The Antikythera Mechanism and the Design Inference

_{May 17, 2017

Design inference}

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Today’s Google Doodle honors the Antikythera mechanism discovered in 1901 from the Antikythera shipwreck.

This remarkable object has been the subject of intense study for more than a century, with various theories about its precise origin and construction still being put forward. Debates have played out about when it was constructed, by whom it was constructed, and the purpose of its construction.

Yet no-one has questioned whether it was designed.

It was clear from the characteristics of the object itself that it was designed.

It was clear that it was designed before subsequent questions were asked or (tentatively) answered about who designed it, when it was designed, how it was designed, where the designers came from, what their purpose was, whether there were more than one designer, and on and on. Indeed, if researchers had not first determined it were designed, those subsequent questions would never even have been asked.

Furthermore, and significantly, it was well known by scientists at the time it was discovered that the ancients had no ability to construct such a mechanism. At least that is what was thought. Some investigators even argued that it “was too complex to have been constructed during the same period as the other pieces that had been discovered.” In other words, we did not know that there was even a designer around at the time with the ability to construct such a mechanism. However, after the new discovery of the Antikythera mechanism and the eventual acceptance of its early date, we now have a new piece of information about the designer. Now we know that there was a designer at the time capable of producing the artifact in question. This is the direction in which the arrow of discovery and inference runs. Not the other way around.

The Antikythera mechanism is a wonderful example of how the design inference works in practice in the real world. And it gives the lie to so many of the anti-ID talking points against the design inference, showing that the objectors are more often motivated not by an objective search for truth but by philosophical or religious attempts to prop up a dying materialistic narrative.

