Edtharan

The debate in this portion of the thread is wether or not mutation and selection is an adequate evolutionary algorithm for the purpose of driving all observed biological diversity. I argue it is not and have provided many lines of evidence to support this argument. I have stipulated that it does produce limited adaptation of existing function to allow for some flexibility in fluctuating environments, but what evidence exists to confirm that mutation and selection can break free of the barriers imposed by physical laws including entropy and the barriers imposed by information theory that constrains physical only processes from access to active information?

No one is claiming that evolution allows systems to break free of physical laws (including entropy) except for you. thus this arugment by you is an obvious strawman.

 

In fact, we have repeatedly shown that evolution fits with all physical laws (inlcuding entropy).

 

Mutation and selection can work with existing information and even reconfigure it to produce variations of existing function so long as information order is not permitted to degrade by any significant amount. New functional information and new order is required for new form and function. What is the source of new functional information in evolutionary processes?

As selection prevents the information from degrading by any significant amount (becasue if it did degrade then it would not be as fit and not reproduce and that selects it out of the gene pool).

 

Actually, if you are willing to accept that information crated by evolutionary algorithms is at least "functional", and are willing to accept that bad information is discarded, then you have to accept that any change to the information that is not bad constituts as new information and thus would fulfil your criteria of "New Functional Information".

 

As I have explained (in this thread and in others) that entropy does not need a Source of low entropy to create a local decrease in entropy. It can do so with a sink of high entropy.

 

This was explained long ago in the threads, right when you first mentioned entropy. I know, as I was one of the ones that did mention it. So your argument here ignores this fact.

 

Indeed you have if you can't see it in the descriptions I have provided. If you will review my posts and let me know what it is that you can't see regarding the necessity of new functional information and new order to produce the new form and function posited by evolutionary theory when it is described as accounting for all observed diversity and that diversity is described as a progression from a single living organism branching out to the ones observed today. To accept your argument one must argue that the first life form contained as much or more functional information and order as that represented by

all life forms that have ever existed. Is this your claim?

There are chemicals we use to kill bacteria (Antibiotics), some of which have never before existed in nature. When these chemicals were introduced, bacteria had no defense against them and they were extremely effective. However, bacteria now have developed resistance to these chemicals.

 

This means that the bacteria had to evolve new, functional information in order to resist these chemicals. This is because, since these chemicals never existed in nature before, there was no need for the information needed to confer resistance to them. Once the chemicals were introduced, any bacteria that had a mutation that confers even a small amount of resistance would have had an advantage in that more of them would have survived. As the others would ahve been killed, there was more space and resources for these surviving bacteria to use to reproduce, thus the mutation would be passed on to the new generations. Then any further mutations in the offspring of the survivers that confered even more resistance would mean that these doubley resistant bacteria would survive in greater numbers and dominate the bacterial population.

 

In other words, evolution is a ratchet for information. It doesn't need to start off with more functional information, as random processes when applied to a ratchet type system will drive the system in a particular direction (in the case of living systems: towards low information entropy in the context of increasing reproduction sucess rates).

Equal or less information and information order if there is not an external source.

But you have states that random events can cause information to increase locally. That is all that is needed.

 

Random mutations may import information in proportion to the resources brought to bear, so small changes in total information quantity is accounted by these random processes. However random processes degrade order, so these processes cannot account for net increased order. Natural selection can select discrete events that substantively alter existing function in a way that offers net reproductive advantage in the current environment but observed evidence indicates that new form and function require large numbers of coordinated, coherent, integrated changes and one does not observe pathways of selectable discrete events leading to these combinations. There is not even one example of a 4 or greater step selectable evolutionary pathway.

Random processes usually increase disorder. It is because there are more disordered states than ordered states.

 

Clearly diversity occurred, so there must be other process involved, ones that do allow for import of new functional information, ones that are capable of deriving coherent integrated systems.

Yes, as I have said, processes can cause an increase in information, as you have stated here. So if you agree that processes can increase information, then I don't understand why you keep insisting that processes can not increase information.

 

The only thing I can see you doing here is that you think some processes can increase inforamtion, but others can't, but for the life of me I can not see any clear definition that you have provided that distinguishes one from the other. All you keep stateing is this process can and that one can't.

 

Take for example your insistance that the "Mind" is a source of information. But the Mind is a process. We can measure the increase in thermal entropy caused by it (and the operation of the human brain has quite a large energy requierment and hence a large increase in entropy caused by it). So we have here, evidence that using energy one can cause a process to occur that can cause a decrease in information entropy, and that this process is one you keep insisting is capable of doing so.

 

I have never disagreed that an inteligent agent could cause a local decrease in information entropy and my argument would requier that it could (as I argue that processes can decrease information entropy at the cost of increaseing thermal entropy).

 

So answer me this: If you are willing to accept (and even argue for) that a process can decrease information entropy, then why can you not accept a process can decrease inforamtion entropy?

 

One example of a sudden jump is the novel gene T-urf13 plus associated expression and regulatory controls, and assembly components that derive and construct a specific protein that joins with several copies of itself to form a transmembrane channel in the inner membrane of mitochonria in several varieties of corn. This protein seems to have shown up suddenly very recently over a period less than 40 years and includes far too many discrete differences to be accounted for by the traditional known evolutionary processes.

Have a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/user/cdk007#p/c/F626DD5B2C1F0A87/1/SdwTwNPyR9w

 

This shows how, through slight changes to protines, you can end up with a system that becomes irriducably complex. I think this sort of answers your 4 step process: that it doesn't have to occur to get such jumps.

 

To put it one way, I can't jump 100m high in a single jump. But I can step up a single step, and many such steps can allow me to reach 100m high. But once I am up there, if I stand on a blacony, it could appear that I just jumped up 100m (which one could then point out is imposible).

 

We don't observe, in real time, novel form and function that would confirm increases in functional information quantity and order so past instances of diversification must have occurred through a process other than those posited by evolutionary theory.

Yes, evolution does occur slowly, but so does continental drift. We have evidence of continental drift in the form of "fossil" evidence (eg: the magnetic allignement of certain rock each side of divergent plate boundaries. We also have evidence of small movments of the Eath's crust at these sites and when we extraploate that such small movments over a long period of time would add up to large movments.

 

We can see from direct evidecne that during reproduction, mutations can occur in DNA (and I don't think you have denied this). We can also see that these canges can be harmful, neutral or occasinally benificial (and I don't think you have denied this either). We can also extrapolate that many such small changes can build up over long periods of time to large amount of change in the DNA.

 

At each point, these changes are small and random. However, at each point any bad mutations are removed when the organism dies (or fails to develop). This way only the random mutations that are good (or neutral) remain and are passed on.

 

Because good or neutral mutations are passed on and it occurs over a long period of time, then what you will get is large "good" mutations building up.

 

It is a bit like a ratchet mechanism. A Ratchet allows movement in one direction but stops it occuring in the other direction. If you were to randomly move the divice in any direction, then when it moved against the direction the ratchet could move, you would be stopepd from moving the device. However, if you were to randomly move it in the direction it could freely move, then the divice would move in that direction, and then prevent you from moving it back to its starting point again.

 

If you were to set up such a system to work automatically, you would see the ratchet seem to move with a purpose in one direction. You could then conclude that there was some directional and non random force pushing the ratchet device in the direction you could see it moving, but in fact it is a series of random motions, just that part of the system restricts movment in certain directions but allows them to occur in a particular direction.

 

In evolution, the exponential increase in number caused by reproduction acts as a naturally occuring ratchet. If an organism reproduces more often than another organism, then this ratchets the DNA of the species in favour of the more successful reproducer.

 

Take for example a Lion. How fast do you have to run to escape a lion? Well, you only have to run faster than the slowest in your group as the lion will catch them and stop chasing you (and I am sure you will agree this is a system that does not requier a "Mind" to set up, lions hunt and we run away).

 

Now any mutation that allowed one person to run faster would mean that they would not be the slowest member of the group, but any mutation that made someone run slower would mean that they would be the one caught by the lion.

 

In this situation, as lions attack and we try to run away, only people with fast running mutations would survive, and they would live to have children and their children would inherit this fast running advantage.

 

However, as all the slow runners eventually get eaten, these fast runners would become threatened. Then if any of these fast runners had a mutation that allowed the to become even faster runners then these would be able to avoid getting caught and the fast runners (not the faster runners) would get caught.

 

Because the population lost the slow runners to the lions, it caused the DNA to ratchet up to the fast runner DNA, but then when the slow runners were all gone, only the faster runners could avoid being caught and this ratcheted the DNA up again.

 

This is a direct example where a naturally occuring system (lions and their prey - it doesn't have to be humans) causes a net increase in "functional" information (in terms of DNA that increases running speed) without the need for a "Mind" to drive it. Not only that, it is only random modification that are needed and not directed modification by some outside inteligent agent.

 

This shows that your assumption that a inteligent causal agent is not needed. And, if you want to know how the entropy is accounted for, well there is a lot of the runners that would get caught by lions and each of them has information in the DNA, so this loss if information means that there is a larger increase in inforamtion entropy in the total system (and turned to thermal entropy because of the cost of the energy needed for that organism to grow).

