Deterministic Process Creates Information???

I have often seen the statement, usually from creationists or ID proponents, that a random process, or even a process (like Darwinian evolution), that has a major random component, cannot create information. Can someone please explain to me how a deterministic process (that is, a process with no random component) can create information? My dearest beloved administrator:
I'm too new here to know which forum is most logical to host this question. Perhaps "Is it Science?"Edited by AnswersInGenitals, : Edited to correct typo.

One problem arguments on information, is that it is not clear what is the meaning of the word "information" as used by ID proponents.There is a recently opened thread: The value of Gitt information. Unfortunately, nobody from the creationist/ID side seems to have joined the debate.I'll suggest you take a look, and see if that thread is suitable for what you want to discuss. If not, then I would like you to update your proposed topic, and include a clear definition of "information". It's always a good idea to know what we are talking about before we start debating.

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Thank you. I greatly appreciate your confidence that my humble little post will once and for all settle the issue of defining information. I have lurked on this forum for quite a while and as for so many others it has almost become an obsession for me, so I'm well aware of the disagreements, confusion, and - as shown by the Gitt info thread - rancor that attempts to discuss information always lead to. I was hoping in this PNT to bypass for now the precise definition of information by first examining processes that are pro-ported to give birth to new information. Sort of an embryologists approach to the topic.As an alternative, I could give a few of the definitions, ala wikipedia, that have been proposed for information including Shannon(S), Algorithmic(A), Gitt(G), IKIWISI (I know it when I see it), and any others anyone wants and require that responders indicate which info definition they are using.Perhaps the best approach to making this topic more digestible would be to replace the word 'information' with 'novelty',
although I'm not sure if this really overcomes your concern of fluidly defined terminology.I thoroughly agree with you that it is important to sort out as much of this kind of detail before releasing a topic like this to the bands of ravaging wolves that inhabit this forum in hopes that some useful knowledge might be exchange before the inevitable descent into cancerous corruption and chaos that seems to eventually inflict all threads. I appreciate any suggestions.Since this is my first tete-a-tete with an administrator, let me take this opportunity to express my gratitude and awe for how well organized and run this forum is. You make all the other forums I've visited look as shabby and uninviting as a disinterested trollop. (My spelling checker wanted me to say 'disinterred' trollop, but that was going a bit too far.)I await your pleasure.

My concern stems from my observation that when "information" arguments come up in evolution/creation debates, the meaning of "information" is usually unclear.If "information" is relevant to the debate, then it ought to have a meaning that translates into something physical about the genome, something that can actually be measured. Otherwise we will have a thread where people just talk past each other, and with no real exchange of ideas.I don't see that changing the word from "information" to "novelty" solves that problem.

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I agree that the word change doesn't really help. Since this definitional problem has not been resolved in the umteen threads addressing it on this and other forums, the only approach I can see following is just to take "information" as a "primitive concept" and seeing if anything useful emerges.I was really hoping to see how anyone could rationalize the creation of anything new, novel, or containing additional information out of a fully deterministic process no matter what definition of new, novel or information they wished to use. The issue I wanted to explore (and the one for which definitions should be discussed) is the distinctions between deterministic and random, or partially random processes and if these two (or three) options exhaust the possibilities for processes responsible for the origin and diversity of life.However, I understand if you don't want to take up peoples time with something you feel will be unproductive. Give me one more day to think about this a little more and see if I can focus it sufficiently. If I can't, I'll concede.

Take several days, if you wish. I'll leave this open for now.

I don't know if this helps, but the actual situation isn't that previous threads don't have a definition of information, although that is probably true of some threads. The problems usually stem from disagreements about the definition of information. The evolution side usually proposes Shannon information, while the creationist side usually proposes Dembski or Gitt information. I think if you're just clear about how you're defining information that that would be fine. Shannon's original paper can be found here, which I provide since I can recall it. I don't have any links for Dembski or Gitt information memorized.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

AIG have a paper by Gitt here which discusses his ideas. For the full details I fear you would need to get hold of his book 'In the Beginning was Information'.The best place for Dembski's work would probably be his own site http://www.designinference.com/ or the book 'No Free Lunch'.TTFN,WK

