A weak excuse

35 Replies to “A weak excuse”

1. 1
   Roy says:

   October 17, 2013 at 4:17 am

   Often Intelligent Design is accused by some evolutionists of not being able to perfectly calculate the complex specified information of a system.

   My understanding is that the issue is not that you cannot calculate CSI perfectly, it is that you cannot calculate CSI at all.

   Roy
2. 2
   bornagain77 says:

   October 17, 2013 at 5:08 am

   Here are few short video clips from the recent documentary “FLIGHT”:

   FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds – Hummingbird tongue – video
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMw3RO7p9yg

   FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds – Feathers – video
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2yeNoDCcBg

   FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds – Flight muscles – video
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFdvkopOmw0

   FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds – Skeletal system – video
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11fZS_B6UW4

   Flight: The Genius of Birds – Embryonic Development – video
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ah-gT0hTto

   Here is a short video which highlights the much greater level of sophistication, in engineering, that the bird wing has over the airplane wing:

   How Bird Wings Work (Compared to Airplane Wings) – video
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jKokxPRtck

   along that note:

   The Marvelous Flight Capabilities of Birds – December 2, 2012
   Excerpt: “Avian flight,” a new study,,,, “complex biotechnical architecture of avian wings,” the “magic structural wing asymmetries” so important for aeroelastic flight control, and the “extremely precise coordination of the complex wing beat motions, together with a perfect flight guidance and control performance.”
   Then there are the flight muscles, sense organs and “extremely developed cerebellum” functioning as a guidance and control computer center. These “biological elements communicate with lightning speed like an autopilot as a biotechnical marvel with unimaginable precision.” As the paper concludes, “With their spectacular flight capabilities, birds are really the inimitable flight artists of nature.”,,,
   Unimaginable precision. Spectacular flight capabilities. Extremely precise coordination.,,, A remarkable design that our best engineers still cannot figure out.
   http://darwins-god.blogspot.co.....es-of.html
3. 3
   bornagain77 says:

   October 17, 2013 at 5:10 am

   and the fossil evidence is far more antagonistic towards the Darwinian scenario than Darwinists are willing to let on;

   Bird Evolution vs. The Actual Fossil Evidence – video with notes in description
   http://vimeo.com/30926629

   The following recent article was just plain neat to learn about:

   Study shows alpine swift (bird) can stay aloft for 200 days – Oct. 8, 2013
   Excerpt: In analyzing the data captured by the sensors, the researchers found that the test birds stayed in the air at one point for 200 days, covering approximately 10,000 kilometers in the process. This, the researchers report, is the longest flight duration ever recorded by a bird, and is only equaled by some sea-going creatures who need only propel themselves forward—birds of course also have to keep themselves in the air, a process that consumes a lot of energy.
   Some of the most obvious questions that come to mind regarding the birds are: how do they eat and drink? When do they sleep? Prior research has an answer for the first, they eat what is known collectively as aerial plankton—a mix of fungus spores, small insects, seeds and even bacteria that float about in the sky. The water in their food is apparently enough to sustain the birds indefinitely. As for how and when they sleep, scientists are still divided. Data from the sensors in the study indicated slow-downs, or periods of reduced activity where the birds glided more than flapped, but that clearly isn’t enough evidence to prove that the birds were sleeping. Some suggest that the birds, like some other organisms, don’t have to sleep, or only do so during certain periods of their lifecycle, such as during mating season.
   http://phys.org/news/2013-10-a.....-days.html

   Verse and Music:

   Genesis 1:20
   And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.”

