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Author Topic:   NvC-1: What is the premise of Naturalism in Biology?
GDR
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Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 64 of 452 (875953)
05-10-2020 1:35 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Richard L. Wang
05-05-2020 4:07 PM


Clarification
Welcome to the forum Richard.
I have gone through all of your posts and I just have a couple of thoughts on the whole subject.
Firstly let me be clear. On the technical side of the issues my ignorance knows no bounds so I'm more looking for clarification.
I think that possibly your basic argument is simply that information is non-material thus disproving what you are labeling as DN. I think that by using that term it confuses the issue. Possibly your position could be better termed if you used the term materialism, which then doesn't impinge on belief in the evolutionary process thereby confusing the issue.
Secondly, you have talked about "my creationism". Could you clearly define that.
Thanks for taking the time to post here.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Richard L. Wang, posted 05-05-2020 4:07 PM Richard L. Wang has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 76 by Richard L. Wang, posted 05-10-2020 4:48 PM GDR has not replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 92 of 452 (876030)
05-11-2020 8:34 PM
Reply to: Message 91 by Admin
05-11-2020 4:56 PM


Re: Re — Tangle(56&58&61): Let’s move on. Warning: I set up a trap ahead
Hi Richard
I am really interested to hear what you have to say. Please just read Percy's post above and follow the rules of the forum. It is his forum.
Thanks

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 91 by Admin, posted 05-11-2020 4:56 PM Admin has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
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GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 117 of 452 (876176)
05-13-2020 8:00 PM
Reply to: Message 96 by AZPaul3
05-12-2020 9:26 AM


AZPaul3 writes:
Information has no independent existence outside the physics of the human mind.
Just a question. Did the information that E=mc2 exist as information before Einstein discovered it?
Edited by Admin, : Fix equation.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 96 by AZPaul3, posted 05-12-2020 9:26 AM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 118 by jar, posted 05-13-2020 8:38 PM GDR has not replied
 Message 120 by AZPaul3, posted 05-14-2020 3:04 AM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 132 of 452 (876398)
05-18-2020 6:55 PM
Reply to: Message 120 by AZPaul3
05-14-2020 3:04 AM


AZPaul3 writes:
Depends on how one defines information.
Were matter and energy interchangeable at this large constant rate before Einstein wrote it down? Yes. The sun worked.
But, until it entered the symbolic world of awareness no one knew the relationship existed.
Does this mean the "information" existed in the universe independant of human symbolic awareness? No. Information *is* symbolic awareness of an underlying relationship.
Since no one can show any awareness outside the human mind (give or take a dolphin or so) information is the sole purview of the human. Before a human devised the formula the information did not exist. What existed prior was only the mass/energy relationship, but not any awareness of the thing, ie. no information.
I apologize. I just noticed your reply to my post now.
I have to admit I can't agree with your point in general. We would all agree that there are laws that govern the universe. They are always there waiting for the human mind to discover them. Any particular law could have been discovered at any particular point in time. Why would it only become information when it was discovered. IMHO it was information waiting to be discovered.
Let's take a hypothetical. A physicist makes a ground breaking discovery of a previously unknown truth about the universe. So now by your definition it now becomes information. However, before this physicist is able to record or tell anyone about this discovery he dies. Nobody knows about this newly discovered but now lost truth. Does it cease to be information?

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 120 by AZPaul3, posted 05-14-2020 3:04 AM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 133 by AZPaul3, posted 05-18-2020 10:14 PM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 134 of 452 (876402)
05-18-2020 11:11 PM
Reply to: Message 133 by AZPaul3
05-18-2020 10:14 PM


AZPaul3 writes:
Don’t fall into the quantum trap of information cannot be destroyed because that definition of information has to do with the quantum properties, like spin and charge, associated with fundamental particles. That kind of information, per QFT, must always be conserved. QFT couldn’t care less about onions.
First off let me say that this is well above my pay grade so it sent me scurrying to wiki.
No-hiding Theorem
This first thing it says is this:
quote:
The no-hiding theorem[1] proves that if information is lost from a system via decoherence, then it moves to the subspace of the environment and it cannot remain in the correlation between the system and the environment. This is a fundamental consequence of the linearity and unitarity of quantum mechanics. Thus, information is never lost. This has implications in black hole information paradox and in fact any process that tends to lose information completely. The no-hiding theorem is robust to imperfection in the physical process that seemingly destroys the original information.
This was proved by Samuel L. Braunstein and Arun K. Pati in 2007. In 2011, the no-hiding theorem was experimentally tested[2] using nuclear magnetic resonance devices where a single qubit undergoes complete randomization, i.e., a pure state transforms to a random mixed state. Subsequently, the lost information has been recovered from the ancilla qubits using suitable local unitary transformation only in the environment Hilbert space in accordance with the no-hiding theorem. This experiment for the first time demonstrated the conservation of quantum information.
AZPaul3 writes:
The information about the onions has been lost. Destroyed by time. It exists no more just as if it had never existed in this universe.
The trouble is that this is an apples and oranges, (or maybe onions and carrots), type of argument.
The information that was collected in regards to onions wasn't information until the onions were harvested. The information had a point in time in which it first became available. I would argue that it is information that is no longer accessible but for sake of argument I'll concede the point.
However, information like the law of gravity existed long before there were minds able to conceive it. It was always accessible as information just waiting to be discovered. Physics is essentially about accessing information that was always there. Our deceased metaphorical physicist simply discovered or discerned the information that was always there to be discovered. When he died it was still there waiting for someone else to discover it.
The question is, is information still information when it is not being perceived or recorded. I would say yes and it looks like you would say no.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 133 by AZPaul3, posted 05-18-2020 10:14 PM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 138 by AZPaul3, posted 05-19-2020 1:17 AM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 139 of 452 (876407)
05-19-2020 2:25 AM
Reply to: Message 138 by AZPaul3
05-19-2020 1:17 AM


