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Orgel and 500 Coins

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In his 1973 book The Origins of Life Leslie Orgel wrote: “Living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals such as granite fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; mixtures of random polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity.” (189).

In my post On “Specified Complexity,” Orgel and Dembski I demonstrated that in this passage Orgel was getting at the exact same concept that Dembski calls “specified complexity.”  In a comment to that post “Robb” asks:

500 coins, all heads, and therefore a highly ordered pattern.
What would Orgel say — complex or not?

Orgel said that crystals, even though they display highly ordered patterns, lack complexity. Would he also say that the highly ordered pattern of “500 coins; all heads” lacks complexity?

In a complexity analysis, the issue is not whether the patterns are “highly ordered.” The issue is how the patterns came to be highly ordered. If a pattern came to be highly ordered as a result of natural processes (e.g., the lawlike processes that result in crystal formation), it is not complex. If a pattern came to be highly ordered in the very teeth of what we would expect from natural processes (we can be certain that natural chance/law processes did not create the 500 coin pattern), the pattern is complex.

Complexity turns on contingency. The pattern of a granite crystal is not contingent. Therefore, it is not complex.  The “500 coins; all heads” pattern is highly contingent. Therefore, it is complex.

What would Orgel say? We cannot know what Orgel would say. We can say that if he viewed the “500 coins; all heads” pattern at a very superficial level (it is just an ordered pattern), he might say it lacks complexity, in which case he would have been wrong. If he viewed the “500 coin; all heads” pattern in terms of the extreme level of contingency displayed in the pattern, he would have said the pattern is complex, and he would have been right.

About one thing we can be absolutely certain. Orgel would have known without the slightest doubt that the “500 coin; all heads” pattern was far beyond the ability of chance/law forces, and he would therefore have made a design inference.

Comments
Thank you, BA77. As I thought. How could it be otherwise? Given the nature of matter and the concept of non-locality.Axel
November 30, 2014
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Axel, as stated before, although naturalists have postulated some far fetched scenarios, such as many worlds, etc..., to deal with quantum mechanics, none of those scenarios in themselves are compatible with reductive materialism that under-girds neo-Darwinian thought. “[while a number of philosophical ideas] may be logically consistent with present quantum mechanics, …materialism is not.” Eugene Wigner Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism – video playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL1mr9ZTZb3TViAqtowpvZy5PZpn-MoSK_&v=4C5pq7W5yRM Why Quantum Theory Does Not Support Materialism By Bruce L Gordon, Ph.D Excerpt: The underlying problem is this: there are correlations in nature that require a causal explanation but for which no physical explanation is in principle possible. Furthermore, the nonlocalizability of field quanta entails that these entities, whatever they are, fail the criterion of material individuality. So, paradoxically and ironically, the most fundamental constituents and relations of the material world cannot, in principle, be understood in terms of material substances. Since there must be some explanation for these things, the correct explanation will have to be one which is non-physical – and this is plainly incompatible with any and all varieties of materialism. http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbscience.aspx?pageid=8589952939bornagain77
November 30, 2014
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Do the materialists have any explanation for non-locality, BA77? It just seems to me to knock materialism on the head, like an angler's 'priest' does to a fish he's caught. Giving it the last rites....Axel
November 30, 2014
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Thus, as far as empirical science itself is concerned, Neo-Darwinism is falsified in its claim that information is ‘emergent’ from a material basis. Of related interest to 'non-local', beyond space and time, quantum entanglement 'holding life together', in the following paper, Andy C. McIntosh, professor of thermodynamics and combustion theory at the University of Leeds, holds that non-material information is what is constraining the cell to be so far out of thermodynamic equilibrium. Moreover, Dr. McIntosh holds that regarding information as independent of energy and matter 'resolves the thermodynamic issues and invokes the correct paradigm for understanding the vital area of thermodynamic/organisational interactions'.
