How is Bill Dembski’s Being as Communion doing?

_{Denyse O'Leary

November 10, 2014

Informatics, Information, News}

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Currently (9:00 am EST) in the top 100 in the Kindle store, despite the sweetheart deals offered this summer, for buying the book.

For a thing to be real, it must be able to communicate with other things. If this is so, then the problem of being receives a straightforward resolution: to be is to be in communion. So the fundamental science, indeed the science that needs to underwrite all other sciences, is a theory of communication. Within such a theory of communication the proper object of study becomes not isolated particles but the information that passes between entities. In Being as Communion philosopher and mathematician William Dembski provides a non-technical overview of his work on information. Dembski attempts to make good on the promise of John Wheeler, Paul Davies, and others that information is poised to replace matter as the primary stuff of reality. With profound implications for theology and metaphysics, Being as Communion develops a relational ontology that is at once congenial to science and open to teleology in nature. All those interested in the intersections of theology, philosophy and science should read this book.

Here’s part of a review a reader sent:

Dembski leaves nothing to chance, not even chance itself. He is also a mathematician, so he looks at chance from the perspective of probability theory. He sees chance events through the law of large numbers and probability distribution. When looking at any event, we may prematurely assume—taken in isolation—that the event is (strictly speaking) random; however, in looking at all events aggregately, the probability distribution of those events will begin to show a pattern. He writes:

“For instance, as a coin is tossed repeatedly, the proportion of heads will tend to ½. This stable pattern to coin tossing is justified both theoretically (various probabilistic laws of “large numbers” confirm it) and practically (when people flip coins a large number of times, they tend to see roughly the same proportion of heads and tails).”

Information, Dembski writes, “is produced when certain possibilities are realized to the exclusion of others within a matrix of possibility…. It follows that information can be measured.”

See also: Brief excerpt from Being as Communion

Also How is Steve Meyer’s Darwin’s Doubt doing? (Continues to lead, and Christians defending Darwin continue to detract.)

Thought: Will Christians defending Darwin actually read Being as Communion first? Detract later?

