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©Marko Grönroos, 1998

USENET News talk.origins

Säie: The information smokescreen

[I tried to post this earlier, but it seems that the newsgroup moderation settings weren't correct in our news server. News relay software definitely should notice these problems and inform the poster.] Some creationist mathematicians and computer scientists seem to have formulated their own "theory of information", which is supposed to extend Shannon's theory of communication. This "Gitt theory of information" is then used as an argument to "prove" that evolution is impossible, because "information can not be created through a random process", but that it always requires a mental source - God in the case of genetic information. Arguments based on information theories have recently become increasingly common in both 'net debates and creationist literature. After reading some articles on biosemiotics, I realized that Gitt's theory is really just one semiotic theory of biological information. Strangely, he or other creationists do not seem to make any references to semiotic literature at least in their web articles (I don't have their books though). The main creationist sources seem to be: 1. The main features of Prof. Werner Gitt's theory are presented in the article: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/tj_v10n2p181.asp The primary source seems to be his book "In the Beginning was Information", see book advertisement at: http://shop.gospelcomdirect.com/answersbookstoreintl/detail.asp?UID=10-3-086) 2. Another creationist scientist who has written about information is Prof. William Dembski. His primary claims are presented in three books "The Design Inference", "Mere Creation", and "Intelligent Design". His article on genetic information is available on Web, at address: http://www.arn.org/docs/dembski/wd_idtheory.htm Then there is a discussion started by Richard Dawkins, who presented his views on genetic information, in his article "The 'Information Challenge'": http://www.onthenet.com.au/~stear/dawkinschallenge.htm 3. Creationist scientist Dr. Royal Truman wrote a commentary to Dawkins' article, using Gitt's theory as the "scientific" basis of his arguments. Truman's article is available at:                http://trueorigins.org/dawkinfo.htm       Some short comments to Truman's claims were written by an evolutionist: http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/box/rebuttal_to_royal_truman.htm 4. A book "Evolution - Ein kritisches Lehrbuch" was published in 1998 by Prof. Siegfried Scherer and Dr. Reinhard Junker, with help from about 15 other doctor-level scientists (mostly biochemists and biologists). The book was recently translated to Finnish by a creationist biochemist, Prof. Matti Leisola.       The book contains a section where Gitt's and Dembski's theories are presented in brief and used as proofs for intelligent design. (To my understanding, the academic credits of these particular creationist scientists are valid. Their professional research is apparently not about creationist views of evolution.) Nevertheless, I think I have found many obvious flaws in Gitt's theory, but as I'm not an expert with the topic, I can't be certain about the actuality of the flaws. Biosemiotics and information theory are, after all, heavy philosophical topics not meant for the weak-minded (such as myself). It seems to me that the most obvious and critical weakness in Gitt's theory of information is the absolute requirement of a mental source for all information. This seems ludicrous to me - most information (encoded for example as light signals) received by human sense organs (such as eyes) do not originate from a mental source, but from inorganic nature. Let me present a simple counterexample to Gitt's theory, which should, in my opinion, crush it immediately. Bob wants to communicate the weather to Alice. He uses a flashlight to send the signals. The signals are coded with colored films so that a blue light means clear sky, and gray light means cloudy. Alice knows and understands this code, and can interpret the meaning of Bob's signals. Fine, they can communicate. Now, Alice goes by the window and looks up at the sky. The code is the same, and same amount of uncertainty about the weather is removed from Alice as would have been if Bob had communicated to her with the flashlight. To my understanding, clouds are not usually considered a mental or intelligent. That information - or "information-like thing" doesn't fit in Gitt's definition of information, but it is still as useful as information and actually looks like information. So I'd like to think that "if it looks like information, it is information". Will I hear the sound of Gitt's theory crumbling down? So the general problem would be that if the definition of information is made too strict in an invalid way, biological organisms will simply not contain any information by that definition. In such a case, it would be meaningless to talk about "increase or creation of information", as information wouldn't even exist. Claus Emmeche's (see reference below) view seems to be that the informational metaphor should not be followed blindly in biology, as its usefulness as a metaphor is not totally clear. To me, this creationist appeal to the "scientific information theory" seems like just one more creationist red herring or smokescreen rhetoric; very similar to the false appeal for 2nd law of thermodynamics in relation to biology/evolution. Some sources on biosemiotics:             Claus Emmeche: http://www.nbi.dk/~emmeche/             Biosemiotics Homepage: http://www.ento.vt.edu/~sharov/biosem/ -- -- Marko Grönroos, magi AT iki PISTE fi (http://www.iki.fi/magi/) -- Paradoxes are the source of truth and the end of wisdom