Information and Thermodynamics in Living Systems - Andy C. McIntosh - May 2013 Excerpt: The third view then that we have proposed in this paper is the top down approach. In this paradigm, the information is non-material and constrains the local thermodynamics to be in a non-equilibrium state of raised free energy. It is the information which is the active ingredient, and the matter and energy are passive to the laws of thermodynamics within the system. As a consequence of this approach, we have developed in this paper some suggested principles of information exchange which have some parallels with the laws of thermodynamics which undergird this approach.,,, (Dr Andy C. McIntosh is the Professor of Thermodynamics Combustion Theory at the University of Leeds. - the highest teaching/research rank in U.K. university hierarchy) http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789814508728_0008
Here is a recent video by Dr. Giem, that gets the main points of Dr. McIntosh’s paper over very well for the lay person:
Biological Information – Information and Thermodynamics in Living Systems 11-22-2014 by Paul Giem (A. McIntosh) – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR_r6mFdwQM
Of related interest, here is the evidence that quantum information is in fact ‘conserved’;,,,
Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html Quantum no-deleting theorem Excerpt: A stronger version of the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem provide permanence to quantum information. To create a copy one must import the information from some part of the universe and to delete a state one needs to export it to another part of the universe where it will continue to exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_no-deleting_theorem#Consequence
Besides providing direct empirical falsification of neo-Darwinian claims as to the generation of information, the implication of finding 'non-local', beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’, quantum information in molecular biology on a massive scale is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious:
Quantum Entangled Consciousness - Life After Death - Stuart Hameroff - video https://vimeo.com/39982578 Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – Stuart Hameroff - video (notes in description) http://vimeo.com/29895068
Verse and Music:
John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. While I’m Waiting - John Waller http://myktis.com/songs/while-im-waiting/
bornagain77
November 30, 2014
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In fact an entire human can, theoretically, be reduced to quantum information and teleported to another location in the universe:
Quantum Teleportation Of A Human? – video https://vimeo.com/75163272 Will Human Teleportation Ever Be Possible? As experiments in relocating particles advance, will we be able to say, "Beam me up, Scotty" one day soon? By Corey S. Powell|Monday, June 16, 2014 Excerpt: Note a fascinating common thread through all these possibilities. Whether you regard yourself as a pile of atoms, a DNA sequence, a series of sensory inputs or an elaborate computer file, in all of these interpretations you are nothing but a stack of data. According to the principle of unitarity, quantum information is never lost. Put them together, and those two statements lead to a staggering corollary: At the most fundamental level, the laws of physics say you are immortal. http://discovermagazine.com/2014/julyaug/20-the-ups-and-downs-of-teleportation
Thus not only is information not reducible to a energy-matter basis, as is presupposed in the reductive materialism of Darwinism, but in actuality both energy and matter ultimately reduce to a information basis as is presupposed in Christian Theism (John1:1-4). Moreover, this 'spooky action at a distance', i.e. beyond space and time, quantum entanglement/information, by which energy and matter are reducible to a material basis, is now found in molecular biology on a massive scale. i.e. Beyond space and time, i.e. 'non-local', quantum entanglement is now found in every DNA and protein molecule.
Quantum entanglement holds together life’s blueprint – 2010 Excerpt: When the researchers analysed the DNA without its helical structure, they found that the electron clouds were not entangled. But when they incorporated DNA’s helical structure into the model, they saw that the electron clouds of each base pair became entangled with those of its neighbours. “If you didn’t have entanglement, then DNA would have a simple flat structure, and you would never get the twist that seems to be important to the functioning of DNA,” says team member Vlatko Vedral of the University of Oxford. http://neshealthblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/quantum-entanglement-holds-together-lifes-blueprint/ Quantum Information/Entanglement In DNA - short video https://vimeo.com/92405752 Coherent Intrachain energy migration at room temperature – Elisabetta Collini and Gregory Scholes – University of Toronto – Science, 323, (2009), pp. 369-73 Excerpt: The authors conducted an experiment to observe quantum coherence dynamics in relation to energy transfer. The experiment, conducted at room temperature, examined chain conformations, such as those found in the proteins of living cells. Neighbouring molecules along the backbone of a protein chain were seen to have coherent energy transfer. Where this happens quantum decoherence (the underlying tendency to loss of coherence due to interaction with the environment) is able to be resisted, and the evolution of the system remains entangled as a single quantum state. http://www.scimednet.org/quantum-coherence-living-cells-and-protein/ In fact, highly sophisticated quantum computation, due to the monster 'travelling salesman problem' being dealt with in regards to protein folding and DNA repair, is directly implicated in protein folding and DNA repair,, etc.. etc...