 

No this is an observed fact. Wherever functional prescriptive information is found, and the source can be objectively traced back, the source is a mind that used stored information as an input to the information in question.

As I have shown, the Mandelbrot set can produce an infinite amount of information. Does this mean that the person who discovered it needed an infinitely low amount information entropy to do so? No. For the Mandelbrot set to exist (even as a natural process - and fractals are a natrual phenomena) does it requier that the universe have an infintly low amount of entropy? No.

 

What it does mean is that if you desire to produce the information contained within the Mandelbrot set, then you are requiered to expend energy through a process (and thus increase the total thermal entropy of the universe) to do so. And, if you wanted the full data set, you would need to expend an infinite amount of energy to do so (so we can only ever access a portion of it - but it can be shown to be mathemtatically infinite).

 

Now I have seen you keep shifting the goal posts on this issue. First it was just entropy, then you brough in Information entropy, then Functional information entropy, and now Functional Perscriptive Information entropy. How many words are you going to add to this, how many times are you going to shift the goal posts?

 

I can see what you are trying to do here. You are trying to show that information is cotext dependent, that what is considdered low entropy information in one context, in another it would be considdered high entropy.

 

Take for example this information:

"for (a=0;A<100;A++)

{

cout<<"Hello World"

}"

 

You might think this is a low entropy piece of information, and if this was in the context of a C++ programing environment it would be. But in a Pascal programing environment it would be gibberis and considdered a high entropy piece of inforamtion.

 

Or take for example this:

"0110011001101111011100100010000000101000011000010011110100110000001110110100000100111100001100010011000000110000001110110100000100101011001010110010100100100000000011010000101001111011000011010000101000100000001000000010000000100000011000110110111101110101011101000011110000111100001000100100100001100101011011000110110001101111001000000101011101101111011100100110110001100100001000100011101100101001000011010000101001111101"

 

To you it might just look like a string of random numbers. And it could very well be such a string or it might be an encripted sentence proveing evolution. It could also be more than one of these things or it could be something else.

 

You can not know without knowing the context.

 

Actually, it is exactly the same as the program above, just translated into ascii and then binary.

 

But I can see this is where your argument is shifting its goal posts to. You are trying to argue that because we can construct a context, that we are the source of what makes it "Functional Perscriptive Information". That is information that is part of a process (ie: Functional) and that we have given it a context (ie: Perscriptive).

 

I can tell you now, information used by evolution has its own context which does not need an inteligent entity to give it one. The context is that of survival to reproduce. The Function of it is that Evolution is a process.

 

So your moving goal posts does not escape the fundamental flaw in your argument: That Information exists whether an inteligent agent knows about it (or created it), it can have function without the need for an inteligent agent if it is part of a process, and it can be perscriptive if it has a context and these can exist without the need for an inteligent agent.

 

Biological systems contain information, but we don't currently and objectively, deductively know of any physical only biological process capable generating novel functional information.

You might not, but I do, and have repeatedly posted on it. If you had done any of the experiments I posted, you would also know that it such physical systems can produce "novel functional information" (we now have "novel" to add to our growing list goal post shifting words).

 

No, sorry, you have not, at least not without involving teleological design. Your examples move the goal post.

And this proves my point about you moving the goal post. This is what you have been getting at since the beginning, just hat you did it by slowly moving the goal posts. This was your goal all along (unless that it you are going to move the goal posts agin).

 

Why you think I have moved the goal posts is because you have moved them first and I didn't follow you.

 

If you look back to my first post, all I have been trying to do is to show that Evolution is a process, specifically an algorithm. I have shown this.

 

Not only that I have responded to your counter claims that such a process can not create information. First you tried to show that proceeses couldn't produce information because you called them just "compression algorithms". But, when I showed that such algorithms, if they didn't start with information to begin with, are not compression algorithms at all, but are actually capable of generating information, you moved the goal posts and started to argue that the information needed some form of low entropy information to exist, and that although an algorithm could produce information it needed a source of low entropy information as its source. I then explained that it didn't need a source if there was some way to sink information into a higher entropy state.

 

But now you are trying to force the goal posts to move yet again to requier that the information can only be considdered aplicable if it is created by an inteligent agent by calling it "perscriptive" (ie: that is has a context).

 

You are also trying to shift the goal posts so that the information has to be "novel". However, any change to existing information is novel, so this requierment, this yet again shifted goal post is a meaningless red herring argument (see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi#Red_herring ).

 

As "novel" just means "new" and any change to a state that it hasent been in before is "new", this means that any change to the inforamtion that creates a new state in the information is considdered "Novel".

 

Now, as all the other "criteria" you have shifted the goal posts with have been filled, and your shifting the goal posts has been so obvious, you have no argument left without further attempting to shift the goal posts.

 

I have shown that

1) Processes (including algorithms) can produce information.

2) I have shown that processes that can produce information can occur natrually.

3) I have shown that this information is functional (as it influeces the processes).

4) I have shown that this information has a context (and so can be considdered perscriptive).

5) I have shown that this information can change through random processes and thus can be considdered "Novel.

 

I have shown that natrual processes, that don't requier a source of low information entropy, can produce Novel, Functional Perscriptive Information. I have shown that with each shift of the goal post, evolution still fullfills your requierments.

 

So go on, shift it again.

 

Ok, but this example requires an isolated source of low entropy to begin with, otherwise one can dump all the disorder one wants and all you are left with is a small total quantity of disorder.

Yes, they were examples. As you were talking aobut entropy as if you knew a bit about it, and that I had stated it previously, that you would know that you could ahve a source of low entropy, or a way to increase the total entropy.

 

It is common knowledge with entropy that so long as the total entropy increases (or remains the same) there is no violation of entropy laws.

 

you even were arguing for this point, so I just assumed that as you demonstrated this knowledge that you actually had that knowledge.

 

May be it is my bad here? Maybe I should not have assumed that just because someone talks about something, that they actually know anything about it.

 

Random processes import small quantities of information commensurate with the resources. Increase information of a sub-system? perhaps. Formally create it from non-information? I doubt it. Perhaps you can show that it is unambiguously true that a physical only random process can and does generate novel formal information. I would be interested in an actual case.

I have already given one: See this post: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/52622-evolution-has-never-been-observed/page__st__160__p__573612#entry573612

 

This is a biological system that does exactly what you asked here.

 

In that example, simple chemicals (that can be produce through the interaction of UV light with Amonia, Methane Hydrogen and Water) with a variable heat source (such as the convection current set up by undersea vocanic vents) can produce replicating systems through only natural chemical processes, then by variations cause by random changes introduced during the replication can produce systems that have novel inforamtion. I then went on to show that the chemicals involved have secondary effects that can effect the rate of replication.

 

These secondary effects would, if they provide a positive effect on replication be conserved due to the increased replication rates, and if they provided a negative effect on replication, this reduced rate of replication would cause these systems to become less prevelent in the system and eventually get destroyed by the more sucessful replicators.

 

As this infoarmtion is functional and has a context (influenceing the rate of replication), then it fulfills your requierment as being formal (that is if you haven't introduced "forma" in an attempt to shift the goal posts yet again - or should I add that to the growing list).

 

It is not self replication, so it is not life, but they are organic molecules, and these molecules are very similar to the molecules used by living organisms.

 

The variations are no more ordered and more often less ordered and less functional than the source sets. Most selectable adaptations involve damage to functional components and loss of order. New order is still a requirement for new form and function.

As any damage results in a system that is removed, and only system not removed replicate, than this removes any damage from the system. Yes, there will be more damaging than advantagious changes, but what is important is that the damged data sets are removed. If these damaged data sets wern't removed, then you would be right. But the fact is, the system removes damaged data sets and that is why your argument is wrong.

Moontanman brought the slow boat thing to my attention some time ago. How can you disagree with such straight forward philosophy? I only wish that I could, but I like to argue. If life survives, or has survived long enough in any aspect of our universe for the distribution of the human genome to be prevalant anywhere other than earth, would that not be amazing?

I used humans because I was showing that we have (or almost have) the technology to do the whole slow boat thing. However, I don't believe that Humans have traveled to the stars (eg: taken by aliens to colonise other worlds - like in the Stargate movies and series).

 

If we can survive the next 100 years, we will have the technology to colonise other star systems, if there is no major stumbleing block along the way (like what we know about how curent technology works continues to do so, or that there are not some exotic phenomina that would fry living matter insode interstellar space craft). Inother words, if the universe continues to operate as we know it, and development continues at atleast the same pace as it does now (even a bit slower would be fine), then we will have the capability to do so (whether we use it is another question).

The causal agent for an organism is the parent from which the organism was derived. Life's known causal agent life. Information's known source is information.

But accoring to you, information entropy has to increase, so over the genrations as no new information is being brought into living systems so each generation must have a lower information content. This is even if evolution did not exist!

 

But, we don't see this, so either there is some supernatural entity adding in information, and if this is the case we should be able to identify the exact point in which such an entity add the information as we would see an imediate jump in information as it is added. But again, we have no seen such an uncaused jump.

 

Which means there is no evidence to support your hypothisis. If you can give us a link to an experiment that identifies such a jump that would go a long way to helping you argument.

 

Also, you have made an unsupported assumption here: "Information's known source is information."

