When does design become intelligent? (AS OF 8/2/10 - CLOSING COMMENTS ONLY)

What thing? Almost anything. What would be the point of a computer program having its output the same as its input?

* sigh *Let's start at the beginning. Do you admit that some genomes contain more information than others?

And yet curiously enough we observe beneficial mutations. Only if you die of cancer, which is of course not a germ-line mutation.Sheesh. Yeah, eternal life is bad. Though some people seem to think that it would be heaven.

Youre asking if random number generators exist?Yes. No, the point of computers is to output different information from what is input.A machine with the same output as its input is called a photocopier. Bollocks.Why do you say stuff without trying to find out if it's true? Again, that would be a photocopier. It is also not a genetic algorithm.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

They can actually do more than store information. For example, they can generate it. And a computer program computing information is ... (a) an intelligent designer (b) not an intelligent designer? There is no code in it to pay any attention to the information produced. You don't need code to ignore things, you need an absence of code to ignore things. But not exactly what happens in the real world, where population sizes are greater than 1 and selection operates. I love 'em. I'm a big fan of selection too. It seems to have been designed by a creationist as a tool to prevent people from understanding evolution, am I right?I wonder if it's ever fooled anyone.

No you aren't.

We do it better. So a base pair uses 64 atoms to store 2 bits, the Wisconsin array uses 20 atoms to store 1. (Note that here I'm being generous to you by only counting the atoms in the DNA, not the whole cell, which is the metric that you were using.)Seems we're smarter than that intelligent designer you're so fond of.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Wait ... are you saying that he's infinitely dense?

The relevant part of the article was the part that I actually quoted. This describes an existing form of information storage which is more efficient than DNA; not a hypothetical one which isn't.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Because intelligence and knowledge aren't the same thing.For example, you know about the existence of Neptune and Isaac Newton did not. Does that make you more intelligent than Newton?

And yet reading this page suggests that he is also a conceited halfwit. Then it is itself an instance of something that fulfills a function without having been designed to fulfill that function. But it is carefully designed not to mimic nature. No it didn't. By the occurrence of the sort of beneficial mutations that we can observe happening. Yes they do. You said it did. In those words. It was a quotation from you. But this is not true.Do bear in mind that one of us has a BSc in math and computer science and the other doesn't. You are not giving me any clear picture of what you're talking about.
"They do not compute"? That is not what I wrote. Perhaps we should work on your literacy problem before your math problem.When a computer simulates what is in the real world, then it is simulating what is in the real world.When a computer does not simulate what is in the real world, then it is not simulating what is in the real world.The program in question is carefully designed to not simulate nature and to throw no light on the theory of evolution. Of what?What the program shows is that if you have a population with a constant size of 1, and if selection does not operate, and if there is no criterion which one string of information is superior to another, then mutations of that information will not produce superior information (as not-measured according to the non-criterion which does not in fact exist).I could have told you that without the benefit of a computer program, because it is obvious. It also has nothing to do with nature, in which:(a) Populations sizes are larger than 1
(b) Selection operates
(c) Some genomes are better than others. That statement, though inaccurate, shows that you are at least beginning to grasp the concept of selection.At this rate in a few years you might actually understand the theory of evolution.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

The passage I quoted was about something which has been done.The passage you quoted was about something else which has not been done.These are two different things. This is why one of them has been done and one of them has not been done.

And if the words "CPU" and "computer" were synonyms, you would not be talking garbage. By random mutation and natural selection. Like you just said. So what's new? The CPU gets information from other components that it's connected to and outputs information to other components that it's connected to. Computers do not know things because they are not intelligent.Fortunately, they can simulate reality without knowing anything about it. Perhaps we should defer any discussion of other points until you do.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.