John M Collins <jmc AT xisl PISTE com> writes: > Isn't a big part of the problem that it is "unfortunate" that the > same word - entropy - is used in both information theory and > thermodynamics with different meanings? > > This enables creationists to lurch back and forth from one to the > other and for example use the half-baked understanding they have of > the 2LoT to argue that entropy in the information theoretic sense > can't decrease. Yes, but I'm not sure it's only the creationists... I've done that lurching too in the past, many times, and I'm supposed to be some sort of computer scientist. Those are really difficult concepts for me. One reason for my misunderstanding(?) comes from the reversible computing. You see, there is supposed to be a problem with computing that if you destroy information (bits), you generate heat. They even say that there is a minimum energy equivalence for a bit of information. The solution for this is supposed to come from "reversible logic" hardware that doesn't destroy information. But, I guess that this is totally different concept of information. But how many different kinds of information are there, and how can I distinguish between them? A book "Information for Dummies" would be nice... -- -- Marko Grönroos, magi AT iki PISTE fi (http://www.iki.fi/magi/) -- Paradoxes are the source of truth and the end of wisdom

"Tracy P. Hamilton" <chem013 AT uabdpo PISTE dpo PISTE uab PISTE edu> writes: > > The solution for this is supposed to come from > > "reversible logic" hardware that doesn't destroy information. > > This might be mainly because fewer hardware states are > being changed. How do these devices work? All I remember from the quantum computing lecture is that the reversible logic circuits work both ways, from input to output, and output to input. They have an extra output and input that is a "junk bit", which can be "recycled" in a special manner. I understood very little of the lecture. Quite interesting subject though. Search under "Toffoli gates", for example: http://www.qtc.ecs.soton.ac.uk/lecture1/lecture1b.html http://ovpit.indiana.edu/B679/B679.html -- -- Marko Grönroos, magi AT iki PISTE fi (http://www.iki.fi/magi/) -- Paradoxes are the source of truth and the end of wisdom

"Mark & Roslyn Elkington" <marilyn AT zeta PISTE org PISTE au> writes: > My guesss would be that if your rebuttal isn't effective, it would > be due to a definitional problem, not a logical one. Well, yes. I'd think that either my rebuttal has a definitional problem, or Gitt's information concept has. I feel that my counterexample illuminates the definitional problem in Gitt's theory quite clearly. But then again, I don't know all of his arguments for his theory, only those presented in his web article. It would be interesting to hear Gitt's views about my counterexample. > With info discussions you have to do a lot of work defining terms, and I > think introduce some mathematical definitions. The problem is that Gitt's concept of information hasn't been defined mathematically either. It's supposed to be based on Shannon's concept of information, which is mathematical, but it's not at all clear to me how Shannon's theory connects to biological objects. And if it can't be connected mathematically, it is not applicable as anything else but a metaphor. Perhaps a good metaphor, perhaps not. Also, Gitt's "levels of information" above the statistical level are not defined mathematically. Therefore, Gitt's information as a whole is not defined mathematically. I haven't read Gitt's book, but I find it very difficult to believe that Gitt ever could, for example, define "purpose" mathematically.... What is the unit of "purpose"? Bits? How do you measure that? How many bits would be Man's purpose in God's creation? > Organism are information-rich. In the process of evolving, information > flowed from the environment into the genes through natural selection. That > information was "how to survive" (Dawkins). The implication is that > information must come from somewhere, analogous to energy, it does not > spontaneously generate (how accepted is that concept?) > > The question then is how did the "environment" aquire that information? It is not information FROM the environment, but ABOUT the environment. > The 2nd law is of course another minefield. So I've understood. I'm not a physicist so I'll leave that topic alone... > Some reading I've done on "configurational entropy" has come close > to making the elusive formal link between info and entropy. For > example, it can be shown that the to erase a bit of information in > even an ideal computer, a minimum associated thermal entropy flow > must occur. So I've heard. The problem here may be that the "information" doesn't really need to be information in any information-theoretical sense; it doesn't need to represent anything, that is, to be information ABOUT something. But, I don't understand this at all, so I'll leave commenting to others. -- -- Marko Grönroos, magi AT iki PISTE fi (http://www.iki.fi/magi/) -- Paradoxes are the source of truth and the end of wisdom