AZPaul3 writes:
Another point of the philosophy of science: The laws of physics are mathematical equations borne from observation and as such are approximations of what we observe in nature. They may be accurate to some greater degree or other dependent on circumstance but they are approximations none the less. Is that apple really falling at 32/ft/sec2? Probably not but close enough to target New Horizons onto Pluto.
The relationship between mass, energy and spacetime is, as far as we can tell, reality. The mathematical expression of that relationship is our best approximation of how it works. It is the useful communicable information of the relationship, the physical embodiment of an underlying symbology approximating that relationship. The information, the equation, the approximation, is not the reality itself but stands as a surrogate in our understanding. That understanding will become more accurate as our information grows more accurate.
If it wasn't for Einstein's GR we would have only Newtonian gravity to go by and we know Newton is incomplete ... in the same way we're finding Einstein is (very very accurate and yet) incomplete.
OK, then the information that we have is incomplete and not fully accurate. In that case it seems clear to me that there is more accurate information that exists which hasn't yet been discovered. That information must already exist.
AZPaul3 writes:
Your definition of information is too broad in speculating levels of knowledge not viable in the reality we see in this universe. According to your idealized definition information can never be wrong and we already know that any approximations we have from our observations can never be completely right. We can never know any information in this universe. In your world "information" is non-existent to us and cannot inform our reality.
Information just is. We may have absolute knowledge of it, we may have partial knowledge of it or we may have it completely wrong. Scientific information does exist and does inform our reality, sometimes more accurately than other times, but as we gain understanding of the information available we hopefully keep gaining greater accuracy.
Back to the onions. If we were able to look at the records as they were originally recorded we can never be certain that they were recorded accurately, but regardless of whether it was recorded accurately or not there is an absolutely correct number of onions.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 138 by AZPaul3, posted 05-19-2020 1:17 AM AZPaul3 has seen this message but not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 140 by Tangle, posted 05-19-2020 3:45 AM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 142 of 452 (876426)
05-19-2020 3:04 PM
Reply to: Message 140 by Tangle
05-19-2020 3:45 AM


Tangle writes:
But that only became information when someone counted them. Before the count, there was no information.
It's the physical process of the count that produces the information about how many. The information is then stored in the memory functions in the brain and can stay there or be transmitted onwards - speech, writing, images, codes etc. All physical.
Bur prior to knowing the number of onions counted there was an exact number of onions. People might have guessed how many onions there were and come up with an approximate figure. That itself would be information suggestive of how many there actually are but the fact remains that there is still an exact number that exist prior to counting. That is information waiting to be discovered.
Let me ask you this. Did the law of gravity exist prior to conscious life?
Tangle writes:
In biology, what these people always try to do is show that new information can't be created naturally - ie that creatures can't evolve because that requires the creation of new 'information'. But of course nature creates new stuff all the time - one year it produces 1,000 onions, the next 600. Once you count them it becomes new information.
They claim that the code that produces new organisms - DNA - is information that can't be increased by what they call 'random' processes. But we know that it be because we observe it happening and count it and it has become useful information - knowledge. For example, peppered moth studies.
Essentially what these people claim is that the universe is wrong and they are right.
I'm certainly not claiming that. Of course natural processes, random or otherwise create new information. We would disagree though about why the natural processes exist in the first place.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 140 by Tangle, posted 05-19-2020 3:45 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 143 by Tangle, posted 05-19-2020 3:59 PM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 144 of 452 (876429)
05-19-2020 4:55 PM
Reply to: Message 143 by Tangle
05-19-2020 3:59 PM


Tangle writes:
But the inverse square law that describes gravity and the counting system that tells us how many is information about them and is our creation.
But once again, no one knows how the stuff came to be the way it is and we can describe. Yet.
I'm not arguing about how it came to be that way. The fact remains that it was that way prior to the law being discovered. If it hadn't been there waiting to be discovered we would not exist. It was simply undiscovered information regardless of how it got to be that way.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 143 by Tangle, posted 05-19-2020 3:59 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 145 by Tangle, posted 05-19-2020 5:06 PM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 146 of 452 (876433)
05-19-2020 7:21 PM
Reply to: Message 145 by Tangle
05-19-2020 5:06 PM


