Posted on 01/27/2009 6:59:07 AM PST by betty boop
Edited on 01/27/2009 7:16:52 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
It is the action, the reduction of uncertainty. It is not the message to be sent or the information content in the channel or the information content of noise in the channel or the message received.
For example, the data recorded on one's hard drive is not information under Shannon - it is merely information content, a message received or to be sent. Ditto for a file cabinet full of records or any record in the file cabinet. Ditto for things you have on your mind before you pick up the phone to call someone.
Like the DNA remains of a deceased person is inactive, the data recorded on one's hard drive does not become "information" until it has been communicated, reducing the Shannon entropy of the receiver.
Over the years, in casual conversation, "information" has developed a very broad meaning and is thrown around in our discussions here as if it is equivalent to the information content or message itself. And that can cause a great deal of confusion.
Or to put it another way, one risks looking at an element of the model and thinking he is talking about the model itself when he is not.
[[All that’s needed is to analyze the interactions of the components of the appropriate complex configurations.]]
And do what with htese complex configurations? Design computer programs that manipulate that intelligently designed info that is already available to them? Guess what? There’s an intelligent metainfo system already inplace that analyses those reactions and can thus manipulate those reactions and hte resulting info in order to maintain fitness of hte species. All those scientists you point to do is mimic this system of annalyzing, by creating designer drugs that mimic hte lower levels of info and reactions- levels that lie below the metainfo. They are playing hte part of metainfo- analyxing and understandign htose reactions in order to intelligently design info they can add to the system without negatively affectign the fitness (of course they get htis wrong a lot, and negative effects do occure, to which they haven’t got answers- but htey do try to mimic metainfo at least)
[[Also, Williams idea that info proceeds down is never seen in reality.]]
Sure it is- info degrades- however, this isn’t hte point- info doesn’t increase without intellgient direction, and the metainfo in species is absolutely needed BEFORE change in info can occure- ruling out an upward stepwise process of evolution of info
[[Biological development,and evolutionary progression are observed to progress from the simple to the complex,]]
The complexity you are appealing to is a FAR far simpler complexity than metainfo- change introduces minor complexity changes- but guess what? These changes NEED to be cotnrolled, once again, by higher completed metainfo, otherwise, these changes are nothign but chaos and owuld muck the whole system up- Change isn’t some neat little process that ONLY affects one tiny aspect of a cell, and can be ignored by the rest of the billions of systems and subsystems. Change affects many aspects of life’s systems, and htere NEEDS to be a conductor conducting hte whole orchestra, or else everythign goes haywire- just as it woudl if you introduced change into an orchestra’s symphony spontaniously- one small seemingly insignificant change affects the whole.
[[That’s because, the info contained in the fundamental physics is all that’s needed to result in the physical configurations recognized, known and understood as life.]]
Time for poker game- but briefly, Swell- you’ve described life AFTER all the necessary elements and systems and infromation are present- You’ve not shown how all this necessary stuff arosde naturalistically- you’ve just come in after the party is over and claimed credit for what others did.
[[There’s no life form, or part of, that can be shown to be irreducibly complex.]]
Sure htere is, you’re simply denying IC exists without showing how IC can arise- you’re just making unsupported claims that fly in hte face of the evidnece presented here and in william’s paper.
[[The contrary is true, indicating the info arrow goes up, not down as with IC(omplexity).]]
Pretty broad claim- mind showing us how the controlling metainfo can arise from chemical arangements? Or from any step in hte 5 steps needed for life? (Well, I shoudl say any of the first 4- the 5’th is life compelted)
[[Like the DNA remains of a deceased person is inactive, the data recorded on one’s hard drive does not become “information” until it has been communicated, reducing the Shannon entropy of the receiver.]]