That quantum entanglement, which conclusively demonstrates that ‘information’ in its pure ‘quantum form’ is completely transcendent of any time and space constraints (Bell, Aspect, Leggett, Zeilinger, etc..), should be found in molecular biology on such a massive scale is a direct empirical falsification of Darwinian claims, for how can the ‘non-local’ quantum entanglement ‘effect’ in biology possibly be explained by a material (matter/energy) cause when the quantum entanglement effect falsified material particles as its own causation in the first place? Appealing to the probability of various 'random' configurations of material particles, as Darwinism does, simply will not help since a timeless/spaceless cause must be supplied which is beyond the capacity of the material particles themselves to supply!
Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php Closing the last Bell-test loophole for photons - Jun 11, 2013 Excerpt:– requiring no assumptions or correction of count rates – that confirmed quantum entanglement to nearly 70 standard deviations.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-06-bell-test-loophole-photons.html etc.. etc..
In other words, to give a coherent explanation for an effect that is shown to be completely independent of any time and space constraints one is forced to appeal to a cause that is itself not limited to time and space! i.e. Put more simply, you cannot explain a effect by a cause that has been falsified by the very same effect you are seeking to explain! Improbability arguments of various ‘special’ configurations of material particles, which have been a staple of the arguments against neo-Darwinism, simply do not apply since the cause is not within the material particles in the first place! And although Naturalists/Materialists have proposed various, far fetched, naturalistic scenarios to try to get around the Theistic implications of quantum non-locality, none of the ‘far fetched’ naturalistic solutions, in themselves, are compatible with the reductive materialism that undergirds neo-Darwinian thought.
"[while a number of philosophical ideas] may be logically consistent with present quantum mechanics, ...materialism is not." Eugene Wigner Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism - video playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL1mr9ZTZb3TViAqtowpvZy5PZpn-MoSK_&v=4C5pq7W5yRM Why Quantum Theory Does Not Support Materialism By Bruce L Gordon, Ph.D Excerpt: The underlying problem is this: there are correlations in nature that require a causal explanation but for which no physical explanation is in principle possible. Furthermore, the nonlocalizability of field quanta entails that these entities, whatever they are, fail the criterion of material individuality. So, paradoxically and ironically, the most fundamental constituents and relations of the material world cannot, in principle, be understood in terms of material substances. Since there must be some explanation for these things, the correct explanation will have to be one which is non-physical – and this is plainly incompatible with any and all varieties of materialism. http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbscience.aspx?pageid=8589952939
bornagain77
November 30, 2014
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keith s, not that I hold much hope you will acknowlege it, but there is an empirical falsification for the materialistic, neo-Darwinian, claim that information is emergent from a material basis. A falsification of neo-Darwinism that does not rely on probabilistic calculations, but instead relies on observational evidence. Contrary to materialistic thought, information is now shown to be its own independent entity which is separate from matter and energy. In fact, information is now shown to be physically measurable.,,
Maxwell’s demon demonstration turns information into energy – November 2010 Excerpt: Scientists in Japan are the first to have succeeded in converting information into free energy in an experiment that verifies the “Maxwell demon” thought experiment devised in 1867.,,, In Maxwell’s thought experiment the demon creates a temperature difference simply from information about the gas molecule temperatures and without transferring any energy directly to them.,,, Until now, demonstrating the conversion of information to energy has been elusive,,,, they describe how they coaxed a Brownian particle to travel upwards on a “spiral-staircase-like” potential energy created by an electric field solely on the basis of information on its location. As the particle traveled up the staircase it gained energy from moving to an area of higher potential, and the team was able to measure precisely how much energy had been converted from information. http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-maxwell-demon-energy.html Demonic device converts information to energy – 2010 Excerpt: “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,” says Christopher Jarzynski, a statistical chemist at the University of Maryland in College Park. In 1997, Jarzynski formulated an equation to define the amount of energy that could theoretically be converted from a unit of information2; the work by Sano and his team has now confirmed this equation. “This tells us something new about how the laws of thermodynamics work on the microscopic scale,” says Jarzynski. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=demonic-device-converts-inform “Is there a real connection between entropy in physics and the entropy of information? ….The equations of information theory and the second law are the same,,,” Siegfried, Dallas Morning News, 5/14/90, [Quotes Robert W. Lucky, Ex. Director of Research, AT&T, Bell Laboratories & John A. Wheeler, of Princeton & Univ. of TX, Austin]
Moreover, the total information content of the bacterial cell, when it is calculated from this now 'measurable' thermodynamic perspective, is far larger than just what is encoded on the DNA,,
Biophysics – Information theory. Relation between information and entropy: – Setlow-Pollard, Ed. Addison Wesley Excerpt: Linschitz gave the figure 9.3 x 10^12 cal/deg or 9.3 x 10^12 x 4.2 joules/deg for the entropy of a bacterial cell. Using the relation H = S/(k In 2), we find that the information content is 4 x 10^12 bits. Morowitz’ deduction from the work of Bayne-Jones and Rhees gives the lower value of 5.6 x 10^11 bits, which is still in the neighborhood of 10^12 bits. Thus two quite different approaches give rather concordant figures. https://docs.google.com/document/d/18hO1bteXTPOqQtd2H12PI5wFFoTjwg8uBAU5N0nEQIE/edit “a one-celled bacterium, e. coli, is estimated to contain the equivalent of 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. Expressed in information in science jargon, this would be the same as 10^12 bits of information. In comparison, the total writings from classical Greek Civilization is only 10^9 bits, and the largest libraries in the world – The British Museum, Oxford Bodleian Library, New York Public Library, Harvard Widenier Library, and the Moscow Lenin Library – have about 10 million volumes or 10^12 bits.” – R. C. Wysong ‘The information content of a simple cell has been estimated as around 10^12 bits, comparable to about a hundred million pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica.” Carl Sagan, “Life” in Encyclopedia Britannica: Macropaedia (1974 ed.), pp. 893-894
As well, it is important to note that, counter-intuitive to materialistic thought (and to every kid who has ever taken a math exam), a computer does not consume energy during computation but will only consume energy when information is erased from it. This counter-intuitive fact is formally known as Landauer’s Principle.
Landauer’s principle Of Note: “any logically irreversible manipulation of information, such as the erasure of a bit or the merging of two computation paths, must be accompanied by a corresponding entropy increase ,,, Specifically, each bit of lost information will lead to the release of an (specific) amount (at least kT ln 2) of heat.,,, Landauer’s Principle has also been used as the foundation for a new theory of dark energy, proposed by Gough (2008). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle
It should be noted that Rolf Landauer himself, despite the counterintuitive fact that information is not generated by an expenditure of energy but can only be erased by an expenditure of energy, presumed that the information in a computer was merely ‘physical’, i.e. merely emergent from a material basis, because the information in a computer required energy to be spent for the information to be erased from it. Landauer held this materialistic position in spite of objections from people like Roger Penrose and Norbert Weiner who held that information is indeed real and has its own independent existence separate from matter-energy.
“Those devices (computers) can yield only approximations to a structure (of information) that has a deep and “computer independent” existence of its own.” - Roger Penrose – The Emperor’s New Mind – Pg 147 “Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day.” Norbert Weiner – MIT Mathematician -(Cybernetics, 2nd edition, p.132) Norbert Wiener created the modern field of control and communication systems, utilizing concepts like negative feedback. His seminal 1948 book Cybernetics both defined and named the new field.