 

You have not provided any evidence that this is the case, only attempted to show that process can't provide information (but life is a process so if you believe your claim here, then you also have to accept that processes can increase information which is actually in support of our argument).

 

Your proposed solution is a logical fallacy because it moves the goal post. It answers a question I did not ask. The sun provides a source of thermal energy and order to power biological systems through the irreversible thermal cycle under which they operate. This is the question you answered, but was not asked of you. You have not provided a source of functional, prescriptive information and order to power biological systems through the cycle of net gain in functional information and information order necessary to generate observed diversity. Evolutionary theory posits that all biological diversity is a result of observed evolutionary processes. But these processes do not explain or account for a source for this information.

But as I ahve shown, processes can create information and reduce information entropy, but at the cost of increasing entropy in the global system.

 

remember the thing about entropy is not that you need a source of low entropy, but that you need a sink of high entropy. So according to this, it is perfectly possible for a system not to have a source of low entropy if it has a sink of high enrtopy. Information can be created without a source of low information entropy because there can be a sink of high information entropy that it can dump into.

 

Yes I have, there is no indication whatsoever that any physical only process can increase information without a source of information. Functional, prescriptive information is formal, as opposed to physical, though a representation of information can be stored in, transported, transcribed and processed by physical systems. Every attempt to generate prescriptive information from physical only systems greater than what the probabilistic resources import, has failed.

In another thread you stated that you accdepted that random processes can increase information, so this statement here is directly counter to what you have argued before.

 

Using evolutionary algorithms you can show that by only comparing the entropy difference between data sets, you can select for the lower entropy data set (discarding the higher entropy data set) and this will drive the data set towards a low entropy state.

 

Now remember what I said above about not needed a low entropy source if you have a high entropy sink. When you discard the low entropy data sets, you increase the total entropy of the total system far more than the descrease in entropy from the low entropy data source (this is clear because you are more likely to produce a high entropy data set than a low entropy one so you would end up with lots more high entropy - but discarded - data sets).

 

It fits your requierments as to information entropy as the "source" of the low information entropy is the accumulation of high entropy "rubish". Also, as no other information is needed than what is contained within the system, and that information is generated from random processes, it still fits your requierment.

 

The only processes that go on are ones involed in evolution, namly the copying if the data sets with variation, selection of the low entropy data set and using the low entropy data sets as the starting point for generating new data sets with variations. THere is no need for a source of low inforamtion entropy because there is a vary large sink of high entropy.

If we ever find that light isn't the ultimate in speed, then practically any and everything is possible. Down through the ages some pretty smart civilizations have done incredible feats. Like the pyramids in Egypt, the Yucatan, Peru and the huge monoliths on Easter Island, even our calendars. Some modern medecines have been rediscovered from ancient formulas. But aliens from another solar system paying us a visit? I seriously doubt it. I can't say it isn't possible, but even the thought is too big for me. And Gods, we invent them almost daily. The Halebop fiasco was such a tragedy. Can you imagine supposidly sane, sophisticated and intelligent people carrying out such insanity? Even the thought is scary. While this planet is perhaps 4.5 billion years old, Humans have just arrived. I hope though that even a part of your philosophy is right.

You don't need FLT to travel to the stars. We might not personally go there, but a slow boat probe in a similar idea to the Mars rovers (semi autonomous) would be almost within our capabilities today. Such a ship could travel to another star using either solar sails or ion drives (or both combined). Ion drives are an already existant technology, and they are in use today with several space ships within our own solar system.

 

Ion drives are good because they can be used containiously for a long time and use very little fuel, although they don't give a large amount of force at any one time. Where as chemical rockets can give a huge amount of force, but only for short amounts of time and use a lot of fuel.

 

Chemical rockets are good for getting out of a planetary gravity well, but Ion drives are good for when you have a long flight time (like traveling to another solar system).

 

Small, semi-autonomous robotic probes could be manufactured in vast quantities with a mass production facility. The bigest cost we would have with such an endevor is getting the materials off Earth (the Moon would be a better place to start from). But a space based maufacturing facility (which could be automated or semi-automated itself) could be used to construct these probes from asteroids or comets.

 

It would be a logistical feat, naturally, but it could be done if we wanted to.

 

(1) What nation on Earth could, right now, construct such a 'slow-boat' Super-Ship ? Mankind cannot do it at present -- there is a difference, between what can be envisioned, and what can actually be implemented. What you have shown, is that such a Super-Ship is not "inconceivable to the minds of Mankind"... not that it can be built at present.

 

To paraphrase Shakespeare, "the reach exceeds the grasp".

It would most likely have to be an effort from the whole of the Earth to do this, but it could be done. There is a an economic model called "Post Scarcity". In this model manufactuing is advanced enough and automated enough that the cost of manufacturing is almost $0. This might sound like pure science fiction, but it is an actual reality.

 

With information, once the infromation has been put into a computer, it costs almost nothing to make another copy of that information. Information is already capable of being in a post scarcity economy.

 

What is needed is a way to make physical objects act like information, that they can be copied easily. There are machines called CNCs (Computer Numerical Control) that use information in computers to drive a manufactuing process (usually by removing material with atool head like). Advanced versions of these that are capable of laying down material in stead of removing it are called 3D printers or Rapid Prototying Machines.

 

At the moment, you can buy pre assembeled comercial versions for around $30,000. However, there are many kits out there that allow you, with a bit of skill, to create them for as little as $600.

 

What these low cost kits have done is to utilise post scarcity concepts, and have these machine be ablet o copy as much of themselves as possible. As the machines are manufactuing themselves from information stored in a computer, if you have one of these machines, they act a bit like a file in a computer and this drasitcally reduces their manufacturing costs.

 

So this type of technology is not science fiction, it is an existant technology. Also, it is a technology eary in development (these low cost 3D printers have only been around for about 5 years as hobby devices). When these machines stop being a hobby and start to be used in serious manufactuing, then this technology will rapidly mature and it will change how we see production of machines.

 

Now, take this and apply it to space vehicals (NASA already uses some high end 3D printers to manufacture components for use in space). With such 3D printers first printing themselves, and then manufactuing these probes, it would not take much in the way of cost to actually construct fleets of space probs that would journy to other star systems.

 

Sure, it might take 5,000 years to reach the nearest stars, but if the Human race could survive that long, then we could explore other star systems. But, with these advanced 3D printers, you could use raw materials, or even scrap materials, break them down and then use them to re-manufacture parts needed to repair a space ship. Thus large self sustaining ships could be built in the near future that would be able to carry humans on a slow boat/multigeneration ship to another star system.

 

Once this colony reaches their destination, they can begin constructing new colony ships using their 3D printers (and breeding their population) and then sending these new colony ships off.

 

It is the exponential growth again. All it takes is just 1 species to start doing this and the galaxy could be colonised.

Also consistent. Random processes can import a small amount of information with each random step commensurate with the nature of the probabilistic resources involved. I have made this point repeatedly so I am surprised you have not picked up on it yet.

But earilyer you were arguing against this. If a random process can "import a small amount of information with each random step", then what is your problem with a process that selects for this "small amount of information"?

 

The only information needed for such a selection is: The quality of the previous data set and the quality of the new data set. Using just these two pieces of information a system can compare them and test if one is better (lower information entropy) than the other. If the new data set is of a lower or equal entropy, then the new data set is kept and the old data set is rejected. If the entropy of the new data set is greater, then the new data set is rejected and the old data set is kept.

 

As a specific example of this (which you can do yourself if you want to test it):

 

1) Start with a random string of letters.

 

2) Generate several new strings of letters based on the first string, but with one or two changes to it (additions, deletions, single letter changes, etc)

 

3) Calculate the entropy of the new strings as compared to the first string

 

4) Take the string with the lowest information entropy and use that as the new first string

 

5) Repeat steps 2 through 4 until a maximally low entropy string is reached.

 

This requiers no outside inforamtion as the only information you are using is the comparisons between the strings (which you already have - and even the original string was generated by random method). This fullfills your critera of no outside information, it also consistant with what you are willing to accept (that random processes can import small amounts of information).

 

As you are selecting only on the basis of lower entropy and discarding strings with increased entropy, then you will end up with a low entropy string (as you hav kept the randomly lower entropy strings and discarded the higher entropy strings).

 

If you do this experiment and can show that you end up with a higher entropy string in the end, then this will prove that evolution, as a process, can not cause a reduction in information entropy. You will provethat you are rights. However, if you do this experiment and end up with a lower entropy string, then it will disprove your claims about evolution.

 

This is an experiment designed to test both the claims being made (for and against evolution). I have tried to design this to fit with what you are willing to accept as initial premises (eg: that random processes can "import a small amount of information"). Also as all the information that is used by this experiment originates from random processes and no information is brought in from out side the experiment, then this experiment starts with a high information entropy data set and has no low entropy information coming in from anywhere.

 

So it fits all the constraints you have placed upon any argument. It fits with every thing you are willing to accept. So give this a go and see if you are right (remember science requiers experimental testing).

Pleased that you accept the vicious circle principle! But it seems to me you have much to learn. You would definitely benefit from reading my Too Smart for Our Own Good!

I agree that there is a limit to what technology can provide, but we are no where near that yet.