Comments

@UB
If you were expecting me to hold your hand, then you had the wrong conversation partner. If you were expecting me to bite off on all your pointless (and endless) canned speeches, then I’m not your guy.
I’m expecting you to expand on your ideas with more than a few sentences. And, yes. You’e already indicated that you’ll only respond to things you find interesting.
You came here and presented an argument for the origin of information in the living cell that is not physically possible. Do you understand?
So, it violates the laws of physics? Is there a special theory of biological information? Also, impossible as in how induction is impossible? Still waiting for the steps you took and how induction provides guidance.
You, of course, did not know it was not possible because you (quite obviously) have never taken the time to actually study what is physically necessary. I then presented you with an inference to the only source that can actually be demonstrated as capable of the physical effects required to organize the living cell.
This is partially rich coming from someone who refuses to present a physical theory of information. Again, observations are not conclusions or theories with necessary consequences. Guess that’s still lost on you.
You would like to now pitch this encounter as your lonely struggle against tyrants who refuse to answer your questions and won’t respond to your thoughtful and genuine inquiries. But that is mere deception.
I’ve given examples of genuine and thoughtful responses designed to make progress. Are you denying they are not? Are you assuming it’s just obvious? That’s exactly my criticism. Nothing is obvious. I guess that is lost on you as well.
The fact of the matter is that you did not engage a thing that was said to you.
That’s even more vague criticism. It is irreverent because? You don’t find it interesting?
Instead, you humped Hume for the next month, reminding the world that induction doesn’t guarantee truth (apparently forgetting that you are in the same boat as the rest of us).
Again, saying you are confused about how knowledge grows, is not the same as saying there is no knowledge. How many times have I corrected you? Again, is there nothing that can be done about this?
You also wasted an inordinate amount of time with defensive maneuvers – like asking me what “theories” I was adhering to. Good grief. My moniker is linked to a page entitled “Biosemiosis”. Perhaps this is a clue? I noticed that even others on this board, hearing you ask the question, took it upon themselves to point this fact out to you.
How is this a clue? For example, I’ve asked you over and over again for the theory of information you were referring to, pointing out that nearly all have problems, such as having a circular issue with distinguishability. I even suggest Shannon’s theory, which you still ignored. Finally, someone else explicitly posts a link to the Biosemiosis site, and, what do I find? Shannon’s theory referenced there. You then go on to suggest that no one 50 years ago asked if that information was Shannon information. So, apparently, the Biosemiosis site references papers that are irreverent to your theory. So, which papers are relevant? How am I supposed to know? Where are the quotes that expand on it? Am I supposed to go though all of them? Furthermore, which actually reach the same conclusion as you? IOW, it’s unclear what explanation are you referencing and how does it have consequences that necessary exclude other means of creating knowledge. This is opposed to merely appealing to induction.
the bottom line here is that your theory about the origin of information on Planet Earth is full of holes. You have been given significant opportunity to address the issues. You have failed, and now you are forced to defend an idea that you can’t give up.
This is like paying a game of intelligent design wack-a-mole. See comment #61, especially regarding the appearance of design and replicators with high accuracy vs low accuracy. Is there some reason why you keep ignoring this?
You apparently consider it bafflegab for me to state that (when information is translated) it is the non-integrable constraint(s) in the system (not the medium) that establishes the referent(s). This is to say, during genetic translation, it is the set of aminoacyl synthetases (not the codons in DNA) that establish which amino acids will be bound to a new protein.
The phrase “non-integrable constraint(s)” is bafflegab because it is vague and needs clarification. This is why I keep asking to you expand on what you mean here by explicitly pointing to a theory that expands on it. Apparently, that’s just too much work for you, or you think it’s impossible to not know what you mean though experience. As I’ve pointed out. It’s unclear how the entire system cannot be expressed as constructor theory tasks with subtasks, etc. leading to tasks that are not specific to replication. For example, any part of the cell that mediates translation must be knowledge, right? If it’s not, then where does that knowledge come from? Does the cell phone home to obtain it? Is it somehow already present in the laws of physics? Is there some violation of the laws of physics that provides it? Your lack of a response leads me to believe you think there is some special theory of biological information, as opposed to information about biology, which you have yet to address. We do not choose which transformations (knowledge) will solve problems any more than we can simply choose to know how to cure cancer. Either information plays a casual role or it does not. Either it is present there or it’s not. It’s as if you object to constructor theory tasks because the result does not not have same problems as the current conception of physics.
These things are not even controversial; they are described in every biology text book from one end of the planet to the other, yet you’re eager to issue a challenge. Like a cartoon character, your first step is into a brick wall.
It’s only a brick wall if one assumes observations can only have one conclusion.critical rationalist_{June 10, 2017
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@Eric
Eric: Of course we, as intelligent beings, can obtain knowledge and create information.
Of course? It could be that some designer simply updates our brains at the appropriate times and we’ve had nothing to do with it. As such, it only appears that way. If the universe was created 30 seconds ago by a supernatural being then it would only appear that I authored earlier comments on this thread. The same would have been said for the supposed discoveries of Newton, Einstein, etc. The true creator of those past discoveries would have been not those scientists, but the supernatural being. Such a theory would deny the existence of the only creation that really took place. And in it really is creation. Before a discovery is made, we have no method of predicting the content or consequences of that discovery. If we did, that method would be that discovery itself. So, despite being determined by the laws of physics, discoveries in science are profoundly unpredictable. Even for intelligent agents. So, what science (and creative thought) achieves is unpredictable creation ex nihilo. So does biological evolution. No other process does. IOW, creationism is misleadingly named. It is not a theory explaining knowledge as being do to creation, but the very opposite. It denies that creation happened by placing the origin of that knowledge in an explanationless realm. It is actually creation denial, as is inductivism and other false explanations for the growth of knowledge. In the case of creationism the explanation is supernatural. In the current crop of ID, the explanation is absent (explanationless as well), as its designer is abstract. And in the case of inductivism, it is irrational. Inducvitism denies that knowledge is actually created because it assumes the contents of our theories are derived from observations. I.e. that they are already out there for us to experience and therefore not genuinely created. So, we are in agreement that intelligent agents can possess knowledge, but not how or if it is generally created. That has implications about whether knowledge can grow in other ways. etc.
Eric: The problem is it seems you keep personifying this knowledge as though it were the actor, as though it were growing on its own and being stored on its own, and being embodied in a system on its own.
I’m doing the opposite. I’m extracting and deperconifying the role of knowledge in design. I’m suggesting you’re mistaken about that. Conjectures are guesses. They are not guaranteed to result in knowledge. They are not random, but they are not guaranteed sources of knowledge. Nor are they the result of some “principle of induction”. Again, knowledge is information that plays a casual role in being retained when embedded in a storage medium. It doesn’t require a knowing subject. It’s not limited to agents. Nor are agents merely authoritative sources of them. As I keep pointing out, being an intelligent agent isn’t enough.
…I’d like to design a drug to cure cancer. However, regardless of what intention or purpose I had in formulating any such drug, it would only actually cure cancer if the necessary knowledge of what transformations of matter required to do so were actually present in it when administered. My mere desire, enthusiasm or benevolent intent are insufficient to actually cure cancer. Right? So, it’s unclear why knowledge is “not necessary with regards to a designer” and biological organism.

