I don’t know where you got the idea that algorithmic compressibility does not by itself entail specificity (along with CINDE, TRACT, and DELIM of course). Do you think that something extremely simple but non-functional, like a rectangular monolith, is not specified? You’re incorrect in thinking that specificity’s role is to rule out law/regularity/necessity. Check out the EF.

The mathematics behind Dembski’s formulation of a COnservation of Information Theorem, and the subsequent work on active information seems to back up the hypothesis that neither CSI much less intelligence can be “purchased” without previous intelligence.

Needless to say, it doesn’t seem that way to me at all, but I don’t have any issues to bring up that haven’t already been pointed out by Dembski’s critics.

Simply put, something with the amount of high improbability and functional specificity as intelligence requires at least that same amount of high improbability and specificity to produce said intelligence. You and I can discuss this if you wish, however, please refrain from implying that it is a mere assumption.

Where did I imply that? If I were to talk about conservation of CSI I would say that it’s simply wrong, not that it’s an assumption. For one thing, specificity is relative to a specifying agent and can easily increase via a deterministic function, eg a decrypter. (And yes, I know how Dembski says that the encrypted string is specified in terms of the encrypter and the decrypted string, but that requires that the specifying agent know about the encrypter, so the LCI is not universal. It also requires that the encrypter have zero descriptional complexity in order to conserve specificity.)

I don’t know whether you’re saying that chance and law can’t account for the behavior of living organisms or the origin of living organisms. Regardless, data has nothing to do with my question, which was a hypothetical IF. I explicitly said that I wasn’t claiming that this was the case.

So this all boils down to what you “don’t see”?

That is not a scientific stance.

Of course it’s not a scientific stance. I saying that I can’t see how your position is not metaphysical. If you could state your position in scientific terms, then I would see.

Does anyone else here consider this a scientific definition? If so, could someone please tell me what branch of science I can research to find the definition of “agency”?

I think that this kind of vague and equivocal terminology is partly to blame for the poor communication between Joseph, CJYman, and myself. Some statements also confuse me as to whether they refer to the behavior of a system or the origin of the system. CJYman’s response to Dembski’s point about the redundancy of “law+chance” showed that we’re talking right past each other.

I don’t know how to interpret the terms “law”, “chance”, “intelligence”, “foresight”, and “design” in a way that renders this discussion coherent. Maybe answers to a few questions will help me to concretize the terms:

(In the following questions, I use the word “computer” to mean the whole package of hardware+software.)

1. If a computer can make predictions, does it have foresight?

2. If a computer can decide from different courses of action based on its predictions, does it have intelligence?

3. If the above computer can also improve its track record over time by forming generalizations from its own experience, does it have intelligence?

4. Can a computer design software?

5. If not, why not?

6. If so, should the resulting software be attributed to law+chance, or design?

7. Is the next state of a human brain determined by its current state plus any inputs from sensory receptors, Penfield’s electrode, etc.?

8. If not, is there also an indeterministic factor in the state transition?

9. Are there any factors that are neither deterministic nor indeterministic?

10. How do we determine that humans are designers and not merely conduits of CSI?

Thanks in advance.