 

I also agree that we are not acting in our own self interests when it comes to our use of natural resources. Have a read of Tim Flannery's : "The Future Eaters".

 

I agree that if we don't alter our behaviours our current way of life could be destroyed. However I don't agree that it is an enevitable extinction or that we can not re-develop into a technological society.

 

Sure, we could use up easy accessable energy such as fossil fuels and such, but Fossil fuels are by no means the only source of energy that we have.

 

With some basic electromagentic theory and a ready source of wind, a small wind turbine could be developed to power a village (and several of them a small town). Wind turbines have been in use for well over a thousand years, although not to generate electricity. Hydro energy has also been used for a long time too (but again, not always for generating electrical energy). These wind and hydro technologies only requier basic technologies to create (available in pre-industrical societies), such as wood working and baic metalurgy (which has been around since the bronze age).

 

Yes, it might take hundreds, if not thousands of years to redevelop these technologies, but they can be redeveloped.

 

Yes, there is the chance we could destroy ourselves with war (either biological or nuclear), but even then it would still be hard to wipe us out completely.

 

Just because we run out of easy energy does not mean that as a species we will become extinct. We have survived, as a species for hundreds of thousands of years without easy energy other than renewables (such as wood). So we will survive without easy energy too. However, it is our society that is at risk from loosing access to easy energy, and with that I can agree.

"ipso facto"! The men (scientists) paraphrasing this topic makes even an ignorant ass like me feel pretty good about himself. Don't think I want to buy into it!

 

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/ancient-aliens-series/

Actually it is about exponential growth.

 

Any self-reproducing system is capable of exponential growth, especially if there is no pressure to keep them from reproducing.

 

If, as was argued, that inteligent organisms are likely to be self destructive, all it would take is just 1 not to be self destructive, or at least not self destructive before they achieve a level of technology (and only certain technologies) about 100 years from where we are today (in other words, we are so close, it does seem that it could be at least possible).

 

If just 1 of these aliens ever existed (or does exist), then they would have the entire galaxy to themselves (as it was argued that other inteligent aliens would destroy themselves which would leave no one else to contest their growth). As there is far more resources in asteroid belts, kuiper belts and Oort coulds than on planets, these colonisers would rarely interact with developing aliens (unless they wanted to or the developing aliens developed to the point they became coloniser types) and that further give them room to expand uncontested.

 

The exponential growth means that they could easily colonise a galaxy in a fairly short amount of time, and the fact that they are no longer confined to one star system means that very little in the way of natrual disasters could wipe them out (and any that occured in a small area would wipe out their competition in that area too).

 

By dropping biology, they can make their "bodies" much more durable, and the technology needed to get them to the point where they can begin to colonise the galaxy means that they will very likely have the technology to get rid of their biology.

 

It is all down to exponential growth. If 1 alien species is able to not destroy themselves before developing the technology to travel to other star systems, then exponential growth means that they will expand to encompass the galaxy.

Biological systems contain functional prescriptive information from inception passed to them by the causal agent of that biological orgnaism and this information is indeed needed to allow for cell function, development and growth.

But, what is the causal agent here? God, some kind of alien, a super comp[uter simulating us, what?

 

Actually, I have provided one such "causal" agent: The Sun. This is a source of low entropy and solves the problem that you keep bringing up. The low entropy (information or otherwise) comes from the sun and drives the processes that can create low entropy information.

 

You have not disagreed that a process that uses low entropy energy can produce information, and this is what I am claiming in my posts. If you disagree that energy can be converted to infromation, then please state that along with your argument and evidence of disproof. I have provided evidence to support my argument, and you have even posted evidecne that supports my argument.

 

It is not just a belief, it is a fact that this process requires and has a source of functional prescriptive information passed to it by its cause.

This is your assertation and you have yet to prove it or provide any evidecne for it.

 

But, I wonder, could you accet chance as the source. For example:

 

If a change that could be advantagious could only occur as a 1 in a million billion chance, then this might sound like a long shot. However lets look at the numbers game.

 

A bacteria can go through around 50 generations in a day. That is around 1 generation every 30 minutes (just under). When they reproduce they split into two copies.

 

So, startign with just 1 bacteria, lest see how many would exist after 1 day. At a doubling ever 30 minutes that would give us 1,073,741,824 (2³⁰). That is just over 1 billion. So how many more days to get to a million billion (1,000,000,000,000,000)? Would it take a million days? No, no where near it actually.

 

After 2 days you would have: 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 (2⁶⁰).

 

In other words in 2 days there would be enough bacteria that the chances of a 1 in a million billion occuring would likely occur around 1,000 times. And that is just 2 days.

 

This means that even if there is only a small chance of an event occuring, it can occur because life reproduces exponentially. Now, this doesn't violate entropy because entropy is a probability statement. It is a statement that there are more disordered configurations than ordered configurations, thus any random change to it would more than likely cause the system to enter a disordered state. But, if there are enough random changes in the system, then it is still possible that the system could enter into an ordered state again.

 

Take for example a box filled with a gas. If we were to force all the gas over to one side of the container, this would be a highly ordered state (low entropy). If we remove whatever it is we were using to force the gas into this state, then through the random motions of the molecules, it is more likely that the gas will spread out and fill up the box (a higher entropy state). But, this does not preclude the posiblilty that the random movments of the gas could make the gas end up all on one side of the box.

 

There is no law of physics against this occurance. It would not need any low entropy energy input. It is just that it is highly unlikely to occur. But it could occur.

 

ANd that is the crux of the issue. Sure, if you want to force a system into a particular state, then it will take energy and increase entropy. Just as if you want to force a particular data set of information it will take a low entropy source.

 

However, with evolution it is not forceing anything, it is just taking advantage of a random occurance. One, that although unlikely, has a high chance of occuring because life reproduces exponentially.

 

No, sorry the modern theory of evolution is described as being driven by a random, unmanaged, undirected process of genetic error acted on by natural selection. Cell processes are carefully managed, and highly controlled. They include signal induction circuits, feedback and feed forward controllers, error correction circuits, inventory and expression control, transportation, messaging and transcription, and adaptive repair. All of this and much more is coordinated by a complex set of molecular controls and all of it is performed guided by functional prescriptive information.

Actually evolution dosn't requier randomness, it just operatse dispite it. Evolution can occur in a totally deterministic system.

 

However, what I was saying (if you bother to read my posts), is that the same processes that occur in a cell when it divides and that allows an organism to grow, is the same processes that occurs in an organism when it reproduces. Namely cell division.

 

It is also at this point that changes to the genetic code can occur in an organism, as well as when the organism reproduces. When these changes occur in an organism growing, they can lead to cancer, or as with the human immune system can lead to protection from deseases (they can be good or bad, or neutral).

 

If you can accept that these changes can occur in the course of normal growth, then you have to accept that these same things can occur during reproduction. Now, if only the good or neutral changes survive to reproduce, then you have evolution.

 

These cell processes that correct mutations are a process and require low entropy energy to drive them. But then this is energy acting to increase information (although that information was changed to begin with).

 

If you can accept that energy can change mutations back to their original state, then why is it so hard to accept that energy can be used to cause that change in the first place.

 

I do not deny that change can occur somehow, I question how this functional information was derived and how large scale change occur given that new form and function requires large coordinated increases in functional prescriptive information. The evolutionary model has no answer for this and no wonder, because functional and prescriptive information is formal but it is not physical and it seems not possible to demonstrate that physical systems generate functional information.

As I have shown, random changes can lead to an ordered data set if the disordered data sets are rejected.

 

As for co-ordination, the evolution of the eye seems to be an imposiblity because, as the often quoted argument : "of what use is half an eye?"

 

Actually half an eye is quite useful, even 1/10 of an eye is useful.

 

We know that even some single celled organisms can react to light as they have photosensitive chemicals in them (which have useful, but non photosensitive precursors, as well as some photosensitive precursors that are not used to detect light). In multicelled organisms, these same chemicals (and their precursors) exist. With such organisms, if they have a spat of cells that expresses these chemicals, then they could react to light or dark.

 

This would be an advantage as it would allow the organism to detect if it is light or dark, or if a potential predator was in the area (but wouldn't give it any more information than that).

 

However, if the cells that would be under that patch did not divide as fast or as much (so a reduction of growth) in the centre of the patch, then this would cause the outer part to curve up a bit and give the patch a slightly concave shape.

 

This causes the patch of photo sensitive cells to be more useful as the raised edges can cast a shadow if the light is shineing from that direction. Thus it gives a new piece of information that the organism can use, direction.

 

IF the cells then excrete mucous (a common thing for cells to do), then this mucous membrane would both protect the photosensitive cells, and because it would be of a different refractive index it would also cause the light to be refracted. This would give this patch of photosensitive cells a sharper definition of the direction.

 

Any changes that would cause this mucous to form a better shap would lead to an organism that had a much better image definition on its photosensitive cells. Eventually, these changes would give the light a high degree of focus on the light sensitive cells, giveing the organism an eye.

 

So, using that we know that photosensitive cells exist and organisms can react to light detected by them. And using just slight changes to the arrangement in ways that are just modifications of existing structures, we can take a patch of photo sensitive cells and through evolution turn it into an eye.

