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Author
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Topic: Granville Sewell and the Second Law of Thermodynamics
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Zachriel
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Member # 1793
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posted 16. March 2007 11:27
I have not followed the entire discussion, but perhaps this will be of help.
LifeEngineer: "Information is not a universal concept but rather a concept defined by those using it."
That is correct. Hence information is not a single natural quantity, but derived by the method of analysis. That's why it is important to define how you are using the term "information".
LifeEngineer: "If, which seems highly doubtful, shannon information theory defines random numbers of information generated by a closed system then the definition is useless with respect to the study of intelligence or evolution.
Shannon Information is measured by its 'surprisal value'. Digits of a random sequence cannot be predicted by those that precede it, so they have maximum 'surprisal value'.
LifeEngineer: "you need to explain to us mortals how it is possible for a closed system to generate information but a communications channel can have no such ability. Certainly a communications channel must have some capacity to trasform information. What are you suggesting is the difference between a closed processing system and a closed communications channel that permits one to generate information but not the other.
A communications channel is usually defined such that it just relays the information more-or-less reliably.
Claude Shannon is recognized as the Father of Information Theory. His work remains an important influence in the field, such as with the IEEE Information Theory Society. You might start by reading his seminal work, Mathematical Theory of Communication. All other theories of information spring from Shannon's fundamental insights.
In algorithmic information theory, information is measured by the length of a string's shortest description in some fixed description language. However, not only does the description langauge have to be carefully specified, but the length of the shortest possible description is generally not a computable function.
[ 16. March 2007, 11:35: Message edited by: Zachriel ]
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Melvin H. Fox
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Member # 1684
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posted 16. March 2007 12:02
2ndclass,
I agree that information can be talked about as a pure abstraction without reference to anything physical but so can a cloud be talked about in this way. That is the utility of the maths.
You wrote:
quote:
…all information is useful and meaningful in some contexts but not in others.
Would you agree that any meaning [important-DNA or trivial-constellations] possessed by a block of information must be assigned by an intelligent agent?
Would you agree that information can only be useful when it is transferable [can be obtained or known with integrity by intelligent agents]?
In other words, if the string “fdhsuaeiowfjdiltfweioh” has meaning, then it must have been assigned by an intelligent agent. I, being an intelligent agent, could assign this string the meaning “sowhat”. There now it has meaning. This meaning can only be useful if an intelligent agent knows how to extract it [Hint: 459459].
Does the above characterization of useful and meaningful information sound reasonable?
LifeEngineer wrote:
quote:
The real question or real issue here is whether we can perform scientific analysis of intelligent behavior, including evolution, using this closed system deterministic model, or whether we need to assume that there is some type of closed system that produces or creates information.
Suppose we have a system that is closed to all inputs other than an array of the names of the students in one of my classes [1) defined input] and character strings generated by 2C’s quantum random number generator [2) defined processing algorithm]. If within the algorithm each name is assigned one string [password], do we not now have new, useful meaningful information about each and every person in my class. LifeEngineer, is this new information explained, determined, or predicted by 1 and 2?
-[silly] Mel
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 16. March 2007 12:23
In addition to armchair rhetoric such as we see here on this thread, thermodynamics is also an EXPERIMENTAL science. To determine the thermodynamic efficiency of a system you measure the energy content of the input and measure the same of the output. These EXPERIMENTS were actually done with chicken development about 100 years ago. Unincubated fertilized chicken eggs were oxidized in a bomb calorimeter and the calories produced were recorded. Hatched chicks were similarly oxidized as were the the unused materials. The results yielded a gross efficiency of about 64%, a remarkably high figure when one realizes that the proteins and fats of the egg must all first be released by hydrolysis before they can then be synthesized into the molecules of the living chick. Assuming that hydrolysis and synthesis share the same efficiency, the efficiency of each must be 80%. Check my math please. The German investigtors termed the missing energy as the Entwicklungsarbeit or "the work of development." The efficiency of this transformation is even higher than calculated because it does not take into account the energy expended for maintenance during the 21 days of incubation. Those experments have been largely ignored. I know of no further EXPERIMENTS dealing with the efficiency of developmental processes. By comparison, the efficiency of a diesel engine is about 20%.