Yet the validity of Landauer’s materialistic contention that ‘Information is physical’ has now been overturned, because information is now known to be erasable from a computer without consuming energy.
Scientists show how to erase information without using energy – January 2011 Excerpt: Until now, scientists have thought that the process of erasing information requires energy. But a new study shows that, theoretically, information can be erased without using any energy at all. Instead, the cost of erasure can be paid in terms of another conserved quantity, such as spin angular momentum.,,, “Landauer said that information is physical because it takes energy to erase it. We are saying that the reason it is physical has a broader context than that.”, Vaccaro explained. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-scientists-erase-energy.html Quantum knowledge cools computers: New understanding of entropy – June 2011 Excerpt: No heat, even a cooling effect; In the case of perfect classical knowledge of a computer memory (zero entropy), deletion of the data requires in theory no energy at all. The researchers prove that “more than complete knowledge” from quantum entanglement with the memory (negative entropy) leads to deletion of the data being accompanied by removal of heat from the computer and its release as usable energy. This is the physical meaning of negative entropy. Renner emphasizes, however, “This doesn’t mean that we can develop a perpetual motion machine.” The data can only be deleted once, so there is no possibility to continue to generate energy. The process also destroys the entanglement, and it would take an input of energy to reset the system to its starting state. The equations are consistent with what’s known as the second law of thermodynamics: the idea that the entropy of the universe can never decrease. Vedral says “We’re working on the edge of the second law. If you go any further, you will break it.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110601134300.htm
Moreover, if physically measuring information, and/or erasing information from a computer without using energy, were not bad enough for the Darwinian belief that information is merely emergent from a material basis, it is now shown, by using quantum entanglement as a ‘quantum information channel’, that material reduces to information instead of information reducing to material as is believed in Darwinian materialistic presuppositions.
Quantum Entanglement and Information Quantum entanglement is a physical resource, like energy, associated with the peculiar nonclassical correlations that are possible between separated quantum systems. Entanglement can be measured, transformed, and purified. A pair of quantum systems in an entangled state can be used as a quantum information channel to perform computational and cryptographic tasks that are impossible for classical systems. The general study of the information-processing capabilities of quantum systems is the subject of quantum information theory. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/
And, as mentioned previously, by using this 'measurable' quantum information channel of entanglement, matter-energy has been reduced to quantum information: (of note: energy is completely reduced to quantum information, whereas matter is semi-completely reduced, with the caveat being that matter can be reduced to energy via e=mc2).
How Teleportation Will Work - Excerpt: In 1993, the idea of teleportation moved out of the realm of science fiction and into the world of theoretical possibility. It was then that physicist Charles Bennett and a team of researchers at IBM confirmed that quantum teleportation was possible, but only if the original object being teleported was destroyed. — As predicted, the original photon no longer existed once the replica was made. per howstuffworks Quantum Teleportation – IBM Research Page Excerpt: “it would destroy the original (photon) in the process,,” http://researcher.ibm.com/view_project.php?id=2862 Atom takes a quantum leap – 2009 Excerpt: Ytterbium ions have been ‘teleported’ over a distance of a metre.,,, “What you’re moving is information, not the actual atoms,” says Chris Monroe, from the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland in College Park and an author of the paper. But as two particles of the same type differ only in their quantum states, the transfer of quantum information is equivalent to moving the first particle to the location of the second. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2171769/posts etc.. etc..
bornagain77
November 30, 2014
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Barry, Before you leave for your trip, I hope you'll explain to us why you deleted an entire thread, including comments.keith s
November 30, 2014
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Barry, A reminder. See above.keith s
November 29, 2014
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Barry, When will you explain why you deleted an entire thread, along with two of Joe's comments?keith s
November 29, 2014
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keiths #120:
Orgel was smart enough to keep complexity separate from improbability. Dembski conflated the two.
Eric #147:
I’m not sure where your allegation of Dembski’s conflation comes from.