 

This evolution uses natural selection as each step gives the organism more chance to avoid predators (or even find prey), and if you can avoid predators you are more likely to live to breed and produce offspring (remember exponential reproduction rates). Over time because more survive to be able to breed, the number of organisms with these changes will grow. This means that there is more chance that another mutaiton that is benificial will occur to one of these (because ther are so many of them compared to others), and as that new nutation is benificial, it too will give the same breeding advantage to the new offspring which will come to dominate the others (exponential increase in numbers again).

 

As any mutation that is bad would end up making the offspring less able to avoid predators, the organisms that have such bad mutations would end up more likely to be eaten by predators, and thus less likely to survive to be able to breed. IF they don't produce any (or many) offspring, then due to exponential growth, they will not have a large population (if any at all if they don't reproduce) and so a mutation that would be needed for further eye development would be less likely to occur in them (and even if it did, it could still occur in the other population and would still be more likely to anyway).

 

So, what we have is some chemicals that started off with nothing to do with light detection (iirc: they were used as protection from damage caused by radiation as they could absorb the radiation and disperse it harmlessly), but because of small changes and selection for advantagious changes, we end up with a higly sophisticated visual receptor (an eye).

 

One such cemical is Retinal (a type of vitimin A): See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retinal

 

Yes, as described above the source is the cause of that organism.

The "Cause" of the organisms. What does this mean. If you don't clarify this better, it is just a form of thought terminating cliche ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9#Thought-terminating_clich.C3.A9 ).

So what makes anyone think aliens can visit us?

It might be that a species will go through several near extinctions, or nearly every inteligent species will cause itself to go extinct. However, if just 1 species makes it, then they will be able to inhabit a galaxy almost devoid of any species that could be a threat to them (as nearly any species able to be a threat would destroy themselves first).

 

This would mean that they have the entire galaxy to themsevles and so would dominate it (in terms of population, not necesarily in a military sense).

 

Also, if we can survive for even just 100 more years, we will likely have the technology to achieve the level of development needed to start this.

 

Eariler this year, I saw a TED talk about how they had simulated an entire neurocortical column of a human brain. If we apply More's Law to this, then by around 2030 they will be able to simulate the entire human brain, at which point, computers would be at least as sophisticated as us.

 

These computers could be launched at a slow speed (faster than modern rockets, but achievable with current technology if we were so inclined to do so and had the funding). These slow boat robotic (or simulated human brain) machines could easily travel between stars and have a fleet of remote, robotic devices to explore the other star systems.

 

Why I gave a time frame of 100 years is that we would need to develop the manufacturing technologies to build these ships and in a way that they could self repair and replicate (see this as a step to that end: http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page ).

 

I doubt these ships would be sent to land on planets, but would instead gather material from the outer parts of the star system (in the oort cloud or kuiper belt equivelents), only occasionally sending probes to explore the inner solar system.

 

As the "mind" in these ships would be just data, when these ships replicate they could just upload a copy of their own minds into the new ship, thus the numbers of these ships would be almost unlimited. As they would also be inteligent (and may even become more inteligent as they go on simply by adding to themselves). They would also be virtually immortal as age would not be a factor and they would have extensive self repair capabilities (see: reprap link above).

 

Planetary colonisation, I think, will only exist for a short time in any technological species lifetime, as information technology is essential to sophisticated technology, thus any species with the technolgoy to effectivly visit other star systems will quickly develop the ability to simulate their minds in a computer, thus no longer being tied to biological limitations.

 

Once a species gets to this point, it becomes very hard to actually destroy them completely. they are no longer tied to a scarcity economy, they are no longer subject to biological limitations, they can reproduce from a single source and they are not tied to a single location (star system).

 

They would be a bit like bacteria. Although higly mobile, inteligent, communicating bacteria.

Unfortunately this story doesn't have a happy ending, for every instance of our technological progress, particularly when we started using non-renewable resources about 6000 years ago, has meant a further diminution it the resources left which might be exploited by new technology. In fact it would definitely appear that at the present point in history we are arriving at, if we haven't just recently passed, the maximum our technology can extract from the environment, and the next situation of scarcity that arises will be global and beyond what technology can ameliorate. The result will be massive human dieoff resulting, in the worst of cases, in the extinction of our species.

It is in this paragraph that I see the problem. You have concluded that becuase we are using non renewable resource now, and used them to get to where we are, that when they run out, we will not be able to sustain our development. In your words: "it would definitely appear that at the present point in history we are arriving at, if we haven't just recently passed, the maximum our technology can extract from the environment"

 

That statement is wrong. Wind power can extract quite a lot of energy. True, not enough for our current useage, but if it is increased, and suplimneted with other, renewable, sources (solar, hydro, tides/wave, nuclear, etc) then we do have enough energy to maintain and even expand our development.

 

I agree, we are hitting the limits of non-renewables and this is one of the reasons I am strongly in favour for developing renewables (beyond any environmental imact the non-renewables have).

 

Here in Australia, last year, a guy has developed a method for making solar cells by using a type of ink that can be applied like paint. It is cheap, easy to apply and so could be very usful for developing massive amounts of solar power plants (you could poaint your house wityh this stuff to turn the walls and roof of your house into solar collectors). It is still in development so it will still take time to get to a marketable state of development (it is also less efficient, but the low cost more than offsets this).

 

Imagine road side signs coted with this, house roofs and walls, you car, etc, etc. This kind of technology has been in development for many years and this would, when developed fully, be able to achieve our energy needs

 

The paragraph I quoted does not take into account that there are still many more tecnological developments still to be made. We don't have to be reliant on renewables, but we currently are (because not enough funding is being put into gettng these non renewable technolgies out to market.

 

Many people think that our reliance on nonrenewables, and their eventual running out will mean that we end up stuck here on Earth without the ability to get the energy needed to colonise other planets (or at least access the resources available in space). The main rocket fuel that the space shuttle uses is liquid hydrogen and oxygen. These can be manufactured from water using electrolysis. It would mean that space travel is expensive, but if the need and desire was strong enough then we would do it.

 

As for the chemistry that we use, a lot of it is based on organic chemicals found in oil. However, many of these chemicals can also be produced by organisms, with Biodiesel. Many of them can be produced with out methods, and yes these do take quite a bit of energy.

 

I am not saying that we wouldn't experience hard times, but we would not "be global and beyond what technology can ameliorate" or cause "the extinction of our species".

The probabilities though are specific. In thermal entropy the probability refers to the probability of the discrete thermal energy states. I suspect you are aware that the formula is also written as a function of heat content and temperature while information entropy is a function of information content.

Do you believe that fro an organism to grow, it needs a source of low information entropy?

 

Because, when an organism grows, it reproduces the cells within in it. In side each of these cells is strands (or a polymer) of DNA, and that DNA polymer was put together from DNA monomers. These monomers were in random places (free floating). So we have gon from high information entropy (complete uncertainy of any infomration because the DNA monomers were free floating) to one of low information entropy (a complete pair bonded DNA polymer that has a high degree of information as it is the blueprint of an entire organism).

 

Do you believe that this process requiers a source of low information entropy to occur? You don't seem to have a problem in believing that organisms grow, and this has been observed to occur.

 

But, these EXACT same processes that are going on in cells that allow the organism to grow and that allow evolution to work. If you are denying that evolution can occur, then you also have to deny that growth of organisms can occur because they are the exact same thing. They have the exact same source of "information entropy" as it is the same process that allows both to occur.

 

So the question is: Does the growth of an organism requier a source of low infromation entropy, and if so, what is it?

I think they could come to the same theory of grtavity that we have, because there are things in the ocean that sink (eg: dead whales). SO a Mermade would know that some things float and some things sink. What makes things sink?

However, the construction and transport of these space habitats is a one off cost, where as the habitate with solar panels will constitute a continuing source of energy. The real cost balance of the system comes from the cost of maintainance of the system.

 

As we have space habitats that are (for the msot part) self suficient with regards to power, and these are long term habitats that have been used for years and not specifically designed for self suficiency, then we can say that the cost of maintainance is small enough to be feasable. However, there is still some maintainance costs that are hard to offset, such as that of oxygen (because ther ewill always be some leaks).

 

With a long term habitat designed specifically for fullself suficiency, it could be possible to have such structures. These could be designed with large reservoir to store consumables, areas for recycleing and generation of needed resources (like plants for generating oxygen and food and so forth). They could stravel slowly around the solar system and seek out comets (with smaller more mobile systems use to mine them) to top up their resource reservoir.

If there is no one to defend it, I don't see why not.

 

It has been objectively established that information is stored and recalled from the brain, but it is not established that information is generated in the brain. It is believed that information is generated by the mind but it is not known if the mind is a manifestation of the material brain or not. It is not testable.

 

This is a joint problem. It has not been established that the mind is separate from the material brain but it is also not established that the mind is a manifestation of the material brain alone.

But this is not enough to propose that the mind is non physical, even if the brain does not generate the mind. There is always the posibility that the "mind" does not exist at all and it is just an illusion/delusion (and many other posibilities that have not yet been explored).

 

So it does not follow that your conclusion is true, even if it was proved that the brain does not generate the mind.

