begin Glenn:=================================================
Hi Brian,
I thought this might rouse you. :-)
You wrote:
>At 09:16 PM 7/28/96, Glenn wrote:
>
>>Stephen Jones quoted Dean Kenyon:
>>
>>>"INFORMATION NEVER ARISES FROM PHYSICAL OR CHEMICAL
>>>CAUSES ALONE." (Davis P. & Kenyon D.H., "Of Pandas and People: The
>>>Central Question of Biological Origins", Foundation for Thought and
>>>Ethics: Richardson TX, Second Edition, 1993, pp55 My emphasis).
>>
>>I am going to regret starting this, because I probably won't be able
> to
>>engage in as much discussion as I would like to over the next few
> weeks.
>>My arm is going to be operated on Tuesday. But here goes.
>>
>
>I will ditto this. I'm totally bogged down with work right now but
>couldn't resist emerging momentarily from the abyss of contract
>renewal time ;-).
>
Yeah, I probably will regret this. Glad you are bogged down. That is my
only hope. :-)
>>This statement is absolutely wrong, wrong, wrong.
>>
>
>Now, now Glenn. No sense replacing one dogma by another ;-).
>I think the best reply to the quote above is simply
>"how do you know?". A statement that something NEVER happens
>should be based on a really basic fundamental principle
>analogous say to something like the second law of thermo.
>We can have great confidence in saying that some processes
>will NEVER occur if we can show that the process violates
>the second law of thermodynamics. Is there such a principle
>for information? I don't think so but I have a suggestion
>where to look. Try to find an information analogue to the
>first law, i.e. conservation of information. Worth a Nobel
>prize methinks :-).
It looks like we agree here. Kenyon is basing his claim that information
never arises from physical causes alone. According to Yockey's definition
of information, (Information Theory and Molecular Biology, sec. 2.1.2)
information is measured by
H=p ln(p).
The p's are the probabilitie of the occurrence of a given symbol in the
informational sequence. A symbol is a physical object. If it is not
physical, tell me how you can have a symbol which is non-physical?
>
>>INFORMATION STORAGE IS PHYSICAL
>>
>[snip]
>
>>UNDERSTANDING INFORMATION IS PHYSICAL
>>
>[...]
>
>>
>>Computation, IS, a physical event. It requires energy expenditure,
>>(Yockey, 1992), it manipulates the physical states of matter. This is
>>true regardless of whether the computational device is an abacus or a
>>brain.
>
>Yes, computation is physical but this doesn't mean that information is
>physical. Yockey discusses this point in his letter to _BioEssays_:
>
>===Begin Yockey====================================================
>
>Like all messages, the life message is non-material but has an
> information
>content
>measurable in bits and bytes and plays the role, ascribed by vitalists,
> of an
>unmeasurable, metaphysical vital force without being _ad hoc_, romantic,
>spooky,
>contrary to the laws of physics or supernatural. Of course, like all
> messages,
>the genetic message, although non-material, must be recorded in matter
> or
>energy.
>
I am going to cut off Yockey's quote here. Yockey is always quite precise
in his language. Here he is talking about MESSAGE not INFORMATION.
Kenyon was talking about INFORMATION. If Kenyon had said "Messages never
arise from physical or chemical causes" I would have less to complain
about. Are you saying that Kenyon meant message?
>Scientists, throughout the world, are busy sequencing the human genome
> and the
>genomes of other organisms and recording them in computer hard drives,
> the
>information capacity of which is measured in bits and bytes. These
> genetic
>messages '..._contain all the biologically meaningful aspects of
> genetic
>information that represent the purposeful organization (sic) of living
> cells
>and organisms_.' Whose _purpose_ is it? Information can be measured;
> science
>must concern itself with what can be measured and leave subjective
> concepts
>like _meaning_ and _purpose_ to philosophers and theologians.
>
> [Yockey is quoting Lifson, see ref. below--BH]
>
>The genetic logic system must be capable of accomodating the genetic
> messages
>of all organisms that have ever lived, live now, or will be evolved in
> the
>future. The DNA sequences that make up the genome of any organism are
>_selected from a set_ of possible messages. As Schrodinger had pointed
> out
>previously, the number of such sequences is transcomputational in
> magnitude
>and provides more than ample capacity to record the complexity of
> living
>organisms. Thus the biological information system or genetic logic
> system
>is independent of the specificity or meaning of the genetic message in
> the
>genome. All communication systems will process meaningless noise as
> well as a
>play by Sophocles
>
>-- H.P. Yockey, "Information in bits and bytes", _BioEssays_, vol. 17,
> no. 1,
>1995, pp. 85-88. [This is a letter in reply to S. Lifson, "What is
> Information
>for Molecular Biology", _BioEssays_, vol. 16, no. 5, 1995, pp. 373-375]
>===End
> Yockey=================================================================
>=
>
>
>>
>Meaning is not an intrinsic property, it does not reside in the
> "dictionary of the brain" but instead is established by mutual consent
>between two or more parties. Meaning is not material.
>
Let me clarify. The dictionary in the brain is one that is written early
in life. When I was a child and was shown a dog, my parents said "dog".
Thus, I remembered that every time I saw a brown-four-legged animal it was
dog. Thus when I saw a brown cow, I said "dog". My parents said "No,
that is a cow; see the hooves? Dogs don't have hooves" etc etc.
Eventually, a concept of dog was written into the wiring of my brain.
That is the dictionary I am talking about. There was nothing a priori
about this dictionary.
Of the mandlebrot set and Casti's claim that it is complex You wrote:
>
>Yes, I remember reading this in Casti's book and similar statements in
>many other books. Casti is using "complexity" in very imprecise way
>here.
>
> JC: Wow this sure is complex.
> BH: Why?
> JC: Look at all these pretty colors and this never ending-sequence
> new patterns... WOW ain't it pretty?
> BH: But I can describe all of this with a few simple equations, how
> can it be complex?
> JC: But it looks so complex to me.
> BH: Doesn't look complex to me.
>
>The problem is that "complexity" is being discussed in a subjective way
>here. The best intrinsic, objective definition of complexity that I know
>of is algorithmic complexity. When complexity is defined in this way,
> the
>Mandelbrot set has a complexity comparable to "pick nose get warts" ;-).
>>From a well known textbook on information theory:
>
>
I am glad you read my text-book on information theory. :-)
It is true he is not using Yockey's definition of complex. But, when an
equation can be used to produce an infinite series of pictures, requiring
an infinite quantity of information to store each picture, in one sense,
the equation while simple, does contain implicitly a huge amount of
information. I can send you this equation and the starting points and
step size and you can re-create any picture I tell you to recreate. In
the few bits of the equation and the initial conditions, I have
transmitted enough info to recreate a pictue requiring several hundred
thousand bits on the hard disk. Net scape is now compressing images and
using this type of technology to transmit the images across the web. A
few bits are then reconverted to an image on your computer. The image was
never sent. this is accomplished by iteration.
This is the nature of iterative systems. LIfe is an iterated system. Off
to the hospital.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm
end:=======================================================
========================
Brian Harper | "People of that kind are academics, scholars,
Associate Professor | and that is the nastiest kind of man I know."
Applied Mechanics | -- Blaise Pascal
Ohio State University |
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