Evolution of complexity/information

Well, I'm studying mechanical engineering, so I tend to think of it from that perspective.Last semester I took a manufacturing processes class where we used lathes to construct an aluminum nut, bolt, knurled sleeve, and hexagonal sheath. Before the class I looked at a bolt and thought it was about the simplest mechanism you could imagine, but after making it I realized there were more than 20 steps to make all of it and it took several hours for my untrained hands to make a single nut and bolt and sleeve to the required tolerances.Every cut, every chamfer, every added feature to the raw piece of aluminum made it more complex, less random, and more functional (I might add that it is not at all functional until completely finished).When you go from pond scum to a bacterium you've added thousands of new features making it far more complex than the raw materials you started with. When you go from a bacterium to a person, you've added thousands and thousands more features than you started with. This is an increase in complexity and information.So I guess the increase I am talking about is an increase in number of features and increase in complexity of features so that the assembled raw materials work better overall than before.This message has been edited by Hangdawg13, 07-10-2004 02:02 AM

Edited by Lam.I strayed from the main point. Too bad, because I wrote about 2 pages about abiogenesis.This message has been edited by Lam, 07-10-2004 04:03 AM

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The Laminator

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How do I measure the number of features? How do I determine which is more complex than another?You guess? I'm afraid that doesn't cut it. Exactly what features are added to a bacterium over a "pond scum" cell? And of course the pond scum has features the bacterium doesn't have.If one bacterial cell has C amount of complexity does 1,000,000 cells have C or a mega C of complexity? How much complexity is added if identical cells co operate as one organism?Perhaps you can do a little research and get back when you have something that is quantifiable.By the way this has been attempted before. It turns out that the answers aren't easy to come by.Perhaps you want to stick to information and start by defining that.

NosyNedJust a thought Ned but perhaps we could also ask him that since there are 10 times more cells in his body that are not part of his human cellular structure do they count in determining the complexity of his body? Since without these other cells he most certainly could not exist do we have a clear view of where the line should be drawn for complexity?

via my email address? I may already have them but I am always on the lookout. If you would rather not because of the ID issue I will understand .

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"Chance favors the prepared mind." L. Pasteur
and my family motto
Transfixus sed non mortis
Taz

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There is entropy and order in chemical systems and this is essentially what he is talking about, just cleverly reclothing them in terms of complexity and information.

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And within the laws of thermodynamics, any 20 base sequence of DNA has the same entropy. However, different 20 base sequences of DNA can cause transcription, down-regulation, or up-regulation of any gene. Expand this to 1,000 to 30,000 base pair sequences of DNA and we see the same thing, entropy of each sequence is the same but the effects on the organisms will wildly vary. Somehow Dembski thinks physical laws should apply where they are most convenient for him without taking into the account what those physical laws actually apply to.

Thank you for your reply. Well, it seems to me like evolutionists should bear the burden of proving that organisms have become overall more complex, as their entire theory hinges on this. I mean, I don't think there's any doubt in anyone's mind that a person is more complex than a bacterium is more complex than a cup of primordial soup.A bacterium is more complex than a sea of free floating molecules because the bacteria has complex structures like a membrane, ribosomes, centriols, Chromosomes, and... (crap, its been a few years since I had biology) other stuff.A person is more complex than a bacterium because it has complex structures like a skeleton, muscles, tendons, nerves, a brain, eyes, lymphatic system, and so on and so forth.When measuring increase in complexity and information though, you must also take into account how much better an organism works after the change. In other words you can't just add features in a hodge-podge manner like some piece of modern art. The new features must increase the abilities of the organism. A frog that attains a fifth leg out of its side does not increase it's ability to do anything and most likely hinders it's ability to jump. Not unless the 1,000,000 cells function together as one body. So why are you so sure that evolution is fact if you can't determine whether it is able to make organisms more complex or not? Information would be genetic code. The thing is you can't just limit it to information. It has to be usable information that makes the organism more complex in order to prove that evolution can make life more complex. You can't just throw random words into an encyclopedia and make it better. You have to throw in whole coherent articles at their proper alphabetically ordered place.

False on two counts.First off you are the one talking about an increase, therefore you need to be able to quantify it or you are just using a "gut" feeling that has no rational or logical basis. When you make a statement it is up to you to back it up.Second, evolution does not "hinge" on organisms becomeing "more complex" -- it hinges on organisms surviving to breed another generation. Many times an organism will evolve a feature that later descendants loose in subsequent evolution, and sometimes that feature evolves again. Obviously if some feature is evolving in and out of existence then one version or the other cannot be more complex, nor does it run counter to evolution (it certainly puts a wrench in any concept of intelligent design though eh? -- like make up your mind already ... ).