There is a difference though between something that is unknown by a particular set of postulated processes and not possible by citation to a particular set of postulated processes. When someone suggests that it may yet be possible to extract warm water from the ocean, extract heat energy from it and deposit the colder water back into the ocean and use that heat as the sole source of power, most scientifically trained persons would respond that thermal entropy laws prevent what you describe from occurring. Should this person accuse us of taking a God of the Gaps approach?

Actually, such a machine is not imposible. As the movemnt of energy from hot water to cold water actually increases entropy, then it would be posible to construct a machine that uses the energy in the transfer as a source of power.

 

As an off the top of my head design:

 

You could use the thermoelectric effect by placing a device between a mass of warm water and cold water to extract energy from it (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect ).

 

So your example here is a real bad one as it is most certainly possible to extract energy from warm water.

 

Remember what I said about entropy, you either need a source of low entropy, or a way to increase entropy to do useful work. So, even if there is no "source" of low entropy, if there is room to increase entropy, then you can still use it to do something useful. I have tried to tell you this many times, but you don't seem to have got the concept (as demonstrated by your example).

 

My argument is that entropy laws apply to order of all kinds, when acted on by random and deterministic processes alone. Biopolymers are very long irregular sequences that are independent of the chemic properties. Though they are irregular, they are also very specific sequences in that they fit in a rare set of sequences that form biologically active tertiary structures amongst a huge number of permutations and thus represent very low relative molecular and information entropy and cannot be formed by random and deterministic processes except by importing pre-existing order. My argument is the same argument used against the heat engine above.

Yes, and as I ahve stated, the Sun is a source of low entropy energy, and this can drive the processes that cause these biopolymers to form, so too can thermal vents (black smokers that can be found on the ocean floor around volcanically active areas). I have even provided a process that can cause this (again, you seem to have not read my posts).

 

Several have pointed out that biological systems increase thermal entropy continuously and this is the source of molecular and information order. I may be wrong, but thus far it has not been demonstrated that thermal order substitutes for molecular and information order. Perhaps our friend with the heat engine above will argue that information order can substitute for the thermal order his machine lacks.

As I ahve already stated, if you store information in a physical substrate (eg: the sequences of atoms, or the direction of magnetic particles), then this can give an equivelence. I have even provided the theory on which this is based (that it is not the creation of information that increases entropy, but its destruction - as stated by Shannon complexity - hey, you even linked to that evidence, so are you now going to say that your own evidence is wrong?).

 

In physical systems, even if the "information" is just random and contains no (in your words) "functional" infomation, there is still information there. So if you change that information, you have to destroy the information that is already there, thus increasing entropy.

 

Viewed in this way, thermal entropy is equivelent to information entropy because any physical process (ie: one that uses energy to change physical matter) destroys the information contained in the system to start with (even if it is non "functional" information it is still information).

When it comes to "unhealthy" foods there are few foods that are outright "unhealthy". These are foods that contain high levels of toxins. There aren't many, and there are some that are natural (the flavour of potatoes is actually the toxin in them - small amounts give a nice flavour, but too much can cause illness or even death - they are a member of the deadlyniteshade family).

 

When it comes to weight, then it is a matter of amount and timing.

 

If you eat too much of anything it can be unhealthy for you. Too much carbohydrates can cause you to put on weight.

 

But, also eating foods at different times can cause you to put on weight. If you eat a low GI, even in reasonable quatities, and then sit around (or say go to bead), by the time your body has processed the food and is ready to give you energy, you are not going to use it and so the body stores it.

 

What this means is that if you are going to do an activity that needs a lot of energy (eg: going to the gym), then a high GI meal (in reasonable quantity) is ok. But, if you have a late night snack (say a late dinner) and it is a low GI mean, then this can cause you to end up putting on weight because by the time the energy is released from the food, you will be sleaping and not need that energy.

So since the permafrost first had to melt and then decompose before methane could be released, how could methane be the cause of warming or even more rapid warming since the warming had already occurred?

Because, as I said, this is part of a positive feedback loop.

 

Yes, warming has to occur before permafrost melts. But when it does it puts more GHGs into the atmosphere and increases the amount of warming that occurs.

 

I never said it was the original cause of the warming.

 

You have a habit of not reading posts and making up what the person was actually saying. Please read all posts carfully. It will save a lot of problems.

 

I would also be interested in your response to this question I posed to you earlier.

Please read my posts first. I have already answered this in several other posts. But for clarification:

 

Yes, if we were in danger of such changes, then I would recomend doing something about them. Of course (as I have said before), this would not be about survival of the planet or even survival of our species, but survival of our society.

 

In cases like this, many species would go extinct, anad even our species would ahve a chance to go extinct (but it would be unlikely as we are highly adaptable omnivores), however, it is our society that would be most at risk from such changes (as I have said before).

why would some one with potential to do anything, aspire to be a grocerie man, a truck driver, a box boy, a McDonald manager? What causes man to loose his ambition and settle down with debt, a small house, maybe a car?

Not everyone seeks fame. Also, people can change what they think is important.

 

Someone might start out believing that becoming a billionare is important, but then later change their belief. As one grows older, the knowledge of death can change how one views their life.

 

When one is young, they might not think about death. They think that they can go on forever. With this mid set, the aquisition of weath could be very important as with wealth you could have a very comfortable life. But as they grow older, or perhaps because of an near miss or accident, they might come to the realisation that wealth can not be taken with you.

 

Then, because of the shift in their world view, they reassess what they are giving up in their persuit of wealth. They might decide that they would rather have time to enjoy the life they have, instead of sacrificing it to gain wealth which they can't use if they are dead.

 

So, why would someone change their goals in life, simply because their world view has changed.

Derivation of complex biopolymers are not explained by reference to fatty acids, which are quite simple from an organization view.

 

bi-layers of fatty acids are not molecules. As you indicate they have regular ordered structures by virtue of the determinist processes that cause them to form up that way. When order is defined from a probability theory and thus from an entropy viewpoint, deterministic processes do not increase or decrease order because only one outcome is possible. Bi-layers and crystals and such are not organizationally complex from an entropy viewpoint.

 

Your example is another straw man illustrations because it is not in the same context.

I also mentioned Phosphoramidate DNA, which can spontainiously self polymerise into long chains as part of that explaination. It works a bit like lego blocks. Each component is fairly simple and they easily conect together.

 

It is the modularity that allows such complex, long chain molecules to form. Each time the molecule adds another module onto it, it is the same as when the first two modules connected together.

 

Now, if this long chain was kept confined in a safe environment where it could't easily be damaged, where it could't escape but the component modules could get in (say within a fatty acid vesicle), then this long chain molecule could develop into quite long strands.

 

Self organization is a straw man as is your lipid example. Self-replication, however, would be a good example. The only self-replicating biomolecules I am aware of are either contained in existing biological systems or are designed. It would be interesting to discuss an analog to the irregular sequenced, but specifically shaped and highly coherent biopolymers that are also unstable in the environment outside of the cell.

Not at all. Self organisation is the first step to self replication. All self replicating systems have to self organise.

 

The setps that will occur are:

 

1) Self organisation

2) Externally driven replication

3) Self replication

 

The example I provided with fatty acid vesicles and Phosphoramidate DNA is an example of firstly self organisation. This system without any other external effects will self organise. You will get the fatty acid vesicles and the polymerisation of Phosphoramidate DNA (if this polymerisation occurs within the vesicles, the polymerised Phosphoramidate DNA will be trapped within it). Phosphoramidate DNA will also spontainiously base pair (note the base pair is not a molecule, it is a hydrogen bond between molecules) and the base pair will encourage polymerisation as well.

 

However, this is also Externally driven replication as well. If this system is contained in an environmnet that has periodic fluctuation of temperature, then the Phosphoramidate DNA chains will split their base pairs forming into two Phosphoramidate DNA chains that are reverse templates of each other. When temperatures lower, then these chains will begin to base pair again, but due to fluid movements inside the vesicle, these chains will be seperated, thus the base pairing will be with indivisual Phosphoramidate DNA bases.

 

This process will create two Phosphoramidate DNA base paired chains. You will have replication driven by external influences (eg the cycleing of temperature in the external environment).

 

However, Phosphoramidate DNA is not passive. It has some enzymeatic activity. This activity can produce other molecules, such as lipid, and even produce chemicals that encourage (or directly) the creation of Phosphoramidate DNA. Also, some of these other chemicals mimic the effects of heat and cause the Phosphoramidate DNA base pairs to split apart.

 

When structures like this exist, then you have internally driven (or self) replication.

 

This shows how you go from self organisation, to externally driven replication to self replication.

Spectacularly wrong. Evolutionary theory posits a set of processes that supposedly operate in accordance with Methodological Naturalism. Methodological Naturalism only considers processes that conform with known and understood physical laws. Thus evolutionary processes are subject to laws of physics including probability and entropy.

 

Entropy is a measure of overall order. It applies to any kind of order. In thermodynamics it applies to the order found in discrete sets of energy microstates. In molecular systems it applies to the order found in molecular positioning and in information it is the order represented by the discrete syntactical representation of the information.

 

Can anyone offer an actualized example of order in this universe under influence of random processes that is not subject to the laws of probability and entropy?

I have given many such examples. The fact that you ignore them does not mean they are wrong.

