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Fine tuning

Dragonfly Ornithopters

As fans of Dune will readily see, an ornithopter is a flapping wing flying machine, as a helicopter is a rotary wing flying machine. Where of course we have seen how Dragonflies are elliptical winged insects capable of up to 56 km/h speed. They also have pterostigmas that control flutter, gaining up to 25% speed [in gliding mode]. Then, there are airflow and wing flex sensors that indicate sophisticated, highly tuned control loop networks. These insects are capable of forward and reverse flight, hovering and sideways flight. They also have up to 97% success rate in predation. Such a natural model will of course inspire engineers. So, we can see here, a Dragonfly robot ornithopter: A clip: Resemblance to a Read More ›

L&FP, 71: The island of function, fitness peak trap

We have been using a 3-D printer-constructor formalism, and now we can use it to see how hill climbing leads to local trapping. Again, the core formalism: Now, let us modify by allowing some sort of local random mutation to d(E) case by case within an n-run, now seen as a generation, so E1 to En are all incrementally different, and in effect are a ring around E in a fitness landscape. From this, we can see a survival filter that on average selects for superior performance. This leads, naturally to hill-climbing, perhaps even to several related peaks in a chain on an island of function. But now, we see: Here, we see that hill climbing leads to peak trapping, Read More ›

L&FP, 70: Exploring cosmological fine tuning using the idea of a 3-D, universal printer and constructor (also, islands of function)

Last time, we looked at how Kolmogorov Complexity can be used to quantify the information in functionally specific complex organisation, by using the formal idea of a 3-D universal printer and constructor, 3-DP/C: . . . it is but a short step to imagine a universal constructor device which, fed a compact description in a suitable language, will construct and present the [obviously, finite] object. Let us call this the universal 3-D printer/constructor, 3-DP/C. Thus, in principle, reduction of an organised entity to a description in a suitably compact language is formally equivalent in information terms to the object, once 3-DP/C is present as a conceptual entity. So, WLOG, reduction to compact description in a compact language d(E) is readily Read More ›

L&FP, 69: A way to understand Functionally Specific Complex Organisation and/or associated Information [FSCO/I] i/l/o Kolmogorov-Chaitin Complexity

It seems that it is exceedingly hard for some to understand what FSCO/I is about. In responding to an objector, I wrote as follows just now, and think it is worth headlining for reference: Where, K-Complexity is summarised by Wikipedia, as a first level point of reference that would have been immediately accessible all along: <<In algorithmic information theory (a subfield of computer science and mathematics), the Kolmogorov complexity of an object, such as a piece of text, is the length of a shortest computer program (in a predetermined programming language) that produces the object as output. It is a measure of the computational resources needed to specify the object, and is also known as algorithmic complexity, Solomonoff–Kolmogorov–Chaitin complexity, program-size Read More ›

Uploaded: By Design: Behe, Lennox, and Meyer on the Evidence for a Creator

Hoover Institution: “Michael Behe, John Lennox, and Steven Meyer are three of the leading voices in science and academia on the case for an intelligent designer of the universe and everything in it (including us). Read More ›

A conversation on a [post?]-Christian civilisation and the impact of the design inference on evidence

Peter Robinson’s Uncommon Knowledge brings three authors together, Tom Holland, Stephen Meyer and Douglas Murray: A key consideration: vs, this notorious poetic assertion: Of course, both of these reflect the rise of the skeptical mindset among the educated elites, the modern inferior good that stands in for the cardinal virtue, prudence. So, we cannot escape the epistemic challenge, what it means to know and to what confidence, especially as regards roots of reality and our place in reality. (Where, trivially, for any reasonably definable field, X, the claim that one knows on some warrant that there is no objective, knowable truth regarding X, is instantly self-referentially incoherent and self defeating. As this hyperskeptical claim is about X and claims objective Read More ›

At Astronomy.com: The universe may be more unstable than you think

So, physics researchers have found more fine-tuning: yet another feature of our universe upon which our entire existence is contingent. When combined with the many other fine-tuned parameters of physics necessary for life to exist, we have growing reason to doubt that "luck" is the explanation. Read More ›

At Evolution News: Your Intelligently Designed Body Is a System of Systems

Natural processes tend to destroy information-rich, functional systems over time. The body's remarkable hierarchy of interdependent life-support systems stands as the most unnatural physical phenomenon in the universe. Read More ›

From The New Atlantis: The Fine-Tuning Of Nature’s Laws – What Physics Tells Us About The Improbability Of Life

"Our universe’s ability to create and sustain life is rare indeed; a highly explainable but as yet unexplained fact. It could point the way to deeper physics, or beyond this universe, or even to principles beyond the ultimate laws of nature." Read More ›