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Comments

Denyse:
Yes, DiEb at 1, that’s the metric referred to. Just like Meyer is #2 in a similarly specific area. My guess is Dembski’s book will probably climb.
No, Denyse. You wrote this:
Currently (9:00 am EST) in the top 100 in the Kindle store,
That is not correct, as DiEb points out. Will you add a postscript to the OP explaining your error and correcting it?keith s_{November 10, 2014
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I forgot one really big question I would ask Dembski if I could. Do you think that there is any real difference between natural law and what Nagel calls "teleological law"? If the basic stuff of the physical universe is random and all order is imposed by laws which resolve the randomness, then isn't it the case that all laws are teleological?tragic mishap_{November 10, 2014
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Joe Here you go Tamara. Enjoy! Interesting. You contend Dembski defines "information" by the Shannon metric which considers message length only and specifically excludes any meaning the message may carry. Where did Dembski say that?Adapa_{November 10, 2014
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Have you done any info theory? If so, you should instantly recognise what Dembski was summarising in what you clipped to imply dismissal.
In the Shannon sense most certainly. I've been in the electronics business since a 300 baud modem was a desirable piece of equipment. But the clip I commented on seems to bear no relationship to the Shannon sense. How much information is in a human genome? How much more in the sum of everybody's genomes?Tamara Knight_{November 10, 2014
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Tamara Knight:
Do you have a page number for where he tells us how to measure it?
Here you go Tamara. Enjoy!Joe_{November 10, 2014
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There are very good 'scientific' reasons for believing that the entire universe is ultimately reducible to information in its foundational basis.
"Physics is the only real science. The rest are just stamp collecting." -- Ernest Rutherford
From the best scientific evidence we now have, from multiple intersecting lines of evidence, we now have very good reason to believe that the entire universe came instantaneously into origination at the Big Bang. Not only was all mass-energy brought into being, but space-time itself was also instantaneously brought into being at the Big Bang,,,
"Every solution to the equations of general relativity guarantees the existence of a singular boundary for space and time in the past." (Hawking, Penrose, Ellis) - 1970 “All the evidence we have says that the universe had a beginning.” - (Paper announced at Hawking's 70th birthday party - characterized as the “Worst birthday present ever”) Cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin of Tufts University in Boston - January 2012
Thus it logically follows that whatever brought the universe into being had to be transcendent of space-time, mass-energy. Yet the only thing that we know of that is completely transcendent of space-time, matter-energy is information.
“One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin? And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires. Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.” -Dr. Stephen C. Meyer earned his Ph.D. in the History and Philosophy of science from Cambridge University for a dissertation on the history of origin-of-life biology and the methodology of the historical sciences. Intelligent design: Why can't biological information originate through a materialistic process? - Stephen Meyer - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiXNxyoof8
Thus the question becomes ‘was information used to bring space-time, mass-energy into being?’,,, Simple enough question, but how do we prove it? It turns out that quantum mechanics and quantum teleportation have shed light directly on this question!,,, Both Wheeler and Zeilinger, from their work in quantum mechanics, have made strong claims that everything in the universe is ultimately reducible to information,,,
"it from bit” Every “it”— every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. “It from bit” symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has a bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances, an immaterial source and explanation, that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment—evoked responses, in short all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." – Princeton University physicist John Wheeler (1911–2008) (Wheeler, John A. (1990), “Information, physics, quantum: The search for links”, in W. Zurek, Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (Redwood City, California: Addison-Wesley)) Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word." Anton Zeilinger - a leading expert in quantum teleportation: http://www.metanexus.net/archive/ultimate_reality/zeilinger.pdf
Breakthroughs in quantum teleportation have gone one step further and have actually reduced photons to quantum information and 'teleported' them to another location in the universe.
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. http://science.howstuffworks.com/teleportation1.htm Quantum Teleportation - IBM Research Page Excerpt: "it would destroy the original (photon) in the process,," http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/
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 Darwinism, but in actuality both energy and matter ultimately reduce to a information basis as is presupposed in Christian Theism (John1). 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.
Moreover, photons are also shown to now be dependent on a 'non-local', beyond space and time, cause for their actions in the universe,,,
What Does Quantum Physics Have to Do with Free Will? - By Antoine Suarez - July 22, 2013 Excerpt: What is more, recent experiments are bringing to light that the experimenter’s free will and consciousness should be considered axioms (founding principles) of standard quantum physics theory. So for instance, in experiments involving “entanglement” (the phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance”), to conclude that quantum correlations of two particles are nonlocal (i.e. cannot be explained by signals traveling at velocity less than or equal to the speed of light), it is crucial to assume that the experimenter can make free choices, and is not constrained in what orientation he/she sets the measuring devices. To understand these implications it is crucial to be aware that quantum physics is not only a description of the material and visible world around us, but also speaks about non-material influences coming from outside the space-time.,,, https://www.bigquestionsonline.com/content/what-does-quantum-physics-have-do-free-will
Needless to say, these findings are not compatible with atheistic materialism Verse and Music:
Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. Goo Goo Dolls: All That You Are https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uQu5FTZ668
bornagain77_{November 10, 2014
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Still working my way through this one. I would like to see more conversation on it. He says it's the third book in a trilogy starting with The Design Inference and No Free Lunch, but I'm finding it quite different from those books. It's less of a hardcore, logical argument and more of an appeal. It feels like he's appealing to common values shared by IDists, TEs and atheists who have doubts about materialism. I'm not sure he has made his argument very straightforward or clear, but I'm only halfway through. He's arguing that we should think about reducing reality to information instead of matter, while making it clear he believes information is reducible to God and/or free will. But he wants to argue for information first so as to find common ground with people who don't believe in God. Basically it sounds like someone arguing for something he doesn't quite believe, and so it doesn't contain the crisp, clear reasoning I'm used to from his books. But again, I haven't finished it.tragic mishap_{November 10, 2014
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TK, please start with the 101 here, in my always linked. Have you done any info theory? If so, you should instantly recognise what Dembski was summarising in what you clipped to imply dismissal. KFkairosfocus_{November 10, 2014
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Yes, DiEb at 1, that's the metric referred to. Just like Meyer is #2 in a similarly specific area. My guess is Dembski's book will probably climb.News_{November 10, 2014
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Congratulations - though it is just #262,411 in the Kindle store now... It ranks #77 in "Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Logic & Language"... Either there is a hell of fluctuation, or this is just another example of Denyse O'Leary's reading skills.DiEb_{November 10, 2014
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Information, Dembski writes, “is produced when certain possibilities are realized to the exclusion of others within a matrix of possibility…. It follows that information can be measured.”
Do you have a page number for where he tells us how to measure it?Tamara Knight_{November 10, 2014
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