Eric: There is no rational basis for the idea (which I think is what started this whole thing a few threads ago) that a replicator is somehow going to produce knowledge or produce information.
Again, using the analogy in this comment. It’s as if we are in agreement that computers can perform computations with silicon, but disagree about an explanation for those computations (a theory of computation) and the necessary implications that theory would have. To reach a false conclusion from observations, such as only devices that contain silicon can perform computations, you must first have a false theory, such as that silicon plays a unique role in computations. That’s what I’m suggesting regarding the growth of knowledge, including the knowledge in biological organisms. Your conclusion is based on a false theory of how knowledge grows, such as, it’s possible to just “follow the evidence”, or knowledge comes from authoritative sources, etc. If there was such an explanation, then God couldn’t have done it. If ID’s designer wasn’t abstract and had limitations about what it knew, when it knew it, etc. it would exclude God. So, it would come as no surprise that any such explanation or reference to limitations as explanations must be avoided at all costs, even at the cost of being able to explain specific observations about the biosphere. For example, organisms appear in the order of least to most complex. How can we explain this? As indicated above, evolution says that knowledge is genuinely created over time. As such, a necessary conclusion is that raw materials could not be transformed into more complicated organisms until that knowledge was created. There is no other option. However, ID’s designer is abstract and has no defined limitations as to what it knows, when it knew it, etc. As such, it could have created organisms in the order of most complex to least complex. Or even all at once. At best, ID can only say that order is “just what the designer must have wanted”, which explains nothing. We can say the same about the specific time line of the appearance of HVAC systems in automobiles. Human beings have a limited temperature range in which we are comfortable. First, we had to create theories of how to heat and cool our environment. Then we had to had to create the knowledge of how to implemented them at all. Then we had to create the knowledge of how to make them small enough, cost efficient enough and efficiently enough to be installed in automobiles that could be afforded by customers, etc. All of these things refer to human limitations and the growth of knowledge. ID’s designer has no such defined limitations. Nor will it explicitly ever do so for reasons indicated above. Even when it implicitly does, it is based on the vague assumption that the designer is “like us” but merely infinitely better.
Eric: Thus, to the extent that you are still harking back to that theory you referred us to, it is still nonsense and the authors of that paper/website have no idea what they are talking about.
Again, note how you have no specific criticism. Just that it’s “nonsense” and they have “no idea what they are talking about”.
Eric: On the other hand, if your only point is that we, as intelligent agents, can obtain knowledge and create information, then everyone is in agreement. But that certainly doesn’t address the question of how information came to be produced and then stored in biological systems.
My point is that, on the surface, you are appealing to the experience of intelligent agents designing things. But we cannot extrapolate observations without putting them in some kind of explanatory theory. We do not agree on even the existence of such a theory, the necessary implications of such a theory, or if knowledge genuinely grows, etc. Nor is being an “intelligent agent” enough to actually design things. See #68. Note how virtually none of this has even been acknowledged, let alone addressed. This is why I keep suggesting there is some kind implied theory about designers that is absent from ID - such as there are designers that can somewhat will things into existence, knowledge comes from authoritative sources, or that ID’s designer has infinite knowledge - by which this is not an actually problem that needs be acknowledged or addressed. This is what I mean when I say you cannot extrapolate observations without first putting them into some kind of theory, and that ID’s designer is abstract and has no defined limitations by design.critical rationalist_{June 10, 2017
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#113, If you were expecting me to hold your hand, then you had the wrong conversation partner. If you were expecting me to bite off on all your pointless (and endless) canned speeches, then I'm not your guy. You came here and presented an argument for the origin of information in the living cell that is not physically possible. Do you understand? Not. Physically. Possible. You, of course, did not know it was not possible because you (quite obviously) have never taken the time to actually study what is physically necessary. I then presented you with an inference to the only source that can actually be demonstrated as capable of the physical effects required to organize the living cell. You would like to now pitch this encounter as your lonely struggle against tyrants who refuse to answer your questions and won’t respond to your thoughtful and genuine inquiries. But that is mere deception. The fact of the matter is that you did not engage a thing that was said to you. Instead, you humped Hume for the next month, reminding the world that induction doesn’t guarantee truth (apparently forgetting that you are in the same boat as the rest of us). You also wasted an inordinate amount of time with defensive maneuvers – like asking me what “theories” I was adhering to. Good grief. My moniker is linked to a page entitled “Biosemiosis”. Perhaps this is a clue? I noticed that even others on this board, hearing you ask the question, took it upon themselves to point this fact out to you. That was 42 days ago. The bottom line here is that your theory about the origin of information on Planet Earth is full of holes. You have been given significant opportunity to address the issues. You have failed, and now you are forced to defend an idea that you can’t give up. How novel. The opening salvo in your next post at #114 is a perfect example of the defense that is surely to follow. You apparently consider it bafflegab for me to state that (when information is translated) it is the non-integrable constraint(s) in the system (not the medium) that establishes the referent(s). This is to say, during genetic translation, it is the set of aminoacyl synthetases (not the codons in DNA) that establish which amino acids will be bound to a new protein. These things are not even controversial; they are described in every biology text book from one end of the planet to the other, yet you’re eager to issue a challenge. Like a cartoon character, your first step is into a brick wall.Upright BiPed_{June 7, 2017
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Knowledge grows. It is genuinely created. We create explantory theories about how the world works, test those theories, then discard errors that we find. Transformations that do not solve those problems are discarded. We stumble upon those that do. Either the knowledge is present when needed or it is not.
Of course we, as intelligent beings, can obtain knowledge and create information. The problem is it seems you keep personifying this knowledge as though it were the actor, as though it were growing on its own and being stored on its own, and being embodied in a system on its own. There is no rational basis for the idea (which I think is what started this whole thing a few threads ago) that a replicator is somehow going to produce knowledge or produce information. Thus, to the extent that you are still harking back to that theory you referred us to, it is still nonsense and the authors of that paper/website have no idea what they are talking about. On the other hand, if your only point is that we, as intelligent agents, can obtain knowledge and create information, then everyone is in agreement. But that certainly doesn't address the question of how information came to be produced and then stored in biological systems.Eric Anderson_{June 7, 2017
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Discontinuity? An arrangement of nucleobases in a codon does not determined what pixel should appear in a jpeg. That association must be established by the constraint that has been selected to operate within the system.
Must be established? Now who's spewing "babblefab?" After all you wrote...
All the things I talk about are taken from physical analysis of the translation system inside the cell. They are observations (by qualitied physicists and biologists) derived from relating the material operation of the system to the immutable laws of nature.
Observations by qualified physicists and biologists are not the same as conclusions of those observations by those qualified physicists and biologists. So, again, where are all of the papers that reference that conclusion? Surely, if I should be able to reach that conclusion though my experience of reading those few sentences, then everyone must have reached it as well and there should be a phlerthora of papers that you can reference, right? Or are they just ignoring all the evidence as well? Is it one big conspiracy? Again, a more fundamental explanation for this is presented in the constructor theory of life, which refers to a series of tasks and sub tasks that eventually end in non-replication specific tasks. As for being prior established, this again sounds like the circular problem of distinguishing information in all other theories of information. Did you watch the video linked in #96? If it's not, then how is it different? Knowledge grows. It is genuinely created. We create explantory theories about how the world works, test those theories, then discard errors that we find. Transformations that do not solve those problems are discarded. We stumble upon those that do. Either the knowledge is present when needed or it is not. Ifcritical rationalist_{June 7, 2017
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UB is patient? Notice how.... 01. I've made significant effort here to understand UB's "Theory of information" which he apparently expects to obvious based on a few sentences and has refused to provide any expanded references that elaborate it. 02. I've devised multiple thought experiments, linked to multiple references and at least 4-5 expanded quotes from those references. Only now has he even barely acknowledged one, when referencing pixels. Apparently, UB thinks I should just be able to understand what he means exactly though experience, which is the same criticism I've presented here over and over again.critical rationalist_{June 7, 2017
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UB, you are a patient, patient man.Eric Anderson_{June 6, 2017
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It must operate in a system that can read the arrangement of the codon, and associate that arrangement with a specific physical constraint while preserving the natural discontinuity between them. Discontinuity? An arrangement of nucleobases in a codon does not determined what pixel should appear in a jpeg. That association must be established by the constraint that has been selected to operate within the system. Understand?Upright BiPed_{June 6, 2017
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#104 CR, there is nothing about a medium that MAKES IT a medium. The capacity to be a medium of information is not established by the dynamic properties of any object serving as the medium, and thus, there are no physical transformations that it must endure in order to be a medium. Any object that is a medium of information is ONLY a medium of information because it is operating in a very specific type of system that establishes it as a medium. A medium is a product of organization PRIOR to it being a medium; prior to it being able to specify anything at all. Do you understand? Take a string of DNA and say that this particular codon will represent (i.e. be a medium for) a particular pixel on a jpeg, and the arrangement of nucleobases within this codon will determine which color will appear in that pixel. What is minimally required to make this occur?Upright BiPed_{June 6, 2017
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Not one single example of a transformation that DNA must go through in order to be a medium.

