Posted on 01/20/2005 12:54:58 PM PST by Jay777
I console myself that I'm at least not prematurely dead from the neck up.
Betty boop, every time I try and make you commit to anything with consequences, you immediately retreat into fuzzy handwaving semantics that have no business in a rigorous discussion, and which sometimes betray a gross ignorance of the very thing you are opining about. You cannot have your cake and eat it too; you accept certain things as "reasonable" but then reject things that necessarily follow with handwavy metaphysical comments that do not even belong in meaningful discussion about technical matters. Indeed, it appears the only acceptable axiom when having a technical discussion with you is whatever vaguely philosophical notion you feel fit to put to paper. You've made it abundantly clear that mathematics is something that can be cast aside on whim, especially when it comes into conflict with some other deeply held belief of yours. Given the choice between the Betty Boop axioms and the axioms of mathematics, I'll take math, no offense intended.
I guess the bottom line is this: Do you accept mathematics, or don't you? You cannot assert its truth when convenient for you, and then deny its applicability or play ignorant of its fundamental tenets when it might harm your assertions. It is an all or nothing thing. Ignorance of mathematics is no excuse either -- if you are not prepared to address the technical issues raised, then it is probably not a good idea to make sweeping assertions about them.
I often don't agree with Alamo-girl's interpretation of math, but I will also grant that she does not reason in circles such that I have to make the same basic easily verifiable mathematical points over and over and over. She may move on to other creative interpretations, but she usually recognizes an issue if I make an effort to explain it. Discussions with you are awfully circular, and I do not see any progress being made.
By the way, I have no idea what you are talking about with respect to the Invariance Theorem. Try wikipedia for the super-short version, though lacking any explanation of its implications.
Had a rough week RWP?
Name the specific church dogma to which you refer. "Certain dogmas" is nonspecific.
Let's not pretend that evolutionism is for free thinkers, shall we? Stray too far from the plantation and your career is history, as some of these recent threads attest. Lest you insist that materialism is not dogmatic, remember Dick Lewontin
Oh. That explains why “wanted posters” always use this language: WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE, instead of: WANTED: QUANTIZED ENTITY (TO BE DETERMINED) OF A CONTINUUM (TO BE DEFINED).
Still, I gather wanted posters still use the “old language,” even these days — at least it’s what’s used on the “advertisements” for Usama bin Laden… WITH $X REWARD. (What’s it up to now? $50 mil?)
But how can you say that there is “no line to be drawn” respecting Mr. Bin Laden, which is what would seem to next follow from your argument: that the law must recognize an “artificial line” where none naturally exists?
Honestly, Right Wing Professor — it is troubling to me how wide the separation between theory and actual human existence seems to be growing. Human experience, intuition, history, all are seemingly held in equal contempt by a fairly large sector of the scientific community. Frankly, I just don’t get it. From where I sit, this looks like a long-term process of human self-annihilation that eventually results in the “rubbing out” of scientists; for science, and the rest of human culture as well, would be “rubbed out” in the process.
Now I expect it will be argued that science has now achieved such mastery of specialized, technical detail that it cannot possibly be understood by your average person in the street. I would reply that if science is not being done for the benefit (if only indirectly) of your average person in the street — considering his wider extensions in terms of society, the ecosystem, and beyond — then who or what benefits from science? Obviously, that is not the sort of question that can be answered with a “yes” or a “no.” Does science even bother to formulate that type of question, these days?
But I digress. Your next remarks regarding the inception of consciousness and the self-renewing capabilities of organic bodies are of the most vital importance to me. I beg your indulgence, but I’m trying to gather my thoughts regarding precisely those questions and more so to complete an article that Alamo-Girl and I are collaborating on right now. We will definitely ping you when the time comes, dear Prof, and sincerely hope you will attend and contribute to the festivities in due course.
You wrote: “As to whether I am coming at this problem through a filter of religious dogma: [betty boop wrote:] ‘as a dogmatist yourself, how would you really be in a position to know?’”
Well, I never did explicitly say you were coming at this from the standpoint of religious dogma; but then again you weren’t wrong to draw that supposition. To me, it doesn’t matter in the end: Dogma is dogma, whatever its provenance. The distinguishing feature of a person of “dogmatic temperament” is contempt for all points of view that don’t “measure in” to the standard of one’s own dogma. That was the general point I was trying to make.