 

But, let me reiterate and explain it better:

 

If entropy is increaseing in the universe, this means that the universe must has started (or at least existed) in a low entropy state. Thus natural processes that can be observed to increase entropy. For example. A Star is a low entropy object and it can be seen to radiate energy into space (as photons of light and heat) in a high entropy manner. But, there is still more entropy that can be created even from this high entropy energy radiated out.

 

Any object that can use the energy in the radiated light to perform some function must do so in a way that increases the total entropy of the universe. This will be in the form of unuseable energy. However, in doing so, the process can decrease the local entropy of the process.

 

It doesn't matter what this process is, it must cause a net increase in entropy of the universe, even if the local entropy decreases.

 

If information is stored, as part of this process, then this information must also contribute to the total increase in entropy of the universe. The low entropy that allows this is in the form of energy that is driving the process.

 

There doesn't need to be a source of information, if the information is the result of the process as the process is therefore the source of the information and the low entropy energy is the source of low entropy.

 

So, as I described long ago in a post far far away:

 

The Sun is a source of low entropy. This causes light and heat to hit the Earth and any systems on it. This slightly higher entropy heat and light is used by living systems (in a process) to create a low entropy environment and to replicate (grow). When they do this, they turn the lower entropy heat and light a higher entropy form of energy (ie they excrete).

 

Now, I am, at this point, not even talking about evolution. I am jsut talking about growth. I will assume that you will agree that plants use light to photosynthasize and this does not violate any physical laws. When a plant does this it must replicate its DNA molecules and make other components of it cells. I think you will aggree that this occurs, and does not violate any physical laws or entropy.

 

When an organism (eg: plant) grows like this and replicates it's cells, there can be occasional errors in the replication, and this causes slight changes in the DNA of the plant's cells. Sometimes this is bad, and the plant ends up with a desease (which the plant can usually destroy before they become too damaging), sometimes this is good and these cells are healthier than others, but mostly, the changes are neutral and don't cause any problem.

 

This too I think you can accept as not violating any physical laws or entropy.

 

When a plant makes seeds, these too are just cells of the plant and are subject to these same processes. Sometime the errors are bad (in which case the seeds won't germinate), some times they are good (which means this plant is healthier than its parent), but most of the time they are neutral.

 

However, as the seeds come from a sinlge cell, then this means that every cell in the new plant now has these change DNA (rather than just a few from the first example).

 

It also means that the seeds that this plant produces have that same "mutation" and they will inheret this change too. Also, if one of these "grandchildren" trees have another mutation in their seeds that is good, then the tree produced from that will also have that good mutation and all other trees from that tree will also have that mutation.

 

Now, if a tree is more healthy than other trees, then it will grow faster and produce more seeds (or be able to produce them for longer). As this will prevent other trees that are less healthy from establishing themselves, these healther trees will come to dominate the environment (remember exponential population growth).

 

Now, this uses nothing more than what goes on as normal growth of a plant (replication of cells by using photosynthisis). If you can accept that plants grow by celular division, and that this does not violate any physical laws or entropy, then you have to accept that evolution occurs because it is exactly the same process.

 

Evolution is no different to the normal growth of an oganism, wether it is plant, animal, fungus, etc.

 

If you can accept that an organism uses energy from its environment to replicate its cells to grow, then there is no difference in accepting that an organism can use energy from its environment to grow a single cell into another copy of the organism.

 

If you can also accept that during replication, a cell's DNA can be changed, then you also have to accept that the single cell grown into a replica of the parent can also be changed.

 

If you can accept that, within a single organism, bad changes will cause the organism to be less healthy (for example cancer), neutral changes won't change the health of the organism (if you have ever seen a person with eyes of two different colours, this is one example) and that sometimes the change can be good (if you accept that your immune system works then you have to accept this as your immune system uses this for antibody production). Then you will also have to accept that if this change occurs in the cell that gives rise to an offspring, that the offspring will have this change in every cell (including the ones that end up being turned into the next generation of offspring).

 

If you can accept all that, then you have to accept evolution, because that is exactly what you have accepted, by accepting the above.

Edtharan, could you please rephrase your comment? I'm not able to understand it clearly.

 

cf.

 

If it might melt if the world gets warmer, how could the permafrost have melted when the world was far colder to tip us into the interglacial?

 

I'm sure that what I'm reading is not what you meant.

Ok, first of all, there have been many ice ages. Between each ice age there is a warmer period called an interglacial period. We are currently in an interglacial period. We have been in an interglacial period for quite some time now.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Atmospheric_CO2_with_glaciers_cycles.gif

 

During glacial periods, permafros areas extended far further than they do today. It was the melting of these other permafros areas that was part of the feedback loop that caused the Earth to warm rapidly.

 

The permafrost areas we have today are much smaller than what they used to be at the end of the last ice age. What we have today are remenants of much larger permafrost areas.

 

When the Earth was colder, the permafrost areas were in different places as the colder temperatures would havae made areas closer to the eqator more like the areas where we have permafrost today. The reason that we don't have permafros in these areas is because it has melted.

Surveys and interviews provide an objective means of discovering the range of human characteristics for a population, and the results of these largely contradict the view promoted by AzurePhoenix. The ability for humans to communicate a broad range of ideas and concepts allows for an objective means to understand human character, but this barrier makes it impossible to use the same technique for animals. This is why AzurePhoenix is unable to provide objective measures for animals.

"Surveys and interviews" are not objective measurement. Sory, your arument fails in the first 3 words.

 

We also ahve eviedence that some animals can use language, even complex abstract language. Ther are many cases of chimpanzees, bonobos, and even african gray parrots able to use language in complex and abstract ways that indicate internal awareness. SO your argument that we don't have any evidence for this is again, false.

 

Just because you are not aware of them (or bother to follow links) does not mean that these don't exist, it just means you either don't know about them or don't want to know about them.

 

So you didn't read the article. I think you are missing the purpose of the response also. AzurePoenix insisted there are no objective scientific studies regarding the idea of dualism and demonstrating that dualism has any support at all. These two links show that the statement is incorrect. This thread is not about dualism so I will attempt to steer clear of the topic as best I can.

I did read the article, and like so many of your posts it actually disproves what you claim.

 

So from that I can guess that you didn't read the article.

 

As I indicated in the previous post, materialism is not a even logically coherent. Hand waving about some sort of feedback mechanism that magically leads to subjective experience is not a scientific description of any specific processes in the brain that would derive or invoke subjective experience. Your description is not scientific. If these processes were actualized as you claim, then we could reproduce them with a machine, but we can't. You set out to prove materialism but you failed. It is an opinion you hold and very little more. It is not my purpose to prove that dualism is correct, as that is a different topic. Those who claim that materialism has all the bases covered and materialists have demonstrated that the human mind and processes of the mind are no different than the brain of animals are overreaching.

You are right, if such feedback systems exist, then we should be able to reproduce them in machines. But this has been done.

 

Here is an article where theya re simulating parts og the human brain on computers: http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/out_of_the_blue/

 

Part of the problem in getting consiousness is one of scale. The human brain is around 10 to 15 years away from being able to be simulated on a computer. So an absolute difnitif proof is still a way off (so making claim that it can't be done is way too early). However, in certain limited cases, it has been shown that the type of feedback loop I describe does indees give the system some measure of self awareness (although very limited).

 

Some of the features that self awareness gives us, such as the ability to be aware that the self is different from the environment, have been done. Actually this is essential for robots. Without this feedback loop, and if the feedback loop did not provide the functions I claimed, then almost all modern robotics, from car manufactur to the Asimo and beyond would not work.

 

Also, as I said, this feedback loop has been directly measured functioning in the human brain, even down to the time it takes to operate (aproximately between 0.2 to 1.5 seconds).

 

You can even experience a malfunction in this feedback loop yourself (it has been monitored occuring in an fMRI machine by accident, but it does confirm it). If you have ever felt Deja Vu, this is a malfunction in the feedback loop.

 

In Deja Vu, there are two circuits, one a quick circuit with low information content used for emergancy reactions, and a slower, more information rich circuit for analysis.

 

IF the quick circuit is not needed, the slower circuit over writes the low information circuit and you never become aware of it (ie you are not concious of it). If an emergency situation occur, then the slower circuit is cut off, and you become aware of the faster circuit. As conciousness occurs after the fact, this is what would be expected.

 

however, sometimes there is a glitch and the quick circuit reaches the concious feedback loop before it is overwritten. In these situations you recieve two concious experiences of the same event, but after the event. As the quick circuit will seem to occur first (arround 0.2 seconds), and it is of low information content, you won't have a clear recolection of it, it will be hard to pin down any details of it, including when it exactly occured.

 

The slower circuit is more information rich and thus provides more content for you to be aware of (and this will be around 1.5 seconds after the event). As you sudden;y become aware of an event that you were just aware of, you get Deja Vu.

 

We know that humans are sentient, we don't know if animals poses sapience but the empirical evidence and direct observation strongly indicates otherwise. The fact that we can clearly detect a difference, as pioneer has illustrated multiple times now seems to say it all.

No we don't by your own claim. You are making two conradictory claims here. Can we or can't we know if other humans are sentient?

 

Also, pinoer was shown to be wrong and has not actually provided evidecne of the claims. So basing your claims off what pioneer has posted is not a good idea.