Apparently it is a lot more fun to speculate about theoretical matters that have no application to either development or evolution. If you don't believe me just peruse the substance of this entire thread. It has nothing to do with the living world, absolutely nothing. Neither does quantum mechanics. Sorry about that. You have my blessing to continue wasting one anothers time.
It is hard to believe isn't it?
I love it so!
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
[ 16. March 2007, 12:26: Message edited by: John A. Davison ]
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LifeEngineer
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Member # 3446
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posted 16. March 2007 12:58
Zachriel,
Thanks for your response. It sounds like you actually do understand the mathematics involved.
Quote: That is correct. Hence information is not a single natural quantity, but derived by the method of analysis. That's why it is important to define how you are using the term "information".
This seems such a fundamental concept or principle of science and mathematics and yet it is a concept that does not appear to be widely understood or accepted. In the analysis of intelligent goal directed systems and processes, information is defined in terms of complexity or improbability the relationships between search areas and solution spaces.
Quote: A communications channel is usually defined such that it just relays the information more-or-less reliably.
Quote: Shannon Information is measured by its 'surprisal value'. Digits of a random sequence cannot be predicted by those that precede it, so they have maximum 'surprisal value'.
This makes logical sense although it is somewhat different than my original understanding. To put this in my terms, a noiseless closed communications channel would transmit a message with no change or loss of information. A noisy or real world system, by contrast, would see deterioration in the original message, but this decrease in formation would be offset by the increase in noise/’surprisal value information.
This would suggest that the ‘conservation of information’ concept is an assumption rather than a conclusion of Shannon information theory. Correct? If so, then exactly the same concept or principle or assumption would apply to ‘closed’ computers or logic machines. Correct?
In terms of the analysis I am performing, I don’t care if the ‘inability of a closed system to create information’ is an assumption or a conclusion. I am simply asserting that the concept or principle should be accepted. It would appear that the Shannon information concepts and math are compatible with my positions.
Again, thanks for your helpful post.
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LifeEngineer
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posted 16. March 2007 13:08
Quote: Suppose we have a system that is closed to all inputs other than an array of the names of the students in one of my classes [1) defined input] and character strings generated by 2C’s quantum random number generator [2) defined processing algorithm]. If within the algorithm each name is assigned one string [password], do we not now have new, useful meaningful information about each and every person in my class. LifeEngineer, is this new information explained, determined, or predicted by 1 and 2?
Apparently, based on the concepts Zachriel introduced, the closed system is defined or assumed to neither create nor destroy information. The 'surprisal value' information created by a random number generator in your example would be exactly (by definition or assumption) offset by the loss of the information in the initial input values.
The conclusion here is that if Shannon could get by with using the no creation of information assumption, then we are justified in using the same assumption in analyzing intelligent systems and processes.
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2ndclass
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Member # 1979
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posted 16. March 2007 14:56
LE: quote:
This makes logical sense although it is somewhat different than my original understanding.
Well thank goodness that's cleared up. I suppose that you'll now retract all the insults you've been spewing that have been based on your own misunderstanding of Shannon information.
BTW, what was your original understanding?
quote:
To put this in my terms, a noiseless closed communications channel would transmit a message with no change or loss of information. A noisy or real world system, by contrast, would see deterioration in the original message, but this decrease in formation would be offset by the increase in noise/’surprisal value information.
As your usage of "channel" does not match Shannon's, I'm going to chuck the Shannon message-sender-channel-receiver model and just talk about information as surprisal.
There is no guarantee that the deterioration in the original message and the increase in surprisal via noise will offset each other. The original message may be very information-poor, e.g. 111111111111.... while the corrupted message may be information-rich, e.g. 576460014231155986572891...