I apologize to you, RWP, for any statement you regard as an ad hominum attack. I get a “little exercised” every now and then. But you must not take my little fits of pique or fancy or whatever as evidence that I hold you personally in disrespect. The contrary is the truth of the matter. You’ve written some beautiful material recently, am I’m glad and grateful for it.
Thanks so much for writing!
I do love you regardless, and pray for blessings for you in all things. Feel free to look me up anytime you've got the inclination to do so. (Or not, as the case may be.) Godspeed!
This is really beneath you, BB. No one is arguing, and you know this well, that the categories of 'clearly alive' and 'clearly dead' don't exist. Please do me the credit of not treating me like an idiot. Just because some corpses have rotted for centuries, doesn't mean that there aren't cases like Ms. Schiavo.
Life and death just ain't that clear. If we could see a winged soul flitting, like a bat, from the corpus, maybe it would be easier, but it ain't.
Reply as you wish; don't ping me, OK?
Being a math Platonist, I agree with Max Tegmark that existents in space/time are actually mathematical structures in higher dimensions. I also embrace Plato's universals, forms and see them as mathematical structures as well.
Therefore I do indeed see a measurable mathematical difference between something that is living and something that is dead.
I cite Shannon’s mathematical theory of communications as authority simply because Adami et al are not yet up to tackling “information theory and molecular biology” with algorithmic information theory.
But I digress….
The Shannon definition for information (which I prefer to paraphrase as successful communication) is this: the reduction of uncertainty (Shannon entropy) in a receiver or molecular machine in going from a before state to an after state. It is measured in bits – not binary – as the after entropy less the before entropy.
In nature, non-living and dead organisms do not communicate successfully, living organisms do communicate successfully.
Therefore, I can define life mathematically by positive Shannon bits which occur in natural systems ---- and death/non-life by Shannon bits which occur in natural systems less than 1.
The measure can be taken by organism at space/time coordinate. It can also be applied to particular molecular machinery at space/time coordinate (brain dead, cardiovascular alive, etc.)
Naturally, the space/time coordinate is necessary because the Shannon bits must be quantized in the continuum of space/time. An organism which was alive and is now dead, etc.
Got bits?
You say there is a "specific answer". If that's true, then you should have no problem answering the following questions:
1. Is a quiescent anthrax spore in a vacuum bottle alive or dead?
2. Is a human body in DHCA (Deep Hypothermic Cardiac Arrest) for two hours alive or dead? They have no heartbeat, no brain activity, the blood has been drained from there body and is in a bucket on the floor, and their body has been cooled to extreme lows. Their cells are undergoing the kind of progressive damage seen in refrigerated meat.
3. If your answer to question #2 is "alive", how about the same human body after three weeks?
4. If your answer to question#3 is "dead", then at what moment or event did they instantaneously cross the line from "alive" to "dead", and how is that instant determined?
5. Is a million-year-old pollen grain alive or dead?
6. Sperm in liquid nitrogen?
7. Frozen embryos?
8. Dehydrated brine shrimp eggs?
9. Henrietta Lacks, whose body was buried in in the cemetery across the street from her family's tobacco farm in Virginia in 1951?
10. A crystallized Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV)?
11. A TMV decomposed into its constituent parts?
12. The viral parts in question#11 decomposed into their constituent molecules?
13. The molecules in question#12 decomposed into their constituent atoms?
14. The atoms, molecules, or parts in questions#11-13 reassembled back into a virus?
In your answer for each of these questions, please state the specific reasons for your "alive" or your "dead" answer in the particular case. Make sure your criteria are entirely consistent in all cases, and are specific enough to allow them to be applied to new cases I have not yet mentioned without giving answers which fly in the face of the common sense assessment for those additional cases.
My computer does that too.
It is measured in bits – not binary – as the after entropy less the before entropy.
Bits *ARE* binary. "Bit" = "binary digit".
In nature, non-living and dead organisms do not communicate successfully, living organisms do communicate successfully.
Okay, I'll bite -- what is a "non-living organism"?
For that matter, please define "organism" in a way that does not circularly depends on a definition of the word "life".