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Hi, almost forgot the existence of this kind of discussion. Biologists that are unwillingly to accept the concept of 'information' or 'complexity' I would like to adress 'complexity'.Complexity isn’t
Complexity isn't equal to:

• size: a chest of nails isn't complex (the parts aren't interrelated)
• ignorance: too complex to understand isn't a measure for complexity
• minimum description size: kolmogorov; compression size is more a measure for the amount of information; a greater compressibility would make an expression rather more than less complex!
• variety: not sufficient: music can contain all possible variations of a set of nodes, but hasn't to be considered as complex

Definition
I found nevertheless a very nice definition:
Complexity is the combination of distinction (variety) and connection (dependency) in spatial, temporal and scale dimensions.
Evolutionary variation produces spatial differentation of systems, and selection on the basis of (relative) fitness, which produces structural integration by creating more and stronger linkages between different systems.Why no definition?
That biologists doesn’t want to have the term ‘information’ or ‘complexity’ used, has to do with the abomination for the idea of human as ‘on top of the piramide of complexity’. They

• want to see human as nothing special, animal among animals (mainly based only on the genome size)
• decrease the need for a god as nessecary to guide this hypothetical increase of complexity (what isn’t appropriate if you think randomness and selection suffice)
• haven’t small virtual evolutionary systems to test definitions and see complexity arise (but cybernetics do)

If you do not agree with this, please explain why you abhor the concept of 'complexity' or 'increasing complexity'.Source: Bruce Edmonds, Francis Heylighen Violet book of ‘Einstein meets Magritte’

prove to me there exists no more complex an animal than man. i would like a more specific definition, but if you find some practical way to use the one you have there, by all means, go ahead and use it. science is naturalism. god is supernatural. science has nothing to do with god. i've seen evolutionary algorithms produce very complex systems. irreducibly complex, even.

I guess its' not so much 'abhour' as feel unconfortable when people use 'complexity' as an argument for ID. Confidently describing what complexity is, and then failing to actually link it back to biology.For example, could you describe an example of : that has been used by ID theorists, that is not just 'too complex to understand."?

You're proving my point, thinking that these things matter. They don't!!!The existence of 'complexity' and 'increase of complexity' is something you can discuss objectively. That's fine! So, would you mind to tell me how the complexity in this systems was measured?! (You said that complex systems were produced!)

how am i doing anything of the sort. i asked you to prove that no animal exists that is more complex by man, using any definition you so choose. since you say science is making the opposite claim, that complexity isn't a valid measure of anything and can't be quantisized (in order lower man to the status of animal), i am asking you to make your case, which you have not done. show me it can discussed objectively, using this example.and if you think they don't matter, why bother posting? yes, using behe's defintion, that if any component is subtracted, the overall function of the system fails.

I certainly don't "abhor" any of this.However, if we are going to use these terms we have to have a precise definition. In addition, since we want to use words like more and less and increase and decrease we need to have a definition that allows for a quantitative calculation of the amount of these things.Information has a specific technical definition in information theory. I'm not aware of any other. When we have that definition we can calculate the amount of information present and see if it increases or decreases.I've read a bit on definitions of complexity. One challenge is to get a definition with a clear definition that also matches up with our intuition about what we are measureing.I think this means that when calculating the "complexity" of a bacteria and an aardvark the aardvark should work out as being more complex. However, it gets very difficult to find a definition which works.Some have attempted to use information as a measure. However, this is maximum for a random sequence and that isn't what fits with our intuition in talking of living things. Whatever we are talking about it isn't just a random sequence it is some kind of "just right" very random looking sequence. Defining this in a useful way allowing for quantitative calculations hasn't, to my knowledge, been accomplished.In the meantime the only definition that we have is Shannon information. If you agree that it is applicable to living things then it is easy to show it can increase and decrease. But I'm not sure how helpful that is.After that there isn't any definition that turns out to be useful. It is not good talking about increases and decreases in something that you can't quantify. That is something I do abhor. The lack of precision in the discussion of the topic.It is ridiculous to talk about increase and decrease based on a gut feeling.

I'm no biologist, but I'll take a stab at this. A human has more brain matter that functions better together than brains of other animals. This is evident by humans ability to talk, do math, think beyond instincts, and do other things.Now if you put a human brain in... an Ardvaark, it wouldn't be very useful to it. The Ardvaark doesn't have the vocal cords to talk or sing or whatnot, it doesn't have the hands to manipulate materials and create things like a man does.A man seems to have several qualities such as bipedal stance, hands, vocal cords for speech, forward facing eyes, etc... that all work together with his far surpassing brain design that put him above the animals. Exactly the point. There can be no more obvious an intimate relationship between us and God than his creation of us.