From: me22over7@gmail.com   
      
   On 18/12/2025 6:20 am, Ernest Major wrote:   
      
   ...   
      
   >>>>> My intuition goes the other way. Hardware random number generators   
   >>>>> create information out of "nothing".   
   >>>>   
   >>>> But not information that is specified (as in CSI), which is the   
   >>>> critical distinction, and why Dembski and others give this so much   
   >>>> attention.   
   >>>   
   >>> That's a substantial retreat from conservation of information.   
   >>   
   >> I'm not unreasonably unwilling to give a few yards.   
   >   
   > That concession only lasted a few paragraphs.   
   >>   
   >>>   
   >>> It seems to me that by claiming the genomes contain complex   
   >>> *specified* information you're assuming what you're trying to prove.   
   >>   
   >> Genes are typically hundreds units long (i.e. complex) and code for   
   >> functional proteins among a vast majority of nonfunctional   
   >> combinations (i.e. specified). So no question-begging there.   
   >   
   > That's not what specified means. Specified means that it confirms to a   
   > pre-existing specification. That's what makes it the argument circular.   
   > But if you want to concede that CSI is nothing more than an appeal to   
   > incredulity, be my guest.   
      
   I disagree.   
      
   Here's how to think of it. According to some estimates, the functional   
   fraction of proteins is between 10^-11 and 10^-77 (from foldable to   
   specific enzymatic behaviour). These numbers and their interpretation   
   are debated and qualified of course, but provide an indicative reference.   
      
   The total number of sequences evolution could realistically sample on   
   Earth over ~4 billion years is estimated to be 10^40 (all organisms, all   
   generations, all mutations).   
      
   Therefore, any fraction less than maybe 10^-30 and certainly 10^-50 is,   
   in effect, specified. If it cannot be found by evolution, it must be   
   conforming to a pre-existing specification.   
      
   >>   
   >> As for the non-coding regions of the genome, that raises questions of   
   >> the functional proportion and degree of specificity.   
   >>   
   >>>   
   >>>>   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> If the laws of physics are invariant with respect to time-reversal   
   >>>>> then information (in some senses) is conserved. But while T-   
   >>>>> violation has not been observed, physicists believe that the laws   
   >>>>> of physics are CPT- invariant, and as CP-violation has been   
   >>>>> observed this implies that T- violation also occurs. There is also   
   >>>>> the black- hole information paradox, wherein black holes appear not   
   >>>>> to conserve information.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> Creationists have been known to argue that evolution is impossible   
   >>>>> because of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, ignoring that the law   
   >>>>> does not preclude local decreases in entropy. (If the creationist   
   >>>>> 2LOT was true, life would also be impossible.) Similarly, even if   
   >>>>> an analogous law of information existed it would not preclude   
   >>>>> evolution (and life); just as life (and evolution) exports entropy   
   >>>>> into the environment, they could import information from the   
   >>>>> environment. Dembski et al could retreat to the question of the   
   >>>>> ultimate source of the information, but that is just the   
   >>>>> cosmological argument redux, and not an argument against the   
   >>>>> factuality of evolution.   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> For an analogy, consider the connectome - the set of connections   
   >>>>> between neurons. In the same was as DNA this can been seen as   
   >>>>> containing information. In most animals (C. elegans is an   
   >>>>> exception) this is not fully defined by the genome. So a proportion   
   >>>>> of the information in the connectome must be imported from the   
   >>>>> environment (whether sensory inputs or biochemical noise).   
   >>>>>   
   >>>>> Turning again to the question of conservation of information.   
   >>>>> AlphaZero, starting with nothing more than the rules, bootstrapped   
   >>>>> itself to superhuman levels of play in, inter alia, Go and chess.   
   >>>>> Did that process increase information? In that case where did the   
   >>>>> information come from?   
   >>>>   
   >>>> As I’ve mentioned on t.o before, in the past I worked as an engineer   
   >>>> programming Field programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). At the time, I   
   >>>> read an article which utilised a genetic algorithm to develop an   
   >>>> FPGA circuit for a clocked counter of some sort. It turned out to be   
   >>>> a very efficient solution, but humanly incomprehensible because it   
   >>>> appeared to utilise parasitic capacitances or some other secondary   
   >>>> analogue effect. The device used was programmed with a 2kbit   
   >>>> configuration file, and so it appeared that 2,000 bits of   
   >>>> information (presumably qualifying as complex specific information)   
   >>>> had been created de novo by an evolutionary process. I wrote to   
   >>>> William Dembski at the time, who responded with an interest in   
   >>>> investigating the example further, but offered an initial assessment   
   >>>> that information had been “smuggled in” to the system by an   
   >>>> intelligent designer (i.e. the creators of the experimental set up).   
   >>>>   
   >>>> My point being (without claiming anything definitive) the   
   >>>> information may be from sources such as the intelligent system/   
   >>>> algorithm designers, or from a brute force search of the entire   
   >>>> soluition space (or enough of it to outperform humans).   
   >>>   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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