markv AT peewee PISTE telescopemaking PISTE org (Mark T. VandeWettering) writes: > Unfortunately Dembski and Gitt don't claim to be confused, or even > speculating. They think they have the answer or at least are pretending > they do. Yes, this seems to be in great contrast to (evolutionary) scientists. Biosemioticians such as Emmeche seem to approach the subject very carefully and critically, emphasizing the difficulties and metaphoric sense of biological information, as do information theoreticians such as Chaitin. For example,       ''The concept of biological information encoded in the genetic       program that controls development forms a major part of the semiotic       metaphor in biology. ... Other versions of the semiotic or       "nature-as-language" metaphor uses other formal or informal aspects       of language to comprehend the specific structural relations in       nature as explored by molecular and evolutionary biology.'' -       Emmeche (From Language to Nature - the semiotic metaphor in biology,       1991)       ''To conclude, I must emphasize a number of disclaimers. First of       all, is a metaphor for evolution only in an extremely abstract       mathematical sense. The measures of complexity that I use, while       very pretty mathematically, pay for this prettiness by having       limited contact with the real world.'' - Chaiting (Algorithmic       information & evolution, 1991) But then again, the creationist books are usually written for the layman, while scientific, reviewed papers have to be more careful. I suppose layman evolution books are also often a bit daring in this respect. > When teased apart, their arguments vanish like smoke because they > don't actually define things like CSI, or employ completely circular > arguments by merely asserting what they are trying to prove. .... > One cannot answer these questions through debate, or through mathematical > analysis of strawman evolution, or by merely defining the problem away. > Unfortunately, these appear to be the three major approaches that Dembski > circulates between. It would be nice if you could be more specific about this. For example, show quotations from Gitt or Dembski that clearly show the circularity. You should always be cautious about claiming to have found circular (or other) fallacy, unless you can demonstrate it clearly. A clear demonstration would make critiques of their claims much easier. -- -- Marko Grönroos, magi AT iki PISTE fi (http://www.iki.fi/magi/) -- Paradoxes are the source of truth and the end of wisdom

scott AT home PISTE com writes: > "Consciousness does not seem to be material, and information is > certainly immaterial, so perhaps consciousness, and perhaps even > the soul, is sculpted in information, not matter. > The conventional view is that matter is primary, and that infor- > mation, if it exists, emerges from matter. But what if information > is primary, and matter is the secondary phenomenon! > INFORMATION is a really revolutionary new kind of concept, and > recognition of this fact is one of the milestones of this age." > - Gregory J. Chaitin, The Unknowable, p. 106 Interesting contrast to his earlier statement, indeed. So, either he has done some great progress in 8 years, or has gotten frustrated and stepped over the line here. Not that I don't like the concept of information. I do like it, and although I don't understand it very well, I feel that it is a very valuable viewpoint. If someone says that it's more than just a metaphor, they really should prove their claim. I guess I'll have to add more of Chaitin's texts to my reading list... -- -- Marko Grönroos, magi AT iki PISTE fi (http://www.iki.fi/magi/) -- Paradoxes are the source of truth and the end of wisdom

atta AT best PISTE comNOSPAM (Mark Isaak) writes: > scott AT home PISTE com writes: > > "Consciousness does not seem to be material, and information is > > certainly immaterial, so perhaps consciousness, and perhaps even > > the soul, is sculpted in information, not matter. . . ." > > - Gregory J. Chaitin, The Unknowable, p. 106 > > Where is this immaterial information? I have never encountered it before, > either personally or referred to by others. The evidence is also > extremely strong that consciousness is material. In short, Chaitin is > simply making up fictions. Those Chaitin's ideas really do look strange. Webster's (immaterialism): "a philosophical theory that material things have no reality except as mental perceptions." Seems to me like classical idealism (Plato, etc). "Ideas" are just replaced by "information". Whee. On the other hand, he might be saying something else. His book continues:       "The conventional view is that matter is primary, and that       information, if it exists, emerges from matter. But what if       information is primary, and matter is the secondary phenomenon!       After all, the same information can have many different material       representations in biology, in physics, and in psychology: DNA, RNA;       DVD's, videotapes; long-term memory, short-term memory, nerve       impulses, hormones. The material representation is irrelevant, what       counts is the information itself. The same software can run on many       machines.'' So he would be just saying that information is independent of matter, therefore matter doesn't matter as much. That makes a bit more sense, but not much. -- -- Marko Grönroos, magi AT iki PISTE fi (http://www.iki.fi/magi/) -- Paradoxes are the source of truth and the end of wisdom

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