Posted on 03/05/2002 9:45:44 PM PST by Southack
This is part two of the famous "Million Monkeys Typing On Keyboards for a Million Years Could Produce The Works of Shakespeare" - Debunked Mathematically.
For the Thread that inadvertently kicked started these mathematical discussions, Click Here
For the Original math thread, Click Here
"Except that in evolution, noise can be information." - Nebullis
That's a non-sequitur. DOS and Windows XP can both be considered as messages REGARDLESS of your claim's validity regarding noise being information.
Please contain yourself to what was posted.
The author's math effectively covers the sequencing of data, be it via magnetism on your hard drive, chemical reactions forming DNA strands, monkeys pounding letters to quote Shakespeare by accident, et al.
And you are also missing the point. I asked you earlier to show me a published work that showed us that DNA is formed in the manner that Watson says it does. You've had a month....any luck? None of the works that you showed me at that time did so, and I've been very patient. Please put up, my patience is running out.
I'm using your encryption model which assumes that information in Windows XP is contained in DOS. If you have something else in mind please explain.
And so is your logic. Watson doesn't address how DNA double-helix structures are formed. That's yet another point on which you are completely off base. Watson's math addresses the probability/improbability of data self-forming/sequencing itself in any natural (i.e., an area without intelligent intervention) environment.
DNA contains data. That's why Watson's math applies to it. To differentiate between various double-helix structures of DNA, say to tell between an amoebae and an anteater, one examines the data contained therein (encoded by the A, C, G, and T bases). Likewise, to identify which program resides on identical (in appearance) unlabeled CD ROM's, one looks at the data files contained therein. It is the data that makes the difference, not how the CD ROM was physically formed.
Contrary to your frantic arm-waving above, how "DNA is formed" is entirely beside the point.
"Except that in evolution, noise can be information." - Nebullis
That's a non-sequitur. DOS and Windows XP can both be considered as messages REGARDLESS of your claim's validity regarding noise being information. - Southack
"I'm using your encryption model which assumes that information in Windows XP is contained in DOS. If you have something else in mind please explain." - Nebullis
Whatever you are using, you aren't effectively communicating. Your above exchange responses make utterly no logical sense.
Four state semiconductors would permit an exponetial increase in the number of workable potential circuit branches, as well as process data and instructions more than 8 times as fast as the maximum potential speeds of today's circuits.
To data processing, that sort of breakthrough would be roughly equal or analagous to a new jet engine that permits speeds of up to 16 times the sound barrier while burning less fuel than a Volkswagon Beetle per hour.
Living organisms are extremely robust. The analogy to software breaks down even for systems where no evolution is demanded. A single bitflip can stop a software program from functioning properly. (Think of cosmic rays and spacecraft.) A genome, on the other hand, can withstand a lot of changes without a change in function. An accumulation of such changes, when accompanied by a single change high up in the hierarchy of the genetic network will result in a massive change at the expression level. A smooth accumulation of functional changes may happen for one feature, but not for another. Gene sets which code for limbs, eyes, or limbs, for example, can be controlled as modules and the functioning intermediates need never exist. Plus, extensive genetic networks ensure that small changes in one area are diffused over the entire organism.
Why would you claim that?
Just because living organisms have better DNA programming than Man's modern software in no way invalidates a comparison between the two. Yes, DNA code is more robust, but human programming is slowly becoming more fault-tolerant, too.
So do you think that formative DNA chemical reactions, and this statement:
Watson's math addresses the probability/improbability of data self-forming/sequencing itself in any natural (i.e., an area without intelligent intervention) environment.
are independent suppositions? I submit to you that they are not. DNA is formed by single amino acids and chains of amino acids that chemically bond together to form longer and longer chains (in the standard model). The data that makes up DNA is represented by the individual amino acids. The standard model does not mention that the first DNA formed in a sequential manner. Nor does it say that it is a truly random process, since the chemical bonds that connect the bits of data together are guided by the likelihood of the chemical reactions. How can you say that the model says anything accurate about the probabilities of life, when it doesn't accurately depict reality with it's initial conditions?
My name is ThinkPlease, and I'm a Civilization III addict. Know any good Civ III anonymous chapters?
Gotta love the One More Turn syndrome. "Just one more! Just One More!"
I think I said that for about 90 minutes last night. Sad, ain't it?
That's good because you at least identify where your error resides. Chemical reactions can build structures (e.g. double-helix, blank CD-ROM, empty hard drive, plain white paper pages) all day long. Clearly structures can be chemically formed INDEPENDENT of data being sequenced on them. Just because you have a chemical structure doesn't mean that it contains data.
But DNA that is capable of forming life, as well as CD-ROM's that are capable of allowing programs to be run from them, WILL have data stored in/on them.
Sure, you could build a double-helix DNA structure with all A/C bases in between acids, but that would be incapable of forming life because there would be no data present.
However, the correct sequence of A, C, G, and T bases in a double-helix structure will form various types of lives, depending upon the order of said data.
No one cares if chemical double-helix structures can form naturally, just as no one cares that blank CD-ROM's can be molded at the factory.
What matters is the sequence of data, if any, that might be stored in or on such structures.
Watson's math simply applies to the probability / improbability of such data self-forming naturally (i.e. without intelligent intervention or aid).
Any sequence of DNA will be active. There's no such thing as a "blank" sequence of DNA. The activity of the sequence will depend on the molecules in the environment around it. But each base, each atom, no matter what sequence it is in, is active with properties peculiar to it.
Rubbish. If you are attempting to say anything more substantive than "chemicals react with each other," then that implies that EVERY possible iteration of DNA is capable of forming sustainable living beings. You could pour acids and bases into a test tube in every junior high science class in the world and create random, new life forms on demand if that was even remotely true.
It isn't. I can physically form a double-helix structure at home or work, but that doesn't mean that said structure is viable DNA. Likewise, I can physically melt and mold a CD-ROM from scratch, but that doesn't mean that data is automatically valid on it.
The analogy with the million monkeys is faulty. In this analogy, the goal is a single defined written body of literature. No evolutionist would claim that irradiating a million monkeys for a million years would result in a monkey that looked like Bill Clinton and had the voice of Marilyn Monroe. But irradiating a million monkeys for a million years,and turning them loose in a jungle, you might end up with a cohort of monkeys which developed speech and social organization and farmed or hunted their way to dominance.
In fact it is. One can generate a series of random DNA oligomers, plug them into a cassette which code for something like a viral coat protein, and the attributes of the virus are changed. You see, it depends entirely on context.
The problem is that nobody knows the exact context of a pre-biotic or early biotic world. And any joker can pull out paper and pencil and describe a million ways life could not have formed. There's no trick to that. We're not even close to exhausting all possibilities, however, and there isn't a single demonstration of how life couldn't have formed which has anything of use to say about evolution.
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