Information Theory and Intelligent Design.

The ID salesmen love to play games with those three terms and in their classic con, they try to misdirect the audiences attention while they palm the pea. It's an old con, been used on nearly every continent, and every civilization.Information exists in the object, but to get to the meaning you need to be able to read the language and to then get to understanding you need to also know the external context.If you can read only English and I give you a book written in Urdu, you will not be able to find the meaning. Even if you can read the language Urdu, unless you are familiar with the context, the idiom a culture, it is unlikely to understand all of the information in the story.But even if you are unable to read the work, the information is still there.The natural world is the same. Information exists everywhere in the natural world and is constantly being created and written by purely natural forces.Here are some examples: Sand DunesTree RingsIce CoresSand LayersHermit CrabSand RipplesIce MudRodent Tunnels under SnowLimestoneEach of those images is information. To know the meaning and to understand the information, you need to know the language, whether it is biology or geology or some other language, but the information is still there. And each of the examples is information created by simple natural unintelligent processes.Those who know the language, who understand the context would be able to write pages just on the information contained in each of those pictures.Information is not the same as meaning or understanding. When the ID proponents try to pretend they are, it is just a way to misdirect your attention.ID is a con.Nothing more.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Huh? Because something has a massless character does that equate to a non materialistic origin? I would ask this professor to explain that implied assumption....Thinking about this further....A photon is massless, are their origins non-materialistic?What if this esteemed professor, with many degrees, and held up a blue disk and red disk and asked the difference in mass. Zero none.... and there you have it, no materialistic explanation is possible?What if the one disk was magnetized and one was not. Is magnetism a metaphysical property?What if both disks had a different shape but identical mass. Does this imply shape has non materialist origins?

sorry... e=mc2photons have massAnd I don't mean the Catholic thing... Edited by Rob, : No reason given.

Oh wrong again Rob, from Wiki: and now that you've been refuted yet again are you going to answer Iceage's question?Edited by DrJones*, : No reason given.Edited by DrJones*, : No reason given.

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Just a monkey in a long line of kings.
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist!
*not an actual doctor

deleteEdited by Rob, : No reason given.

Dr. Jones:No... Unless you want quotes from Jesus saying 'I am the light of the world'... From Wikipedia footnote 10: Photon - Wikipedia Edited by Rob, : No reason given.Edited by Rob, : No reason given.

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Matthew 10:26 "So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.

The photon is massless, but that is of course, according to physicist who we know are probably just covering for the evilutionists.But what about shape or color?What if one disks is chocolate covered and the other smothered in a delightful hollandaise sauce but both of equal mass?Seriously, you can get away with an argument like this in a class of undergraduates who don't want to piss off the prof with a challenging question for fear of grade retaliation or when preaching to the choir.

Some other questions, to add to yours1. The number '7' is massless. It's not even a material entity. So, how could materialistic minds come up with it? It must be supernatural!2. If there is no materialistic difference between the two disks, how does the materialistic drive read the disks?

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur SchopenhauerHelp inform the masses - contribute to the EvoWiki today!

