Re: CSI was [Re: Comment to Bill Hamilton

John W. Burgeson (burgy@compuserve.com)
Thu, 13 Mar 1997 17:21:34 -0500

Brian wrote, very much in part: " And if this is a problem for Gell-Mann's
effective complexity it is even more of a problem for Dembski. Basically,
Gell-Mann just wants to separate out the patterns from a set of data that
might contain, say, some "noise". Dembski wants to go a step further and
label patterns as good or bad."

If this is an accurate assessment, and I have no reason to think otherwise,
does it not totally negate any possibility of Dembski ever demonstrating
his thesis?

As "God," I create a pattern which is intelligible only to my
"intelligence" level (the word "intelligence" is a poor replacement for a
word we humans don't have, and never will have).

No matter how intelligent the human, or human team, looking at it -- it
still appears random. So we (in our hubris) label it as "bad."

Now these "intelligent humans" present to me, an onlooker, a set of "good"
and a set of "bad" patterns. All I can do is admire the "good" ones,
knowing that nobody can, with any assurance whatsoever, tell me the "bad"
ones are truly bad.

Burgy