Why "in nature"? What is "outside of nature"?
My computer "communicates successfully" -- is it alive? (Again, be sure not to beg the question by limiting your "definition of organism" in a way that circularly depends on the definition of life, or vice versa).
Therefore, I can define life mathematically by positive Shannon bits which occur in natural systems ---- and death/non-life by Shannon bits which occur in natural systems less than 1.
"Natural systems less than 1"? Huh?
My computer is natural -- it obeys all the laws of nature. Why is it not alive? (See: "please define natural" above).
A "dead" carcass in an acid bath exchanges Shannon information with the acid molecules. Is it therefore alive?
The measure can be taken by organism at space/time coordinate. It can also be applied to particular molecular machinery at space/time coordinate (brain dead, cardiovascular alive, etc.)
As opposed to "measure taken not at space/time coordinate"? Give an example of the latter.
Naturally, the space/time coordinate is necessary because the Shannon bits must be quantized in the continuum of space/time.
Well, "naturally"... Just as "naturally, the crystal energy is necessary because the cosmic vibration must be resonated in the continuum of the aura".
Got bits?
Binary bits, even.
Do you know that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy do not exist? Unicorns? Invisible Pink Unicorns(tm)? Smurfs? Goldilocks and her three bears?
...what if "proof of them is all in the OTHER HALF"?
Do you find this line of argument valid or convincing when applied to things you *aren't* already predisposed to believe?
Do you think anyone else would?
If you take all that away, I shall have nothing except the nymphs that lurk within every tree, and the naiads that inhabit every brook. And that is not enough for a meaningful life. Therefore, to preserve all that I am, I shall oppose you and all your evil works. You have been warned!
And YOU accused Betty Boop of a "cheap ad hominem" in #740? I believe that is generally referred to as hypocrisy. It is also a less-than-novel way of avoiding the questions posed to you.
I can debate matters with BB in a usually civil manner. You, on the other hand, appear to be incapable of a civil debate with anyone. I try as much as possible to avoid responding to your posts entirely (which is easy, because there's seldom any substance there to rebut).
If you must intrude in a discussion, that is your right - this is a forum - but don't expect any more civility than you grant to others.
That is not what I'm arguing about, RWP. What i am arguing about is the inanity of the so-called "fallacy of quantizing the continuum." To me, the fallacy implies that state vector collapse can never occur. But if we observe one anyway, then we are mistaken. As a friend has assured me, even a child can effect state vector collapse. For a child can decide; and any decision represents the "collapse" of a probability amplitude. This seems to be true both for quantum and "real-world" systems. The other thing that goes down the flush with this so-called fallacy is intentionality. For intentionality is what lies back of decision. With intentionality gone, thus goes free will.
You don't have to be a Christian or a Platonist to find such reasoning disagreeable.
Thanks for writing, Prof!
you: Bits *ARE* binary. "Bit" = "binary digit".
bit: A binary digit, or the amount of information required to distinguish between two equally likely possibilities or choices. If I tell you that a coin is 'heads' then you learn one bit of information. It's like a knife slice between the possibilities: … Likewise, if a protein picks one of the 4 bases, then it makes a two bit choice ….
For 8 things it takes 3 bits. In simple cases the number of bits is the log base 2 of the number of choices or messages M: bits = log2M. Claude Shannon figured out how to compute the average information when the choices are not equally likely. The reason for using this measure is that when two communication systems are independent, the number of bits is additive. The log is the only mathematical measure that has this property! Both of the properties of averaging and additivity are important for sequence logos and sequence walkers. Even in the early days of computers and information theory people recognized that there were already two definitions of bit and that nothing could be done about it. The most common definition is 'binary digit', usually a 0 or a 1 in a computer. This definition allows only for two integer values. The definition that Shannon came up with is an average number of bits that describes an entire communication message (or, in molecular biology, a set of aligned protein sequences or nucleic-acid binding sites). This latter definition allows for real numbers. Fortunately the two definitions can be distinguished by context.
you: Okay, I'll bite -- what is a "non-living organism"?
Non-life includes such things as stars and rocks as distinguished from previously alive organisms which are now dead.
