphor.
Cordially,
I’m glad you like it, dear Diamond!
well, once again a fascinating thread is underway and I just happened to catch a post to find! I find as I grow older, I comprehend more when I print this stuff out and read it at bedtime. So I’m printing it out, along with so far 4 footnoted articles ... total so far is sixty pages!
Evidently we tend to describe creation geometrically - e.g. continuum, field, wave, universals, whole - whereas others tend to describe creation by some quantization of the continuum, e.g. matter, energy, particles, DNA, object.
To be effective, we must translate between observer perspectives. For instance, a field has value at all points in space/time whereas particles are point-like - and therefore the we must explain the difference and which perspective we have taken.
Moreover, concerning information theory and molecular biology, we not only must translate between the successful communication of a message (Shannon, Rosen, et al) and the message itself (DNA) but also between the message and the language of the message (the coding of the DNA.) And again between autonomous and non-autonomous systems.
Sadly, the translations require many common words because, as you suggest, the dictionary fails to satisfy our need for precision.
OldNavyVet: I think it's correct to say that "any extremely unusual or extraordinary thing or occurence" is a random phenomenon.
OldNavyVet, by your statement here, aren't you already acknowledging what my dearest sister in Christ has already said — that since we cannot say what is random in a system when we don't know what the system is, that therefore the best we can say about the apparent randomness we "see" is that it involves something we cannot predict?
In short, the problem here is not mainly a problem of "random," it's a problem of unpredictability.
Or do you mean that simply because something is "extremely unusual or extraordinary" in our perceptual experience necessarily imbues that thing with the character of "randomness?" Does that mean the truth of reality has to be filtered through your idea of "truth" and perceptual experience in order to be validated? Is your own direct experience the reliable "measure" of things?
What does the word "random" — absent a context — mean anyway???
If we think something occurring in nature, as it appears to us as human "observers," is "an extremely unusual or extraordinary thing or occurrence," could this possibly mean that we don't understand the natural system — the context in which all phenomena occur — as well as we need to, if the truth of reality is our main concern?
And I do believe that was Alamo-Girl's main point. In short, if we don't know what the system "is," then how can we describe its parts and most importantly their behavior within the system (i.e., whether putatively "random" or "ordered" in some way)?
So can we take a stab on what "randomness" is in the first place? I mean, we're flinging that word around as if we knew what we were talking about!
Would a dictionary definition help all parties to this debate understand this at all?
I've consulted two dictionaries so far, the Oxford English, and the American Heritage. The only meaning in the Oxford dictionary relevant to our immediate concern is given as the third in a series of definitional items [the list of all potential meanings goes on over more than two columns in this work]: "...at great speed, without consideration, care, or control; hence a., with verbs of action or occurrence: As haphazard,, without aim, purpose, or fixed principle; heedlessly, carelessly, etc."
Question: Although you might prefer that the world be "purposeless," does it look "haphazard" to you, in its current state of development? Or at any prior state? Don't forget that evolution theory is logically premised on prior states that have already been formed....
Can we get any relief from this apparent quandary in the American Heritage dictionary? NO, methinks not: It says that "random" means (at item 1.): "Having no specific pattern or objective [i.e., no final cause!]; lacking causal relationships; haphazard."
Now OldNavyVet, you have to explain to me how an ordered, dynamic and persisting universe can be what it is as the mere product of haphazard and purposeless causes proceeding in a linear temporal chain over time....
So: Go for it! I'm all ears!!!
UNUSUAL . . . by personal arbitrary daffynition = random
because the individual is not interested in contemplating the implications, otherwise.
It seems to me that it is
MORE logical to presume that UNUSUAL
indicates some UNUSUAL origins of the UNUSUAL events observed.
DOH!
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