Tangle writes:
Undiscovered information, is not information; it doesn't exist. It can't exist. Only the thing itself exists. It's only the act of discovery that creates the information about the thing.
I believe either you or Stile claimed that when my hypothetical physicist died without passing on the information that he had gleaned then that information ceased to exist as it wasn't recorded anywhere and wasn't in anyone's memory.
I quoted an article in post Message 134.
quote:
The no-hiding theorem[1] proves that if information is lost from a system via decoherence, then it moves to the subspace of the environment and it cannot remain in the correlation between the system and the environment. This is a fundamental consequence of the linearity and unitarity of quantum mechanics. Thus, information is never lost. This has implications in black hole information paradox and in fact any process that tends to lose information completely. The no-hiding theorem is robust to imperfection in the physical process that seemingly destroys the original information.
This was proved by Samuel L. Braunstein and Arun K. Pati in 2007. In 2011, the no-hiding theorem was experimentally tested[2] using nuclear magnetic resonance devices where a single qubit undergoes complete randomization, i.e., a pure state transforms to a random mixed state. Subsequently, the lost information has been recovered from the ancilla qubits using suitable local unitary transformation only in the environment Hilbert space in accordance with the no-hiding theorem. This experiment for the first time demonstrated the conservation of quantum information.
The claim that information wasn't lost but was waiting to be rediscovered.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 145 by Tangle, posted 05-19-2020 5:06 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 147 by AZPaul3, posted 05-19-2020 8:21 PM GDR has not replied
 Message 148 by Tangle, posted 05-20-2020 2:33 AM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 153 of 452 (876455)
05-20-2020 11:57 AM
Reply to: Message 148 by Tangle
05-20-2020 2:33 AM


Tangle writes:
So suppose the physicist was the one who counted the onions in the field and now he's dead how can the information about how many onions are in the field exist? The onions are still there but the information isn't. To find the information about how many onions, the onions needs to be recounted.
The information was still there. It was just unknown.
Tangle writes:
Quantum information is a different kettle of ferrets. If you want to talk about that, you need someone else (and about 20 years of impossible study first.)
20 wouldn't be enough for me. The article appears to me to indicate that information continued to exist even when it was unknown.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 148 by Tangle, posted 05-20-2020 2:33 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 155 by Tangle, posted 05-20-2020 1:22 PM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 157 of 452 (876470)
05-20-2020 3:40 PM
Reply to: Message 155 by Tangle
05-20-2020 1:22 PM


Tangle writes:
If you see a yellow flower that you've never seen before, all you know about it is that it's a yellow flower. You don't know that it's a daffodil. The object itself does not contain or create that information. That information was created and transmitted by a human not the daffodil.
The information was discovered by humans and transmitted by humans.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 155 by Tangle, posted 05-20-2020 1:22 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 159 by Tangle, posted 05-20-2020 4:06 PM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 160 of 452 (876477)
05-20-2020 6:00 PM
Reply to: Message 159 by Tangle
05-20-2020 4:06 PM


Tangle writes:
How can a plant give humans the information that it's called a daffodil?
Humans can distinguish that the daffodil is different than the rose. Humans have that information, and then assign a name to the plants. Humans are simply naming the uniqueness of the daffodil.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 159 by Tangle, posted 05-20-2020 4:06 PM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 161 by AZPaul3, posted 05-20-2020 7:52 PM GDR has replied
 Message 166 by Tangle, posted 05-21-2020 2:55 AM GDR has replied
 Message 167 by ringo, posted 05-21-2020 11:37 AM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 164 of 452 (876485)
05-20-2020 10:31 PM
Reply to: Message 161 by AZPaul3
05-20-2020 7:52 PM


AZPaul3 writes:
So where is the information? Is it in the uniqueness of the flower or in the recognition of that uniqueness?
It's in the uniqueness of the flower. It has it's own specific dna code etc.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 161 by AZPaul3, posted 05-20-2020 7:52 PM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 165 by AZPaul3, posted 05-21-2020 12:21 AM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 168 of 452 (876493)
05-21-2020 11:46 AM
Reply to: Message 165 by AZPaul3
05-21-2020 12:21 AM


AZPaul3 writes:
We say we gather information from the world. In reality our senses create the information as streams of particles to be perceived within our minds. The world doesn't know the information of petal, stem, yellow, DNA, physics, forces. Our minds do.
As you start off that sentence I see you getting it right. We gather information. It is there to be gathered. Our minds perceive and then process the information gathered.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 165 by AZPaul3, posted 05-21-2020 12:21 AM AZPaul3 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 176 by AZPaul3, posted 05-21-2020 1:32 PM GDR has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 169 of 452 (876496)
05-21-2020 11:54 AM
Reply to: Message 166 by Tangle
05-21-2020 2:55 AM


The name we assign to a plant or anything else is simply putting a name to the information we receive.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 166 by Tangle, posted 05-21-2020 2:55 AM Tangle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 172 by Tangle, posted 05-21-2020 12:13 PM GDR has replied

  
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