Doddy:First off, it is ideational, or conceptual. Secondly, we discovered it, we did not invent it. And... it is universal. The characters assigned to the concept may differ, but the point is... that conceptually it is the same.And, it is real. If it is not, then you can throw out physics as meaningless and unscientific.Doddy:Now that is a good question...It picks up the pattern. The complex, specified, non-repeating pattern. And this pattern serves to operate the system. Just as the DNA operates the living system. The living system that (technologically speaking), puts our computers to shame.And the DNA is unique to each system. It is specified to operate that system and that system only.Look at it this way... our computers use a binary system (two digits) of 1's and 0's, and the complexity baffles most of us.Now look at DNA which uses four digits A C T G... It's not twice as complex, it is exponentially more complex. Perhaps one of our math geniuses here could specify exactly how much more the complexity potential is relative to a binary system.Not to mention the superior efficiancy of the storage capacity. (Dean Kenyon - coauthor of textbook on theory of biochemical evolution ”Biochemical Predestination’ 1969 / professor of biology (emeritus) San Fransisco State university-)So when I here arguments which just assume the existence of DNA and it's complementary organelles and unimaginably interdependant complex features, which in combination do allow for the occasional mutation that is a net gain in information, I am forced to say wati just a minute...Your assuming an awful lot!We've been sold evolution as an explanation over time that starts simple and adds complexity, because it is plainly unreasonable to think that a fully functioning organism could just 'appear' miraculously from nothing!But now, in light of modern biochemistry and molecular biology, I am expected to believe just that! That we start with a whole organsim. Because DNA alone will not cut it. In fact DNA + A Cell membrane won't cut it.If you want life even on a single celled level... you must have thousands of submicroscopic proteins all assembled in a precise order... that just so happen to match the sequencing instructions of the DNA molecule that it must contain in it's nucleus in order to reproduce.I believe that is why Francis Crick the Nobel Laureate believed in "Directed Panspermia"; that life on earth was seeded by an alien civilization.And depending on how you interpret creation, I think he is right!The complexities are simply astounding and truely a monumentous scientific discovery.If you don't belive a computer could spontaniously arise without intelligent guidance, then how do you explain life? which is by many orders of magnitude greater and more complex?We are living, breathing, and self replicating machines.We are the androids of science fiction fame, but far more sophisticated and complex; mechanically, emotionally, spiritually, and dependantly.And we keep rejecting the only program that will sustain us. All for short term satisfaction. So narrow minded we are, by trying to open our minds to fiction and fantasy! but how mcuh faith we have in ourselves.We are encouraged to believe we are masters of the universe. But we are utterly dependant. Upon air, and water, and gravity, and heat, and pressure, and chemicals, and time, and patience, and love, and mercy, and forgiveness.We epitomize irreducible complexity. Life is not only irreducibly complex in and of itself, but we are dependant upon an earth which is in turn dependant upon a sun, and that solar system is dependant upon the laws of physics and chemistry and on and on unto the infinite and unknown.So many of these arguments you guys project, are frankly massless and baseless.Why?What do you want?All the evidence has been there the whole time... All you have to do is want to believe. And that is where the motive is exposed. By what you want to believe.Thanks again to Huxley. At least he could be honest with himself and others. (Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means)

Rob, before this spins wildly out of control can you address Does shape and color have non materialistic origins since they are massless quantities.

Iceage:I shouldn't even answer this...Yes, I believe that ultimately... everything has a non-material origin. In fact, at the quantum dimension, it appears that 'material' is not even material. This whole existence is kind of suspended in a mind-machine as Einstein or Hawking might imply.Information is just an excellent example of something non-material. So the materialist has a problem. And I suppose that color and shape are both conceptual (or ideational) in terms of understanding and order. They are only color in terms of information used by intelligence... So... yes.But that was not the point. I wasn't trying to switch dimensions like that. Computers don't care what color the CD is. The Drive in your computer can only read a computer language. And that language is not material. Just as the concepts we are expressing are not material. We only manipulate matter as a means of conveying them.Btw, the only thing out of control in my opinion, is the basis of your questioning as a means of evading the issues.

That's right, folks. ID was invented by a lawyer.It's not a scientific theory. It's a legal strategy.All those who are suprised by this, stand on your heads... Ah. I thought so.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

The correct way to state it is that photons have zero rest mass. Also, by definition in relativity, photons are never at rest. As a result they always have a mass (which is why light sails are possible, and partially why the tails of comets always point away from the sun).The mass of a photon is given by the equation m = h/(cw), where h is planck's constant, c is the velocity of light, and w is the wavelength of the photon.A more telling counter example to the claim that because the unit of information is massless, therefore information is not physical is to point to the 25+ dimensionless (ergo massless) constants in current physical theories, including the fine structure constant:
Dimensionless physical constant - WikipediaIf the most fundamental constants of physics are not physical, we are using a very strange definition of physical.

The argument Archer... your supposed to refute the argument...But I see your point... It's only the 'Christian lawyers' that are evil...By the way, he became a Christian in his forties. He converted from his native religion of evolutionary indoctrination.Those of us who do, make the best witnesses. It's kinda like being a rat to The Mob.And oh are we hated for it... But we have an excellent witness protection program. Edited by Rob, : No reason given.

I've noticed something about all your quotes. Not one of them deals with information theory. None offers any real alternative to existing information theory, either.So they don't really address the topic. All you offer is the opinions of people committed to politically fighting evolution.The Meyer quote is just silly. If the information on the disk is recorded physically it's a material process - the mass is a red herring. If Meyer doesn't think that the information is recorded physically then how does he believe that it got on there, how it is stored and how it is accessed. ? Is it all magic ?