Thank you all for your suggestions and site references, but I'm familiar with information theory and several of the attempts to expand it into something useful for quantifying biological systems. Unfortunately, it is beginning to look like this thread might reach its 300 post limit before its even approved. My problem is that I didn't want this thread to turn into a discussion about information theory, which usually winds up being very esoteric and a turn off, or a discussion about which theory/definition of information we should be using, which usually winds up as a spitting contest.I am really interested in exploring the various types of processes that might create information or are misconstrued as producing information. Therefore, I'd like to keep the definition of information as simple, basic, and intuitive as possible. The only information concept that is sufficiently rigorously define to be useful in actual applications is that of Shannon and its elaborations. Unfortunately, Shannon's theory is actually not about information. It is about information transport and storage. That is, Shannon does not teach us how to build cars. He teaches us how to build highways and parking structures. As such, it is not applicable to single entities and their information content, which is not defined in his theory, but only to ensembles of entities.Dembski's attempt to expand Shannon's theory has been shown to be just a restatement of that theory followed by a misapplication. Gitt's so called theory is just a freshman exercise in how to assume your conclusions, especially when he insists on defining information as something that can only come from a mental entity who's son died for our sins. I tried the dictionary that comes with Mac OS X and got the following: information |‘infrm sh n| |nfr‘me‘n| |nf‘me‘()n|
noun
1 facts provided or learned about something or someone : a vital piece of information. See note at knowledge .
” Law a formal criminal charge lodged with a court or magistrate by a prosecutor without the aid of a grand jury : the tenant may lay an information against his landlord.
2 what is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement or sequence of things : genetically transmitted information.
” Computing data as processed, stored, or transmitted by a computer.
” (in information theory) a mathematical quantity expressing the probability of occurrence of a particular sequence of symbols, impulses, etc., as contrasted with that of alternative sequences.
DERIVATIVES
informational |- sh nl| |nfr‘me‘nl| |nfr‘me‘nl| adjective
informationally |- sh nl-| |nfr‘me‘nli| |nfr‘me‘nli| adverb
ORIGIN late Middle English (also in the sense [formation of the mind, teaching] ), via Old French from Latin informatio(n-), from the verb informare (see inform ).

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Thesaurus

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information
noun
we'll give you the latest information details, particulars, facts, figures, statistics, data; knowledge, intelligence; instruction, advice, guidance, direction, counsel, enlightenment; news, word; informal info, lowdown, dope, dirt, inside story, scoop, poop. See note at knowledge .I particularly like the last entry in the thesaurus, as it seems so appropriate to many of the posts on this forum that proport to convey information.Let me try the following: If I were to add this line to my OP: "A process is said to create information when the output of that process provides new knowledge or novel structures that could not be gained without the application (or simulation) of that process." would that suffice to get this thread approved? If not, lets drop this topic for now since I have another thread I am interested in starting and I have promised myself not to enter more than one PNT a week. This is in accordance with my fantasy that I actually have a life.

It might be best just to drop this topic proposal. Until convinced information isn't being confused with meaning and knowledge, I wouldn't feel comfortable with promotion of this thread.

I think I understand what you are saying, though its difficult to explain.An example might help - if I'm right maybe I can help formulate a post that Percy will be happy with.Imagine a simple universe with two billiard balls on a table. The 'information' present in the system is:1. Coefficient of friction,μ, of the table
2. Mass/size/velocity etc of ball 1
3. Mass/size/verlicty etc of ball 2
4. The time since the begining of our universeWhen a deterministic process occurs (ball 1 hits ball 2) the velocity values change on the two balls. However, the new velocities are not new information. It is all information that could have been deduced from the initial starting values. That is - taken as a four dimensional universe, the information content is the same at any time value in the universe.Even when everything comes to a stop, if everything is deterministic in our universe we should be able to include every particle and its properties in the information content, and trace things back to get to the moving balls. Nothing new is ever added or lost.So the answer then, to the question the OP proposes should be 'no - not as long as the first law of thermodynamics holds'. Indeed if the second law holds this kind of information could just continue to decrease through time.Is this the kind of thing you are proposing as 'information'? A better word might be 'property information' as in 'information about the values/properties of our universe'.

Thanks for the helping hand. Yes, to me a deterministic process is by definition one in which the outcome is completely specified by the input or original (before application of the deterministic process) conditions. Therefore I can't see how a deterministic process can ever produce any new information no matter what your definition of information or 'newness' might be. But what I really want to explore are the statements I see so often advanced that Darwinian evolution cannot produce new species because a new species must have novel structures, thus containing new in formation and Darwinian evolution, being a random process, cannot produce new information.I am aware of the fallacies that are imbedded in such statements, such as ignoring the power of the non-random natural selection process. And the complete absence of even a hint in these statements as to what is meant by random process and information is the primary cause of my difficulties in defining these terms in a specific way that would still allow the thread to proceed as I wish.To avoid the complexities and rancor that accompanies these discussions when applied to biological systems, I was hoping, at least initially, to consider processes in the abstract or to define them, as you have done, in terms of simple examples. The kinds of issues I had hoped to get into are: whether deterministic processes by definition can't produce information, as I have suggested above and you demonstrate in your example; whether 1) random, 2) random plus deterministic, and 3) deterministic really exhausts the possibilities for processes, or if there are other possibilities; whether free will can be limited to these three choices and if not, why not?; and any other such issues that might arise from this erudite and diverse group.However, having gone 12 posts without achieving an acceptable OP, I think I will drop this request for topic for now. I am aware of the other thread discussing the definition and nature of "random", so perhaps I'll see if I can interject some of these thoughts and questions in that thread without dragging it too far off topic. There are already too many topics being pursued in this forum, and I am sure that there are many like me who regret having to bypass some interesting looking threads because life is finite.So, for now I'll just go sit in the corner and sulk. Thank you again for your helpful suggestions.Regards, AnInGe

For the time being, I'll close this PNT then. If you feel like re-exploring the idea, either request it to be opened again, or you can propose a new new topic

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