It completely misses the point, and it fails to demonstrate a problem with my argument because in your example you have not described the system and processes used to manipulate the string and thus you have not described your example with sufficient detail to establish that it is materially identical to the cases I have described. As you have indicated previously, you are well aware that entropy law does not preclude a drop in entropy for a subcomponent or process but that for the system as a whole entropy remains unchanged or increases. What you do describe is consistent with the law of entropy because it presupposes a larger, but not described system, that manipulates this string, and throughout the cycle, returns it to the original state and original entropy level. You have, however, said nothing about what has happened to the entropy of these unnamed components. Offer a proper examples so we can have a proper dialog about it.

Actually, as we were talking information theory, and as you will be well familiar with as you have stateds that you have been a programmier for many years, that the specific hardware is not important. This ia a fact of computation. Universal Turing Machines are the core of computational and information theory. As the whole concept of Universal Turing Machines requiers the fact that hardware is irrelevent (only so long as it performs the requiered functions) for computers (like the one you are using to view this) to work. As computers clearly work, then we can conclude that the specific hardware is irrelevent when discussing computation.

 

In other words, you objection is noted and is shown to be false.

 

Throughout this argument, I have noted that biological systems require functional, coherent, highly ordered information in order to reproduce and function. I have also noted that generating new systems require new information. I have further noted that entropy considerations demand that increases in order at the system level does not arise spontaneously. Thus it is rational to conclude that this low entropy information must have a source external to the material feedstock for these new biological systems unless the feedstock contains this low entropy information. I have noted that thus far the proponents of evolutionary theory and abiogenesis have yet to offer a coherent logical and rational explanation for the source of this low entropy information.

No, this is aclaim you keep making with out providing any evidence that it is true. However, the fact that I have provided links to purely chemical systems that violate your claim (even if they ar enot living systems), show that the assumption that you have made (that for reproduction you requier "highly ordered information") is false.

 

As you core assumption has been shown to be false, then any conclusion you derive from it will also be false.

 

Also, I have shown a causal chain that links the energy emitted form the sun as a source of low entropy, and as it passes through "living" systems it can be ustilised to convert locally high entropy material (and information) into more ordered information.

 

This shows that your conclusions are false, even if your initial assumption was true.

 

The evidence I have presented attacks your claims from both sides and you have not provided any evidence or argument against this, other than to repeat the claims which my evidence proves false.

 

No matter how much you repeat yoursel;f, it won't make it true.

 

So provide evidence as to where my evidence is worng, or admit that you have nothing to base your argument on.

 

I understand. I understand that your descriptions are materially different than the points I am arguing. I don't dispute your points for what they argue. I dispute them for their failure to address the issues I raise.

Yes, evidence is materialy different form wild claims. Please provide evidence to support your claims or admit that you have nothing to base your beliefs on.

 

Call it what you like, but you are speaking of, and offered links about, the process of life from non-life. Evolution involves natural selection acting on genetic error. The chemic reactions you speculate about here do not invoke evolutionary processes.

Life is not fundamentally different form non-life (unless you can provide objective evidence for that). It is more complex, yes, but there is no Elan Vital that has ever been measured (and it has been looked for for hundreds of years) that makes lifing systems different from non-living systems.

 

The chemical systems I provided were close enough to living system that you mistakenly though I was talking about living systems. And, the only objection you could raise against them was that I was trying to describe living systems and you could not accept that living systems could funciton like that.

 

But, now that I have made it clear that they are not living system, you are willing to accept that they function as described.

 

This is absolutly clear evidence that you are shifting goal posts. You are making massive and repeated logical falacies. This means that your argument are not logical or rational. You initial assumptions have been proved wrong, your logic has been proved wrong and there is direct evidence against your conclusions.

 

You have nothing to stand on. Either admit that you are wrong, or admit that you are not making a rational argument.

 

Explain how this is relevant. Do any of the products described or any of the processes reduce net information entropy at the system level? do any of these products and processes demonstrably generate the biological information required to replicate? If not it is a side topic at best. I don't dispute this work, it certainly does not demonstrate life from non-life and it does not demonstrate how natural processes alone reduce net entropy so I have no issue with it at all. It is interesting but not relevant.

If you look at my explaination, I showed that there was energy input from outside (thermal vents, or the sun) and it was this energy that was driving the system to operate. It is this lower entropy energy that is converted into higher entropy energy that allows the local reduction of entropy in the form of the molecules reproducing and arranging themsleves in orders systems.

 

As you don't seem to be reading my posts properly, all I seem to be doing is just repeating that you have not read my posts properly. All your questions have alreay been answered. If you are not willing to take the time to read what I have written to check to see if your question has already been answered, then I don't have the time to keep repeating myself.

 

This is not my claim. Why do you insist on constructing straw man arguments? Do you find my claim too difficult to address?

I never claimed that you claimed that. I just said that if you can't show where the errors were, then you can't construct a counter argument.

 

Your claim was that there were errors (that it didn't work as I explained because it was a "Just so" story with no evidence to back it up) and I provided the evidence and showed that what I was claiming did indeed have a lot of evidence to back it up. The only argument against the evidence is thereofre to show that the evidence is false and that my derivation from that evidence has some logical flaw.

 

However, this is just another case where you didn't read my post and forced me to repeat myself that the answers to your questions have alread been posted. Please, please, please don't make me have to repeat myself again.

 

What is the reality? Does reality demonstrate that material only systems reduce net information entropy? If it does not then I my argument accords with reality and your just so stories including the speculative conclusions (as opposed to the facts of his studies) of Dr. Szostak do not. Your links are interesting , but they do not address the questions I am raising. The links that purport to explain fail with regard to specifics and they fail in that they are not actualized. The modest claims are not an issue, the grand claims, that they have shown how natural processes alone do reduce information entropy, that functional information is easy to generate from natural processes sound great but they cannot be properly tested. Point to a specific example, a verified case where you describe all the components and processes so we can address it in detail.

The specific example is that the work of Dr. Szostak has been repeated in the lab and it has shown that the system as described does indeed produce more complex systems.

 

Not only that, I have provided example that you can perform yourself to check the validity of my claims (that you haven't done this and yet still claim that I have not provided such example shows that you have no interest in testing whether your beliefs are true or not).

 

I have shown that dice (as random as any easily accdessable system can be) can produce a more ordered and complex system if the right process is applied to it (as you expend energy in operating thse processes it satisfies entropy).

 

I have shown how using the sun or thermal vents, and using the same process can create more ordered chemistry (thanks to Dr. Szostak's work).

 

I have even show that living systems also perform the functions of this process and in the correct order, and provided energy form the sun.

 

I ahve shown that according to information theory (not only are your claims about information entroy are wrong), but that it is not viloated because the sun is a source of low entroy energy (and processes convert energy into information as the cost of increasing total entropy).

 

In other words I have jumped through every hoop you have provided, I have hit every goal you hav shifted and yet you still refuse to accept that you are wrong.

 

Not onyl that, you have not provided any evidence to support your claim, but have actually provided evidence that disproves your own claims.

 

Until you can get yor act together and present a valid, logical argument based on evenidence and logic, there is nothing left to discuss.

Physical laws acting on chemistry don't seem to work the way you imagine. As you are aware, chemical reactions are such that products that are more stable in the environment form with regularity, while those that are unstable degrade. Complex irregular polymers don't fit this pattern, instead they seem to require pre-existing complexity to generate them and continual repair mechanisms to maintain them. They don't seem to form the way less complex stable molecules form. This observation is consistent with probability theorem and entropy laws. there does not seem to be much interest in admitting physical chemistry laws and aplying them to the notion of life from non-life.

However, there are many complex molecules that are both stable and complex. The reason is that these molecules are a local energy minima, that is they fit within a stable pocket of potential interactions and it takes energy to get them out of that state.

 

they don't requier preexisting complexity as it also takes energy to get them into that state, and it is from the energy that they get their order (as they disapte the energy needed to get them into that state this is a global increase in entropy even though it is a local decrease in entropy).

 

Take lipds for example:

These molecules are fairly simple as far as organic molecules go, but they spontainiously form into bi-layered sheets in the presense of water. The formation of these chemicals take energy (and the Urey/Miller experiment produced lipids by the aplication of energy to simple chemicals), but when these chemicals join up, there is a small, but important release of energy (in terms of the lipid molecules individual motion is constrained). However, if enough energy is applied (which could be by heating up the water surounding them to well over boiling point) or by physically phushing them arround (say against rocks or such) you can disrupt the sheets of lipid and break it apart.

 

Lipid bi-layers are extremely complex and ordered and will appear to be designed, however, the processes that bind them are pure physical processes and no outside agent is necesary for them to behave like they do. Not only that, these bi-layers, because of the molecular forces (which is electromagentic forces), will curl up into spheres (called vesicles).

 

This is really complex stuff and shows quite a degree of order. Which is against what you are saying. This fact disproves your claims. Sure, there are some instances where complex chemicals are unstable (and they are quite common), but as not all complex chemicals are unstable, (and by the way these more stable ones are common in living systems) your claim is not true.

 

There are certainly many complex chemcials that are stable and have interesting behaviours (like self reproduction, self organisation, etc). Actually it is these very properties that make them stable.