It's simple, and it's right there in 1) the name itself: complex specified information; and 2) the equation, which includes P(T|H), a probability; and 3) the fact that Dembski attributes CSI when the probability becomes small enough.keith s
November 29, 2014
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Eric:
I am not familiar enough with Orgel’s work to be able to say precisely what he was driving at. But if he is talking about the origin of complex cellular structures then he is most definitely not just talking about Kolmogorov complexity.
In the passages where Orgel talks about specified complexity, he is not discussing origins. He presents specified complexity as a characteristic property of life vs. non-life, not an indicator of design vs. non-design. So there is no need to bring up probabilities, and indeed he doesn't. He makes it very clear that he referring to Kolmogorov complexity.R0bb
November 28, 2014
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Kolmogorov, nor Orgel, duhJoe
November 28, 2014
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Orgel was smart enough not to blindly apply probability theory and he found/ developed a methodology to help distinguish those circumstances in which probability theory (alone?) does not apply.Joe
November 28, 2014
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keith @120:
Orgel was smart enough to keep complexity separate from improbability. Dembski conflated the two.
Dembski discussed Kolmogorov complexity in his writings, taking time to show both the relevance and the distinction between Kolmogorov complexity and specified complexity. I'm not sure where your allegation of Dembski's conflation comes from. Dembski has written an incredible quantity over the years, so there might be some quote someone could find somewhere that can be understood as less than clear on the point. But generally Dembski is quite clear about the distinction. Furthermore, we can be relatively confident that he knows more about the topic than either you or I. ----- R0bb @121:
Just to be clear, the dispute in this thread is over the claim that Orgel and Dembski mean the same thing when they say “complexity”. Setting aside issues like origins, design, and the quality of Orgel’s work, what is your take on this claim?
Thanks, R0bb. That is a helpful way forward in the discussion. I'm not sure it makes any sense to set aside issues like origins. Particularly, as you have pointed out, the question of the origin of a structure/sequence/information is linked to the probability side (rather than just the Kolmogorov descriptive side). If Orgel was talking about the origin of complex structures, then he was definitely interested in probability, as that is the only thing that would be relevant (Kolmogorov is essentially irrelevant). That doesn't mean he wouldn't discuss a concept like Kolmogorov complexity -- just as Dembski does in his writings. My personal take? I am not familiar enough with Orgel's work to be able to say precisely what he was driving at. But if he is talking about the origin of complex cellular structures then he is most definitely not just talking about Kolmogorov complexity. Furthermore, it is quite common for a later researcher to build upon the ideas of an earlier researcher. In doing so, the later researcher will inevitably add a nuance, or a slightly different take, or a clarification, or a new way of looking at things. But we can still see the chain of thought linking the two and still would be justified in saying that the later researcher is building upon the ideas of the former, or that the former was describing essentially the same thing as the later, albeit the former would obviously not have included the later's additional thoughts or nuances on the topic. Dembski himself, makes the tie:
Neither Orgel nor Davies, however, provided a precise analytic account of specified complexity. I provide such an account in The Design Inference (1998b) and its sequel No Free Lunch (2002). In this section I want briefly to outline my work on specified complexity. Orgel and Davies used specified complexity loosely. I’ve formalized it as a statistical criterion for identifying the effects of intelligence.