The question is not about the ability to copy information in different mediums.
DNA already is a storage medium. As are atoms. The transformations you apply to them allow them to store specific information. So, it's still unclear as what's left?critical rationalist_{June 6, 2017
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#104 The question is not about the ability to copy information in different mediums. The question, again: what are the material conditions that enable a specification to be instantiated in a medium? You say that a medium must be physically adapted in order to store a recipe, and that this requires the medium to be physically transformed. I am asking for an example.Upright BiPed_{June 6, 2017
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CR: X is true. UB: What do you mean by X? CR: It depends on what you mean by X.Upright BiPed_{June 6, 2017
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CR: X is true. UB: What do you mean by X? CR: Your question is too vague. We cannot make progress.Upright BiPed_{June 6, 2017
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#103 Not one single example of a transformation that DNA must go through in order to be a medium.Upright BiPed_{June 6, 2017
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To further clarify, it is possible to store a JPG image in DNA, correct? So, we could copy an JPEG image into the DNA of a cell, right? What would happen? Ignoring the fact that doing so would likely cause it to stop functioning by corrupting some important sequence, nothing in an organism can decode it or display it. You could also copy a MacOS executable for decoding and displaying that image in DNA. But, the cell cannot execute it. That's because the knowledge of transformations (subtasks) the executable would defer to are not present in the cell to be performed. They are part of the library shipped with MacOS and not present there. None the less, the information would still be stored in DNA. Right? What about the information that currently exits in the DNA of organisms as a recipe? What’s the difference? The corresponding subtasks that the recipe in DNA defers to are present in the cell. As such, it causes additional transformations to be performed, etc. And those cause a copy of the organism to be made from raw materials. Those subtasks are just as much knowledge as the libraries that are called by an executable in MacOS. This is due to the interoperability property of information. Again, ignoring the fact that the cell would stop functioning due to rewriting the genome, if we could copy all of the libraries and an emulator into a cell it could display the image by rendering it using replicating itself with different visual properties, such as skin cells with different tones, or a number of other strategies. IOW, it would work because the necessary knowledge was made present there. Including the emulator, which knows to how translate between transformation instructions of a display system and some other visual mechanism. An example of this is running MacOS in a browser, which is designed to run on a completely different CPU, graphics display, etc. A number of examples are available online. In principle, this could have been run on Babbage’s analytical engine because it would have been a UTC. However, this would be impractical in practice do to the number of punch cards and time necessary to emulate a classic Mac. This is why I’m unclear as to why it’s not possible to express “language’” as constructor theory tasks. Or why language is somehow a indicator of design beyond an inductive argument, in that the distant past would have been like what we’ve experienced in the recent past.critical rationalist_{June 6, 2017
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UB: Did you not say that a medium must be physically transformed to store a recipe? I am merely asking you say what transformations you are speaking of.

