> At 03:50 PM 12/17/97 -0600, Glenn wrote:
>
> > It is also fundamentally impossible to determine whether a
> >sequence made by a highly organized process like life, is different from a
> >sequence generated by random processes.THUS ONE CANNOT USE THE HIGHLY
> >ORGANIZED NATURE OF LIFE AS EVIDENCE OF DESIGN. THE COMPLEXITY OF LIFE MIGHT
> >BE DUE TO A RANDOM PROCESS.
>
> Goodness, Glenn, I know you are not a biologist, but this shouldn't make
> sense to a physicist either! One would certainly want to be able to
> postulate what that random process was (or can one postulate anything about
> a random process). It seems to me that it is almost impossible to detect
> truly random processes anyway, and similar arguments could equally apply to
> your thought processes, and even your existence. Maybe the postmodernists
> have a point.
>
I agree with Glenn. I would also note the generation of sequential order - hence
information content - from natural phenomenon utilizing a system's chaotic
attractor is well documented, e.g. sequences generated from the
Belousov-Zhabotinskii (B-Z) reaction (Exploring Complexity, Nicolis and Pirogue).
Now, if the indeterminism of chaos resides in the inherent uncertainties found
within the boundary conditions defining a system, i.e. exponential sensitivity,
then randomness is assured. Thus, this describes a process by which complex
sequential information is generated from a system possessing random "noise".
George
George Andrews Jr.
Assistant Professor Physics
LeTourneau University
andrewsg@letu.edu