So Dembski himself says that Orgel's concept is not a "precise analytic account" like Dembski's effort. He also says that Orgel "used specified complexity loosely," while Dembski feels he as "formalized it." This means, obviously, that Dembski has added to or developed Orgel's concept. Thus, is Dembski talking about exactly the same thing as Orgel, in the sense of simply repeating verbatim Orgel's thoughts on the topic? Of course not; he says he is going further and developing the concept beyond Orgel's discussion. Is Dembski, in developing his own take, talking about largely the same thing as Orgel? Yes. My take on the "dispute in this thread" is that people are straining at gnats. Dembski is clearly building on Orgel and they both talk about specified complexity in the origins context. Those seem to be undisputable facts. Unfortunately, some people seem so obsessed with bashing Dembski that they refuse to see the practical realities and have gotten into a dispute that turns on a single quote here or a phrase there. Together with what appears to be a false allegation by keith that Dembski conflates concepts, the usefulness of the discussion may be less than it otherwise could have been. I think it would be useful for us all to better understand Orgel's approach, as well as how Dembski has built upon it in his work on the design inference. Unfortunately, we're stuck with a take-no-prisoners battle by some who are intent on discrediting Dembski at all costs, even with unfounded allegations.Eric Anderson
November 28, 2014
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Proof that Aleta is totally hopeless: I had said: That is incorrect as the KC is a measure of the description of the thing. The strings have the same probability, however that is given a purely random occurrence. To which Aleta responded:
KC has nothing to do with the probability of the string occurring – it is just a measure of a property of the string irrespective of how it came about.
Notice that I never said that KC = probability. I never even implied it.
The sentence you quoted says nothing about probability – nothing about where the string came from, and the example in the article makes that clear.
Umm the sentence I quoted was to refute what you said earlier:
1. You say that it is false that all strings have some measure of Kolmogorov complexity. I quoted the Wikipedia article that makes it clear that all strings do have some measure of Kolmogorov complexity. Can you provide some evidence or citation to back up your claim that some strings don’t have any measure of Kolmogorov complexity?
Are you that daft that you cannot remember what you posted?Joe
November 28, 2014
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Aleta:
Of course not all strings are the same – Joe’s response doesn’t address the point at all.
Yet you said:
You say that it is false that all strings have some measure of Kolmogorov complexity. I quoted the Wikipedia article that makes it clear that all strings do have some measure of Kolmogorov complexity
Please make up your mind. And if you don't know what is meant by a level playing field then perhaps you shouldn't be having a discussion on probabilities.
This directly contradicts what he said earlier where he agreed the all events didn’t need to have equal probability.
Only in your mind. Not having a equal probability does not mean there isn't a level playing field. I conclude that Aleta is totally hopeless.Joe
November 28, 2014
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I conclude that Joe is hopeless - his answers don't even begin to address my points, and are in fact contradictory. When I wrote,
KC has nothing to do with the probability of the string occurring – it is just a measure of a property of the string irrespective of how it came about.
Joe replied, "KC has to do with the string’s description and not all strings are the same. The two in the example are not the same." Of course not all strings are the same - Joe's response doesn't address the point at all. And when I wrote,
Are you saying that the only place probabilities matter is when all events have equal probability?
, Joe replied, "No. A level playing field is required, though." But when I asked him to explain what he meant by a level playing field, he replied, "And your example has a weighted coin- it is not a level playing field." This directly contradicts what he said earlier where he agreed the all events didn't need to have equal probability. I'll move on to better things in my life.Aleta
November 28, 2014
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R0bb- Leave the complex strings alone and try to meet my challenge. And your claim of my being vague is laughable.Joe
November 28, 2014
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R0bb:
I’ll repeat what I said before: Apply a ROT13 to a very complex string. The resulting new string has a probability of 1 because ROT13 is a deterministic operation, and the new string is also guaranteed to be very complex.
You are very desperate.Joe
November 28, 2014
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Aleta:
KC has nothing to do with the probability of the string occurring – it is just a measure of a property of the string irrespective of how it came about.
KC has to do with the string's description and not all strings are the same. The two in the example are not the same. And your example has a weighted coin- it is not a level playing field.Joe
November 28, 2014
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But Joe, KC has nothing to do with the probability of the string occurring - it is just a measure of a property of the string irrespective of how it came about. The sentence you quoted says nothing about probability - nothing about where the string came from, and the example in the article makes that clear. And what do you mean by "a level playing field is required." What is there about my example that is not a "level playing field"?Aleta
November 28, 2014
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Joe:
If there aren’t any cases in which something complex also has a high probability of occurring then it is clear the Kolmogorov complexity and probability go hand in hand.