CR: I did [say that a medium must be physically transformed to store a recipe], UB. And I pointed out the transformations are dependent on the contents of the recipe you want to store there.
Again, I've asked you a series of questions designed to help clarify what you mean by your question, because it is ambiguous. Is the above not accurate? Are you saying if we want a storage medium to embody different recipes we would still perform the same transformations? It’s unclear how that would not result in the same recipe, each time. Are you referring to something else? If so, please attempt to differentiate your question from the one I answered so we can move forward. You might say “yes, that is accurate, but that is only one aspect of how a storage medium embodies information. I’m referring to….” Or you might say, “no, that’s not accurate. My theory of information says X, Y, Z” at which point we can make progress.
UB: It’s as if you’ve completely forgotten that your original arguments on this blog were specifically related to the origin of life (the origin of the information inside the living cell). You seem to want to position it that I’ve somehow prevented you from answering the question by carelessly asking you about the actual topic of your own arguments – biological information.
How have you differentiated between me having forgotten my argument and you not understanding it in the first place because you’re stuck at a specific level of explanation (language)? For example, what do you mean by “biological information”? Is it information about biological systems or are you suggesting there is some special theory of biological information that works on some different principles than information anywhere else? Again, before someone can reach false conclusions from observations, they must first possess a false theory, such as the latter. This is why I keep asking what is the delta between constructor tasks outlined in the paper and the information in the cell? You keep saying it’s not equivalent, without explaining why. To build a car, we have a number of transformational tasks, like assembling the body, which has a number of subtasks related to the door, which has a number of task for the door handle, which has subtasks related to the handle’s manufacture, etc., which eventually end up at a subtask that is independent of the construction of cars, doors and handles. At a fundamental level, each subtask contains the necessary knowledge of what transformations of matter that must occur. And it’s through those transformations that raw materials become well adapted for a purpose. In the case of DNA, the sequences of genetic code call subtasks, which call other subtasks, which call other subtasks, etc. until we end up with subtasks that are not specific to cells or replication. This can be explained at a level that is not unique to biology because there is no special theory of biological information. Rather, it is though the interoperability property of information, which is part of information theory, that information about biology stored in DNA. We can take the information in DNA, import it into a computer, save it to disk, then copy (store) that data to DNA and copy it back. Or we could even us just atoms if they are cold enough. This is why I keep pointing out that if a designer copied the recipe there, you would still have the same problem as, due to the interoperability property of information, it would have required access to the same recipe embedded in some other storage medium. How do you explain that information, etc? Note that I’ve again attempted to make progress here by trying to get you to clarify what you mean though differentiation. Which, BTW, you’re painting as merely a distraction or evasion. IOW, you’re trying to negate our ability to make progress.critical rationalist_{June 6, 2017
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UB, it seems there is a rhetorical pattern of consistently creating distractions. KFkairosfocus_{June 6, 2017
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checking back in ...
UB: What you call “knowledge” is the specification of a thing (among alternatives) in a physical memory. What are the material conditions that enable a specification to be instantiated in medium of memory? CR: Knowledge, as I’m using it, is information that plays a casual role in being retained when embedded in a storage medium. UB: the information must first be instantiated in a medium before it can play a causal role in its preservation. So, again, what are the material conditions that enable a specification to be instantiated in medium of memory? CR: That medium must be physically adapted to store that receipe. And that requires that medium to be physically transformed UB: DNA is a storage medium. What physical transformations must DNA go through to be so? CR: Your question isn’t any more clear than when you first asked it. UB: Did you not say that a medium must be physically transformed to store a recipe? I am merely asking you say what transformations you are speaking of. CR: I did UB.
You did? I don’t see any examples. I don’t see any reasoning of how or why these transformations cause DNA to be a medium. I see none of this. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - It is now excruciatingly obvious that you have no intention of explaining what “transformations” you are referring to. You clearly intend to give no examples, regardless of the number of times I ask, or any other factor. At this point, you have developed two outstanding reasons why you cannot, or will not, give any examples. The first of these is based on the ludicrous proposition that you cannot provide any examples of what transformations DNA must go through to be a medium because, as you say, other substances can be mediums of information as well. You’ve attempted to sell this twisted non-sequitur with the equally twisted statement: “It is unclear why the question would be DNA specific”. It’s as if you’ve completely forgotten that your original arguments on this blog were specifically related to the origin of life (the origin of the information inside the living cell). You seem to want to position it that I’ve somehow prevented you from answering the question by carelessly asking you about the actual topic of your own arguments – biological information. One is left wondering: How do other instances of mediums stop you from providing any examples of the transformations that you say DNA must undergo in order to be a medium?? The answer is, they don’t. You’ve merely used this as a means to avoid giving any examples, and subsequently, to accuse me of asking the wrong questions. In other words, it’s pure BS. If you cannot relate your grand ideas to what is actually observed inside the cell, then there is no reason for anyone to pay any attention to you. Thus far, you’ve failed to do exactly that. This then leads us to your second fascinating reason why you can’t provide any examples of the transformations you say must occur. You say “storage mediums are well adapted to the purpose of storing a specific recipe. It is unclear how I could list all of the transformations for all possible receipes here in a comment.” CR, the question before you hasn’t changed one iota. I’ve asked you what material conditions enable a specification to be instantiated in medium. You say that a medium must be physically adapted in order to store a recipe, and that this requires the medium to be physically transformed. I am asking you to explain those transformations, give an example; support your claim! You have steadfastly refused to do so, and it appears that you now want to further avoid the question by morphing the question into something it has never been. No one has asked you about the distinction between different recipes. No one has asked you the difference between a turnip genome and an antelope’s. I am asking what is physically required for a thing to be a medium of information. You say that a medium must be adapted and transformed to store a recipe. I am asking you “How so?”Upright BiPed_{June 5, 2017
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UB: DNA is a storage medium. What physical transformations must DNA go through to be so?