There is no such thing as conservation of surprisal. Random processes can create surprisal out of thin air. Processes that are truly random, e.g. a quantum RNG, are closed systems in the sense that they have no causal input, and yet they can crank out information/surprisal.
[ 16. March 2007, 15:02: Message edited by: 2ndclass ]
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LifeEngineer
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posted 16. March 2007 15:43
2C- your comments continue to suggest you have no real understanding of the shannon information or of their application to the topic being discussed here.
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2ndclass
Member
Member # 1979
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posted 16. March 2007 15:55
What in the world are you talking about, LE? For once, back up your insult.
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2ndclass
Member
Member # 1979
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posted 16. March 2007 16:07
Just to be clear, LE, most of what you've said in this discussion is factually incorrect. I've pointed out specifically where and why you're wrong. I've provided references that you could educate yourself with if you had any desire to learn. You admit that you've gone through this whole discussion with a mistaken idea of Shannon information. A brief look at Wikipedia would have cured your misconception, but you were too busy hurling insults.
If you think I'm wrong about something, then tell me what it is and why I'm wrong. As far as I can tell, everything I've said is accurate, but I'm open to correction.
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2ndclass
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Member # 1979
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posted 16. March 2007 16:45
Melvin: quote:
I agree that information can be talked about as a pure abstraction without reference to anything physical but so can a cloud be talked about in this way. That is the utility of the maths.
Melvin, if we disagree on this, I think our disagreement is purely semantic. My view is that the properties of clouds are determined by physical laws, but the properties of information are not.
quote:
Would you agree that any meaning [important-DNA or trivial-constellations] possessed by a block of information must be assigned by an intelligent agent?
Again, I think it depends on definitions.
When a computer compresses text with Huffman coding, it creates a table of codes, each of which symbolizes a string of text. To a decompression program, it seems that these codes have meaning, even though they weren't generated by a human.
quote:
Would you agree that information can only be useful when it is transferable [can be obtained or known with integrity by intelligent agents]?
In other words, if the string “fdhsuaeiowfjdiltfweioh” has meaning, then it must have been assigned by an intelligent agent. I, being an intelligent agent, could assign this string the meaning “sowhat”. There now it has meaning. This meaning can only be useful if an intelligent agent knows how to extract it [Hint: 459459].
This would imply that information isn't useful to an agent unless it has meaning for that agent. It would follow that if information is useful, it must have meaning. That sounds reasonable to me.
[ 16. March 2007, 16:52: Message edited by: 2ndclass ]
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 16. March 2007 17:13
It is hard to believe isn't it?
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
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Melvin H. Fox
Member
Member # 1684
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posted 16. March 2007 21:48
2ndclass,
It seems we agree in principle on the term “useful” and that the properties of information are not determined by physical laws. Unfortunately, it appears we will have some familiar differences over the term “meaningful”.
You wrote:
quote:
When a computer compresses text with Huffman coding, it creates a table of codes, each of which symbolizes a string of text. To a decompression program, it seems that these codes have meaning, even though they weren't generated by a human.
When a computer compresses text with Huffman coding it is using the Huffman algorithm [or derivative there of]. Therefore, the table of codes was generated by the algorithm and so, as you are well aware, I will always claim it was generated by the programmer, in this case Huffman. As you say, “To a decompression program, it seems that these codes have meaning…” Here you are talking about what Huffman called the “ensemble code”, are you not? In his own words from his original paper:
quote:
The mutual agreement between the transmitter and the receiver about the meaning of the code for each message of the ensemble will be called the “ensemble code.”
When writing the decompression program, the intelligent agent responsible must be aware of the ensemble code or the decompression will fail to deliver the original information with fidelity. Now, I don’t do this sort of thing for a living but am I not correct?