I'll repeat what I said before: Apply a ROT13 to a very complex string. The resulting new string has a probability of 1 because ROT13 is a deterministic operation, and the new string is also guaranteed to be very complex. Of course, you can easily come up with an ad hoc reason to reject this response to your challenge. The problem is that your challenge is so vaguely conceived that the goalposts are highly mobile. Expressing your challenge in mathematical notation would be a good first step toward planting the goalposts.R0bb
November 28, 2014
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1. You say that it is false that all strings have some measure of Kolmogorov complexity. I quoted the Wikipedia article that makes it clear that all strings do have some measure of Kolmogorov complexity. Can you provide some evidence or citation to back up your claim that some strings don’t have any measure of Kolmogorov complexity?
That is incorrect as the KC is a measure of the description of the thing. The strings have the same probability, however that is given a purely random occurrence. Wikipedia: The Kolmogorov complexity … of an object, such as a piece of text, is a measure of the computability resources needed to specify the object. Geez you can't even understand your reference.
Are you saying that the only place probabilities matter is when all events have equal probability?
No. A level playing field is required, though.Joe
November 28, 2014
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Joe, I believe you are wrong on both counts. 1. You say that it is false that all strings have some measure of Kolmogorov complexity. I quoted the Wikipedia article that makes it clear that all strings do have some measure of Kolmogorov complexity. Can you provide some evidence or citation to back up your claim that some strings don't have any measure of Kolmogorov complexity? 2. When I offered the example that, for a coin which turns up heads 99% of the time, P(10 heads) = 82% and P(10 tails) = 10^-20, you replied,
You cannot use a totally biased example to make your case. Probabilities only matter on a level playing field.
Are you saying that the only place probabilities matter is when all events have equal probability? If so, that is certainly wrong. Many (most) real world problems involving probability involve situations where some event is more likely than 50%. When I taught beginning stats, we had all sorts of problems involving such things as the reliability of medical tests, random sampling of products for defects, etc. where the probability of success and the probability of failure were very far from a 50-50 split - in fact some were even more unbalanced than the 99-1% split in my example.Aleta
November 28, 2014
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And AGAIN: If there aren’t any cases in which something complex also has a high probability of occurring then it is clear the Kolmogorov complexity and probability go hand in hand. So far so good...Joe
November 28, 2014
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Aleta:
So all strings have some measure of Kolmogorov complexity.
That is false. Allegedly they have the same probability but that is also false.
As above, the string HHHHHHHHHH has a probability of 0.99^10 = 82%. The string TTTTTTTTT has a probability or 0.01 ^ 10 = 10^-20, which is extremely small.
You cannot use a totally biased example to make your case. Probabilities only matter on a level playing field. Try againJoe
November 28, 2014
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R0bb:
Even if everything that’s complex is also improbable, it could still be the case that some things that are improbable are not complex.
Examples please. The string in 36 is not highly improbable as randomness did not produce it.Joe
November 28, 2014
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This is very interesting. I had forgotten about the Wikipedia article on the problem when I posted it Wednesday, but I had read it before. The article says that the way I stated the problem leads to the answer of 1/2, not 1/3, but that the "at least one boy" formulation leads to 1/3. I see that, and I think RObb offered a good explanation why this is the case:
The solution in #112 assumes that BB, BG, and GB are all equally likely. But given that we’ve seen a boy, BB is actually twice as likely as each of the others. So the answer is in fact 1/2.
The main issue seems to be how you find out that there is at least one boy - whether through a random process by looking in the window (which leads to a probability of 1/2), or by being told there is at least one boy. For instance, if the father walked up to you and said "my boy Bill is sick" and then went into the house, I think the interpretation that leads to an answer of 1/3 might still hold.Aleta
November 28, 2014
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Re the boy-girl paradox, I think I was wrong and that R0bb and Orloog are right. But I could be wrong. :-) In any case, a good night's sleep should help clear things up.keith s
November 28, 2014
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Barry, When are you going to explain why you deleted that thread the other day?keith s
November 28, 2014
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