CR: So, the transformations any physical medium must go though to store information depends on the information you are storing there, how it is encoded, etc. Right? Otherwise, you’re going to need to be more specific.

UB: Did you not say that a medium must be physically transformed to store a recipe? I am merely asking you say what transformations you are speaking of.
Yes, I did UB. And I pointed out the transformations are dependent on the contents of the receipe you want to store there. IOW, storage mediums are well adapted to the purpose of storing a specific recipe. It is unclear how I could list all of the transformations for all possible receipes here in a comment. I also pointed out the same information can be stored in, say, atoms, rather than DNA, so it was unclear why the question would be DNA specific. Finally, I asked you a very specific question designed to clarify what you meant, so we could make progress. You see, we have a problem in that we cannot use experience to determine what each of us actually means, because what we say can always be misinterpreted. So, I have to guess what you meant by your question, then reformulate what I think you mean without just repeating it back to you (because anyone can do that without actually understanding it) then have you tell me if I'm on the right track, and correct any errors I might have made, etc. Then, a some point, we have clarified things enough to address the issue at hand, but not exhaustively. Then again, perhaps I'm being charitable and actually making progress is yet another thing you simply do not find interesting, and therefore ignore?critical rationalist_{June 5, 2017
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UB: What you call “knowledge” is the specification of a thing (among alternatives) in a physical memory. What are the material conditions that enable a specification to be instantiated in medium of memory? CR: Knowledge, as I’m using it, is information that plays a casual role in being retained when embedded in a storage medium. UB: the information must first be instantiated in a medium before it can play a causal role in its preservation. So, again, what are the material conditions that enable a specification to be instantiated in medium of memory? CR: That medium must be physically adapted to store that receipe. And that requires that medium to be physically transformed UB: DNA is a storage medium. What physical transformations must DNA go through to be so? CR: Your question isn’t any more clear than when you first asked it.
Did you not say that a medium must be physically transformed to store a recipe? I am merely asking you say what transformations you are speaking of.Upright BiPed_{June 4, 2017
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Finally, you said something of interest.
I see. So when you said "haven't touched a thing" or "irrelevant" you were referring to merely "to what you find interesting"? Gotcha.
DNA is a storage medium. What physical transformations must DNA go through to be so?
Your question isn't any more clear than when you first asked it. Apparently, you think it's obvious like you somehow think that the presence of a language in DNA means that organisms were obviously designed? Why just DNA? We can use atoms as a storage medium. How is that question any different than "what physical transformations must atoms need to go though to be [a storage medium]?" We can import DNA into a computer as binary, then edit it and store it on disk. And we can copy data from a disk, such as image or movie, to DNA as a storage medium and read it back. So, the transformations any physical medium must go though to store information depends on the information you are storing there, how it is encoded, etc. Right? Otherwise, you're going to need to be more specific.critical rationalist_{June 4, 2017
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Finally, you said something of interest.
to the point of your question, what is required for a receipe to be instancated in a storage medium? That medium must be physically adapted to store that receipe. And that requires that medium to be physically transformed.
DNA is a storage medium. What physical transformations must DNA go through to be so?Upright BiPed_{June 3, 2017
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@UB
I don’t begrudge you an opportunity to be pointless and pedantic; it might be all you have left. However, I will assume that this means you are indeed unable to state how constructor theory accurately describes the observed physical aspects involved in language. Given that the theory doesn’t even mention those aspects (except to assume them), it’s hardly a surprise.
What aspects doesn't it mention, UB? What is it about language that prevents it from being expressed as constructor theory tasks, which is a more fundamental conception of physics? Are you referring to "...a specific system that can produce effects that are discontinuous with the dynamic properties of the medium that evokes their production." ? Does this represent a violation of the laws of physics? Or perhaps you're referring to how these two systems appear to be dependent on each other. But this is addressed by pointing out that, in the prevailing conception of physics, distinguishability is circular. This circularity is discussed in this lecture on the constructor theory of information. As for assuming aspects of language, from the referenced paper...
3 Computation Our theory of information rests on first understanding computation in constructor-theoretic terms. This will allow us to express information in terms of computation; not vice-versa as is usually done. This is the key to avoiding the circularity at the foundations of information theory that we described in Section 1. A reversible computation C? (S) is the task of performing a permutation ? over some set S of at least two possible attributes of some substrate: C? (S)=?{x??(x)}. x?S For example, swapping two pure quantum states constitutes a reversible computation, and may be a possible task even if they are not orthogonal. It is then natural to define a computation variable as a set S of two or more possible attributes for which C?? for all permutations ? over S, and a computation medium as a substrate with at least one computation variable. (Since side-effects are allowed in the performance of C? , this definition does not require physical processes to be reversible.) Note again that in this paper we are not taking computation to be an a priori concept and seeking necessary and sufficient conditions for a physical process to instantiate it (cf. Horseman et al. 2014). We are conjecturing laws of physics: objective regularities in nature. These happen to be conveniently expressed in terms of the tasks we have called ‘computations’ and the property that we shall call ‘information’. We think that these correspond reasonably closely to the intuitive concepts with those names, but our claims in no way depend on that being so. 4 Information As we mentioned in Section 1 the intuitive concept of information is associated with that of copying. We shall express this association exactly and without circularity, in terms of computations as defined in Section 3. We first consider computations involving two instances of the same substrate S. The cloning task for a set S of possible attributes of S is the task RS (x0 )= ?