Bingo! like hte letter instructing a specific someone to do somethign specific that only that person can do, that sits sealed in an envelope on a desk, is not informaiton until it is received and acted upon- it is just content without a purpose until received. Intelligent agents MUST direct the letter to the appropriate person in order for the content to be useful.
chemical information sitting inside a container can not instruct itself to repair, draw fuel, or maintain itself. The container itself, with it’s own set of instructions, can not instruct itself to receive, utilize or control info unless there is higher info from outside conducting it. higher info o nthe outside can not do anythign without yet higher info instructing it how to instruct lower info. All these infos on their own are useless content without a conductor conducting the symphony, and any changes itnroduced will simply end up in chaos and death and dissappearance for the container and info contained inside
Clay may have sparked an amino acid, but it couldn’t arrange chemicals in such a manner as to give it the isntructing powers of higher info- and if nothign else existed before the ‘creation’ of htis first simple building block, there woudl be nowhere fro mwhich to draw this info from- and nature playing a game of ‘hot cold warm colder’ (accordign to Demski) woudl be entirely worthless to a simplistic arrangement of basic building blocks that had no way of ‘discerning’ what ‘hot cold, warmer colder’ meant- those ‘instructions’ from nature are meaningless to simplistic chemical structures.
But the lowest levels of the AP model do not have that kind of intelligence, e.g. to anticipate the need for maintenance and repairs.
The article calls it inverse causality - I think of it as temporal non-locality. In other words, the anticipation or awareness or foreknowledge of what has not yet happened is not knowable autonomously at the level which must obtain that insight to advance.
Indeed, without a receiver there is little point in sending a message.
" The great stumbling block to many in discussing Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communication is that "information" is the reduction of uncertainty (Shannon entropy) in the receiver (or molecular machine) in going from a before state to an after state. ...the data recorded on one's hard drive does not become "information" until it has been communicated, reducing the Shannon entropy of the receiver."
The KISS principle applies. An examination always requires communication.
And a good example of the phenomenon is Wimmer's success v. Urey/Miller's lack of success.
Thank you so very much for sharing your insights!
What a wonderful insight, dearest sister in Chirst — and so marvelously well put!
But all the "evolutionary algorithms" we (objectively) know of have been written by human beings.
If you know of any others, please do let me know.
Actually, I have some interesting stories about the "peer review process" — as close to first-hand as possible without the "subject author" being me. Please don't tempt me.... [though that could be fun....]
bookmark for later
I was hoping for yes or no.. not dis-information..
And now you also bring up the fact that you are a AIDS ‘truther’ as well. Nice. Going for double score on the whacadoo scale.
Basically I agree with this. It appears to be a rule of thumb rather than a law of nature, and it has some interesting implications, if true.
I call it the law of invention (lowercase "law"). It means that there can be new things under the sun, things that cannot be planned, foreseen or designed except by evolutionary algorithms and through incremental, cut and try methods.
Now an omniscient and omnipotent designer could see all posibilities arising from chemistry, but any lesser entity could not. So we can't rule out God as the designer of life. (Of course, you can't rule out anything as being the result of ans all-powerful entity.) But humans, and by extension, space aliens, do not qualify.
There's another implication, and that is humans cannot look at chemistry and declare that object X cannot arise from undirected chemistry. Particularly if you have observed an instance of object X.
Let's see how that implication works. Let's say object X is the cell of a sponge. Right away we can reasonably assert that such a complex object could not have self-assembled through unguided chemistry. The reason for this assertion, however, has less to do with first principles than with experience. We have hundreds of years of observational data and have not seen anything like that happen.
But we observe less complex cells, and even molecules that replicate and participate in living systems without having such fundamental components as cell walls, proteins or metabolism. A reasonable person might ask whether it is possible for a self-replicating molecule to arise from chemistry without intervention.
My "law of invention" says it is not possible to prejudge this case. An omniscient being could declare the answer, but we are not omniscient. The law of invention says there can be properties of assemblies that cannot be deduced from the properties of the component parts. Our investigation must proceed via cut and try. Which is precisely what investigators of abiogenesis are doing.
The law of invention says that really new things can arise only through omniscience or through incremental change followed by feedback. As I started out saying, it's a rule of thumb.
I believe I've pinged you asking for observed instances of foreknowledge.
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