The "nature" term is key, which is why I kept repeating it. The object of the definition is to define life v non-life or death in nature. What constitutes “life” in artificial intelligence is for another discussion. Here we are speaking of the quantization of the continuum to define non-life v. life with regard to a theory of abiogenesis (life from non-life).
you: "Natural systems less than 1"? Huh?
Catalytic RNA fails the mark for the same reason. However, along with viruses and prions they would be considered an element of the model, i.e. “noise”. In the Shannon model applied to molecular biology, noise is often seen as the equivalent of “random mutations” – albeit “randomness” cannot be determined at that scale (one would have to look at the complete system) - noise is nevertheless the source of mutation.
you: As opposed to "measure taken not at space/time coordinate"? Give an example of the latter.
If we were to take the Shannon measure as a single number in the cosmos - unity, I suspect it would have a similar equilibrium as that appears to be a common thread, e.g. thermodynamics, critical mass density, matter v antimatter. AFAIK, noone has attempted such a universal model of Shannon entropy.
Nevertheless, I propose the meaningful application of Shannon is to an entity - existing at a specified space/time coordinate – to define that which is alive v that which is dead v that which is non-life.
IOW, you would measure as "alive" under the Shannon model today because you have bits greater than 0. Somewhere in the future, you will be dead and have no bits. Today, alive – tomorrow, dead. Shannon defines both at their unique point in space/time (a quanitization of the continuum).
One of the neat properties of a mathematical model is that it can be tested and applied across boundaries.
For instance, the Shannon theory can be applied both to the classic organism (e.g. the man) and to the component molecular machinery (e.g. the kidneys, brain, etc.). Thus we can say the kidneys are no longer successfully communicating within the body and are dead, yet the greater organism (the man) lives because successful communications are yet occuring at that level.
The same concept (at a particular slice of space/time) could be taken to quantum levels and cosmic levels to see its applicability.
For instance, at the quantum, we might ask if messenger bosons are a useful construct within Shannon communication theory? IOW, this is where we would look for a field-like "will to live" that permeates every cell which successfully communicates - either as an autonomous entity or within the molecular machinery of a greater organism.
Likewise, at the cosmic level, we might ask the information content of the universe, i.e. looking at the universe as a whole organism.
Perhaps that will make the quantizing issue more clear? When there is no successful communication at all, anywhere in space/time - there is no life. That is the beginning point for all theories of abiogenesis.
It, of course, has profound theological significance as well to the Judeo/Christian community because God spoke everything into being. We do, BTW, see sound wave artifacts in the CMB.
And, as we discussed on the other thread (and to which betty boop and I are preparing an article-response) - there are levels of willfulness, the least of which appears to be universal, the "will to live" which applies universally to individual cells regardless of organisms and collectives. The higher will, self-will, is unique to man. And beyond that is a spiritual longing ("ears to hear") which transcends space/time altogether and a presence in both simultaneously unique to those in whom the Spirit dwells. All of this is observed (though not by all men) and is Scriptural.
For Christian Lurkers: the concept of the creation (universe, physical realm) as a whole willful entity is contained in Romans 8.
Indeed, every fossil is a quantization of the continuum of the geologic record.
IMHO, a quantization of the continuum is a property of the evidence. The fallacy would be in using the quantized information improperly.
I believe this is Doctor Stochastic's "take" on it as well.
If the 'state vector collapse' refers to quantum mechanics, it's the act of observation, not decision, that causes the system to adopt one of its eigenvalues and effect the so-called collapse. For that matter, an inanimate measuring device does the same thing. Personally, I consider the whole thing an artifact of an artifical dualism between experimenter and experiment. If you write a combined wavefunction of apparatus and system, the evolution of the combined system is purely deterministic.
If the act of decision is your criterion, of course, you must recognize that we don't generally recognize the ability of children to make free decisions. Will iself is a continuum, not a binary quantity.
I'll just echo Pinker's point that of course we have a revulsion towards the idea that what we are and what we do might be the result of the operation of a set of natural laws, because we evolved to act as if we have a control of our destiny. The people with the fatalistic genes saw a saber-toothed tiger coming and sighed 'que sera, sera', before letting kitty settle down to a nice meal. The free-will types picked up a rock, flung it, and then ran as fast as they could. But one's revulsion sould not be taken as prima facie evidence. I am revolted by broccoli, but I accept that it's good for me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.