{(x,x0 )? (x,x)} (3) x?S on S?S, where x0 is some attribute with which it is possible to prepare S from generic, naturally occurring resources (Section 6 below). This is a generalisation of the usual notion of cloning, which is (3) with S as the set of all attributes of S. A set S is clonable if RS(x0)? for some such x0 . An information variable is a clonable computation variable. It is then natural to define an information attribute as one that is a member of an information variable, and an information medium as a substrate that has at least one information variable. Also, a substrate S instantiates classical information if some information variable S of S is sharp, and if giving it any of the other attributes in S was possible. And the classical information capacity of S is the logarithm of the cardinality of its largest information variable. The principle of locality II implies the convenient property that the combined classical information capacity of disjoint substrates is the sum of their capacities. Thus we have provided the purely constructor-theoretic notion of classical information that we promised. But we have emancipated it from its dependence on classical physics, and cured its circularity.
So, yes. The current conception of information, which is vague and has significant problems, exhibits a circularity. But I've mentioned this from the start, which you have continually ignored. IOW, it's as if your objection is that that the theory presented doesn't exhibit the circularity in your description of language. So, it's somehow incomplete without it. It's unclear why this circularity necessities the need for a designer, instead of a more fundamental theory that fully brings information into physics and does not exhibit that circularity. critical rationalist_{June 3, 2017
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Eric:
You are misunderstanding the flow of analysis, assuming that we have to know about the existence of a designer before we can infer design. That is precisely backwards of how it occurs in the real world. In every case in which we do not actually witness the creation in real time, we always infer design from the artifact itself.
I think that you have misunderstood what I am trying to say. I have never said that we have to witness the design in real time to reliably infer design. Or even know precicely who the designer was, where he did it, when he did it or even have a full understanding of how he did it. This artifact is made of bronze. From this fact alone, we can reliably infer some level of manufacture. The fact that we know that humans can and have made bronze lends strength to the argument that it was made by humans or by somebody with the same capabilities as humans. This is further supported by the fact that it also has interlocking gears, something that humans have been using for centuries. The fact that their use and level of complexity predates other examples does not affect our ability to infer design. Ventner's manipulation of DNA just shows that we can manipulate DNA. We have been doing this for centuries without even knowing it. It says nothing about whether or not DNA arose through design. Only that it could have. But nobody is arguing that design isn't a possibility. Scientists are constantly doing research and experiments on how DNA may have arisen. All that ID opponents are asking is why ID scientists aren't doing the same thing. The argument for the design of DNA is based largely on gaps in our knowledge of how it arose. The same gaps exist from the ID side as well. The big difference is that one side in this argument is making efforts to fill these gaps. Proposing possible pathways, testing them, revising them, retesting. Sometimes rejecting the proposed pathway.kmidpuddle_{June 3, 2017
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@UB I've been preparing to start a new team project this week. Just getting back to this now.
#77 I think the timing of pointless thought experiments is indicative. You refuse to address actual scientific observation. You cannot even speak the words.
Yet even more vague criticism. Merely saying "It's irrelivant" doesn't explain why it's irrelivent. Are you saying your argument doesn't take the form above? If not, then what form is it? I won't be holding by breath. Apparently, when you "perform" induction, you're somehow just following the evidence. But when I point out that it's impossible and show how one could falsity reason via experience to reach concusions you disagree with, that's just bias or ideological assumption. So, if that's all you're doing, then show me how induction provides guidance. I mean, if you're just following the evidence, then you should be able to trace your seps. Surely, you can do that, right? Speaking of which, to the point of your question, what is required for a receipe to be instancated in a storage medium? That medium must be physically adapted to store that receipe. And that requires that medium to be physically transformed. Following your assumption that a designer must have put it there, that means the designer must have known what transformations to perform, so the copy could be made. So, that means the supposed designer must have had access to that receipe instancated in a storage medium. Oh look. We again have that same recipe instancated in a storage medium. Specifically, due to the interoperability property of information. The same receipe can be instancated in different ways, but still reflect the same information. So, regardless of what form it takes, we have the very same problem. And, according to you, some designer must have put it there. So, that it must have known what physical transformation were necesssry to transform that storage medium so it could perform the copy. So the desgner's designer must have had access to that receipe instancated in a storage medium. Oh Look. We have that very same receipe instanceated in a storage medium. That's the very same problem, yet again, due to the interoperability property of information. What's required? Well, that would be yet another designer, and yet another, and yet another, etc. We have an infinate regress. IOW, from a physical perspective, you've merely pushed the problem up a level without improving it. It's as if you pushed the food around on your place and claimed you've ate it. Yet, it is still right there, staring you in the face.critical rationalist_{June 3, 2017
