RE: loose ends

From: Glenn Morton (glennmorton@entouch.net)
Date: Sun Aug 03 2003 - 17:19:09 EDT

  • Next message: Keith Miller: "DDDIV"

    George wrote:

    > Simplicity isn't the issue. There isn't even a complicated
    >formula or
    >prescription for generating primes. The formula for the Bernoulli
    >numbers, e.g., is a
    >good deal more involved than that for the Fibonacci sequence
    >(Bn = (2n)!Z(2n)/2^(2n-1)*pi^2n, where Z is the zeta function) but
    >it's a formula into
    >which you (or a computer) can plug n = 1,2, 3 .. and generate as
    >many as you wish.
    >The sieve doesn't work that way. What you're doing with it is
    >seeing if n is prime by
    >checking multiples of all the integers up to n-1 & if none of them
    >is n then n is prime.
    >

    At the risk of pedantry, why isn't the seive a 'prescription' for generating
    primes? It may not be very elegant, or even efficient, it may take a long
    time, but it is a prescription, isn't it?

    I would suggest this: we have different definitions of 'formula' and
    'prescription'. Within the confines our our individual definitions, we are
    both right. The seive is a formula or prescription in the sense that it is
    "a set of algebraic symbols expressing a mathematical fact, principle, rule,
    etc;" or a recursivly applied prescription. But we are getting to the point
    of pedantry here. I would argue that the seive is a recursive formula
    every bit as much as is the recursive formula for Fibonacci.

    I think our definition debate is a side show. The more important issue is
    below:

    In the context of ID, is there really any difference in specifying the seive
    as a generator of specificity rather than specifying Fibonacci's formula in
    your sense of the word? If Dembski received a message from Mars which
    counted in the Fibonacci sequence, doesn't that have structure? Can't that
    be the intended message?

    As for what is an isn't a formula, you can have the last word. But I am
    interested in why Fibonacci wouldn't be a specifiable message.



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