I don’t know how important it is for us to engage once again in the calculator adding debate as it pertains to the compression of text in that we have both said our piece. Incidentally, I wrote a portfolio problem for my students entitled “2ndclass” in which I asked them to define addition, explain how it is done, and decide if a calculator could perform the task. It came down about 50/50.
Maybe we will have to leave it as you say, “It would follow that if information is useful, it must have meaning.” Or, do you have some other example of meaningful information where no intelligent agent is to be found?
-Mel
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 17. March 2007 06:34
William Paley claimed, long before Darwin -
"Where there is design there is a designer."
Unfortunately he was wrong. What he should have said, and all that can be substantiated, is -
"Where there is design there WAS a designer."
One or, of course, more than one past designers are all that is necessary to account for the living world. To insist on a personal living God is without either foundation or necessity. There is no place in science for either the Judeo-Christian ethic or compulsive Dawkinsian atheism. That does not mean that the Christian God does not exist. It means only that He is not required.
Again I will let another speak for me -
"Let us not invoke God in realities in which He NO LONGER HAS TO INTERVENE."
Pierre Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms, page 166, his emphasis.
Out of deference to Christian dogma please note that both Grasse and myself have capitalized He.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
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Melvin H. Fox
Member
Member # 1684
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posted 17. March 2007 17:24
John,
You interject:
quote:
To insist on a personal living God is without either foundation or necessity.
Nobody, I am aware of, has, on this thread, insisted on a personal living God. You know of course that I do, but have not in this string. Why do you continue to bring it up, seemingly, out of the blue? Would you like an introduction?
One could argue, as William Lance Craig did in his debate with Bart D. Ehrman [Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?], that there is a foundation but this would not be on topic here.
What might be on topic here is an argument for the necessity of a personal living God. Life is in trouble. There will come a time in the natural universe when life will not exist anymore. If for no other reason this will occur due to the workings of the 2nd law of thermodynamics or what is sometimes called heat death. This is a sure thing and I disagree with Granville Sewell when he says “The second law is all about probability: the reason natural forces may turn a computer into scrap metal but not vice-versa is probability.” I likewise disagree with John Scales Avery when, in his book “Information Theory and Evolution”, he claims that the 2nd law is a statistical law. The fate of life in the universe, apart from an intervening God, has been determined by this law. If the universe is a closed and isolated system and God is truly dead, then life is without hope. A supernatural living God would be necessary for the continuance of life.
There is good news however. Since there has yet to be a single system discovered that is closed and isolated, one ought to assume that the universe is itself open. One could then form the hypothesis that the necessary supernatural living God exists outside the confines of our universe and be ready to observe His naturally inexplicable [miraculous] actions in and about our universe. The probability maths could be utilized, as Dembski has done, to identify probable intervening acts. Where anecdotal testimony exists, attested to independently, an interested personal God could be inferred.
When Grasse says “…He NO LONGER HAS TO INTERVENE” and you say “…He is not required”, I agree only if an irrevocable everlasting death sentence is to be expected from a designer so magnificent as to design this awesome universe and the life that there in resides.
-Mel
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John A. Davison
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posted 18. March 2007 07:15
But life probably is without hope. Who needs hope? I sure don't. The history of life is the history of extinction and always has been. The only difference today is that there are no replacements. Progress has stopped with the production of the last mammal, Homo sapiens. Look at the mess we are making of it all. It is disgusting if you ask me. We should all be grateful for having been destined to live in the terminal phase of the evolutionary sequence. I doubt very much if humanity will survive the 21st century no matter what we do now.
I differ from Einstein only on one very important point. He never believed there was a purpose in Nature -
"I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic."
I believe, with Robert Broom, that there was a purpose, a Plan, which was to produce as an ultimate product a rational creature able to understand his own origins. That is where we stand today. We ARE that ultimate product and as far as I can see that is the end of it. From now on it will all be downhill. I would be delighted to be wrong of course but reality pleads otherwise.
"Everything is determined... by forces over which we have no control."
Albert Einstein
Surely Albert, if everything is determined, there must have been a purpose.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
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