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F/N: cc'd the exchange in the follow-up thread, which should make it easier to see context not being engaged with by objectors: https://uncommondescent.com/design-inference/fft-antikythera-paley-crick-axe-the-first-computer-claim-and-the-design-inference-on-sign/#comment-632884 KFkairosfocus_{June 3, 2017
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kf @90: Shhhh! I first wanted to see if he was willing to look at the issue on logical grounds, before confusing him with the facts and recent technology developments. :)Eric Anderson_{June 2, 2017
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KMP @ 86: Weak.Truth Will Set You Free_{June 2, 2017
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EA, As I recall, Venter et al have already used DNA to store their own coded information, in English text (using names of proteins) and other workers have created additional, artificial bases X and Y. Where, given our contingency of being, it is patent that humans cannot -- and given beaver dams do not -- exhaust the domain of possible designers.That one is an inappropriate use of induction that would be laughed out of court at any good sci fi convention with a significant number of hard sci fans and writers, much less movie-goers. Where the issue of cosmological design makes nonsense of attempts to ideologically lock out candidate designers beyond the cosmos. KFkairosfocus_{June 1, 2017
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KMP, again, with all due respect, you miss the point that for twenty years Time Team drummed home week after week: archaeology or natural. (That is, manifestly an artifact coming from design or credibly a product of blind chance and/or mechanical necessity.) In Paley's terms: what is the difference between pitching your foot against a stone and finding a time-keeping . . . and in Ch 2, self-replicating . . . watch on the ground. In this case, it was a stone that was found, but one with a technologically loaded fossil (produced by 2,000 years of corrosion), almost 100 years after Paley wrote. And, that question, archaeology or natural implies the question of reliable inference on sign in the item in situ, in the ground or under the sea. The answer to this is manifest complex functional coherence, reflecting functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information, FSCO/I. Especially, where t-e-x-t-__s-t-r-i-n-g-s are involved. (Think of the scale around the face of a watch, think of the similar scales in the Antikythera mechanism and the associated instructional text.) Now, extend the inductive logic of providing good empirical support for an inference to best explanation: is or is not such FSCO/I a tested, empirically reliable SIGN of intelligently directed configuration as key causal process? ANS, on trillions of cases in point, with precisely zero counter-examples of actually observed cause of origin: it is an empirically reliable sign of design as cause. Where, also, analysis of search-challenge in large configuration spaces undergirds the point that functionality based on particular clusters of closely related configurations will be found in deeply isolated islands. And, that beyond 500 - 1,000 functionally specific bits, the blind search resources of the sol system or the observed cosmos will be fruitlessly exhausted due to utter want of resources to search more than a negligibly small fragment of the config space. Take this key finding to Darwin's warm pond or the like proposed pre-life environment. The implication is, life -- and its fossil traces in rock -- is credibly ~~"archaeology"~~ (--> artifact), it is not credibly a spontaneous result of blind cumulative, constructive, organising but blind molecular level forces in the pond or whatever. Indeed, just to pose the point draws it out, as, notoriously, the molecular level is the foundation of the principle of entropy. Where, uncontrolled "raw" energy and/or mass- flows into or through a thermodynamic system of atoms and molecules across its boundaries notoriously exponentially increase the number of ways energy and mass can be arranged at microscopic level, i.e, increase entropy. Under conditions without very precise controls, the spontaneous direction of change is therefore almost certainly towards clusters of microstates that hold overwhelming statistical weight. Indeed, that is precisely why we see that in living cells, there is encapsulation, there is smart gating, there are enzymes that promote thermodynamically otherwise unfavourable outcomes, there are molecular nanotech machines that under coded control assemble proteins per algorithmic sequences and much more. In short, apart from imposition of Lewontin-style a priori materialism and a resulting ideologically loaded but usually not explicitly stated imposition that one must never leave the door open to design, we are looking at a patent artifact of a technology well beyond our present capacity. Though with the work of Venter et al, we have begun to make advances. And, on those, I am confident that across this century, we will be able to do the deed in molecular nanotech labs, as part of an ongoing next level mechatronic age industrial revolution. Going further, close, complex co-adaptation and coherent organisation of components that effects a functioning whole -- fine tuning -- is another linked, strong sign of intelligently directed configuration as cause. This speaks to the vast and mounting body of evidence that our observed, evidently fine tuned cosmos, sitting at a locally deeply isolated operating point for cell-based life -- is also credibly the result of intelligently directed configuration. Configuration that sets up a world in which the top four elements are H, He, O and C, with the Hoyle-Fowler resonance of 1953 connecting the last two. And, N is nearby. Thus, long-lived stars and galaxies, the periodic table, water, organic chemistry. Bringing in N, proteins. No wonder Sir Fred Hoyle talked in terms of put-up jobs and super-intellects monkeying with physics, so there are no blind forces of consequence in physics, chemistry or biology. That is the issue we have to face, setting aside the blinkered muddle imposed by the ideology of a priori evolutionary materialistic scientism, an ideology that is actually self referentially incoherent and self-falsifying. KFkairosfocus_{June 1, 2017
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