   Lynyrd Skynyrd – Free Bird-BBC – 1975
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkTQUtx818w
4. 4
   bornagain77 says:

   October 17, 2013 at 7:21 am

   As to the undreamt of level of complexity being dealt with in living systems, compared to human technology, the comparison to our most advanced machines, in all honesty, is not even close. Michael Denton puts it this way:

   “Each cell with genetic information, from bacteria to man, consists of artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction and a capacity not equaled in any of our most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours”
   Michael Denton PhD. Evolution: A Theory In Crisis pg. 329

   “To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must first magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is 20 kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would see then would be an object of unparalleled complexity,…we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity.”
   Michael Denton PhD., Evolution: A Theory In Crisis, pg.328

   In fact the ‘simplifying assumptions’ of Darwinists,,

   No, Scientists in Darwin’s Day Did Not Grasp the Complexity of the Cell; Not Even Close – Casey Luskin – June 6, 2013
   Excerpt: ,,, the cell has turned out to be a lot more complicated than Darwin or his contemporaries imagined. Not only did they vastly underestimate the complexity of the cell, but it’s probably vastly more complex even than we imagine today.
   http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....72871.html

   ,,, these ‘simplifying assumptions’ of Darwinists have been some of the main conceptual obstacles in conveying to students just how immensely more complex the cell is than anything man has ever made.

   “We have always underestimated cells. Undoubtedly we still do today. But at least we are no longer as naïve as we were when I was a graduate student in the 1960s. Then, most of us viewed cells as containing a giant set of second-order reactions: molecules A and B were thought to diffuse freely, randomly colliding with each other to produce molecule AB — and likewise for the many other molecules that interact with each other inside a cell. This seemed reasonable because, as we had learned from studying physical chemistry, motions at the scale of molecules are incredibly rapid. Consider an enzyme, for example. If its substrate molecule is present at a concentration of 0.5mM,which is only one substrate molecule for every 105 water molecules, the enzyme’s active site will randomly collide with about 500,000 molecules of substrate per second. And a typical globular protein will be spinning to and fro, turning about various axes at rates corresponding to a million rotations per second.
   But, as it turns out, we can walk and we can talk because the chemistry that makes life possible is much more elaborate and sophisticated than anything we students had ever considered. Proteins make up most of the dry mass of a cell. But instead of a cell dominated by randomly colliding individual protein molecules, we now know that nearly every major process in a cell is carried out by assemblies of 10 or more protein molecules. And, as it carries out its biological functions, each of these protein assemblies interacts with several other large complexes of proteins. Indeed, the entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines.”
   (Bruce Alberts, “The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists,” Cell, 92 (February 6, 1998): 291-294 (emphases added).)

   James Shapiro on “dangerous oversimplifications” about the cell – August 6, 2013
   Excerpt: “Depending upon the energy source and other circumstances, these indescribably complex entities can reproduce themselves with great reliability at times as short as 10-20 minutes. Each reproductive cell cycle involves literally hundreds of millions of biochemical and biomechanical events. We must recognize that cells possess a cybernetic capacity beyond our ability to imitate. Therefore, it should not surprise us when we discover extremely dense and interconnected control architectures at all levels. Simplifying assumptions about cell informatics can be more misleading than helpful in understanding the basic principles of biological function.
   http://www.uncommondescent.com.....-the-cell/

   And although video animations of molecular biology have been a very useful tool in getting the message across to students as to some of the undreamt complexity being dealt with in the cell,,

   The Inner Life of a Cell – video (page down just a bit to view the video)
   http://www.studiodaily.com/200.....of-a-cell/

   ,, these animations still fall far short of truly impressing upon us the immensity of the complexity being dealt with in molecular biology over and above what man has ever designed. For instance, although the molecular animations give the impression that there is plenty of room in the cell, the reality of the situation in the cell is far different,,

   The physics of going viral: Researchers measure the rate of DNA transfer from viruses to bacteria – June 27, 2012
   Excerpt: E. coli cells contain roughly 3 million proteins within a box that is roughly one micron (1,000 nanometers) on each side. Less than 10 nanometers separate each protein from its neighbors. “There’s no room for anything else,” Phillips says. “These cells are really crowded.”
   http://phys.org/news/2012-06-p.....teria.html

   But why do the molecular animations show such a ‘roomy’ cell when the actual situation in the cell is far different?, i.e. far more cramped? The fact of the matter is that, despite the stunning advances that have recently been made in molecular biology, we are still grossly ignorant of many of the intricate processes of the cell.

   Systems biology: Untangling the protein web – July 2009
   Excerpt: Vidal thinks that technological improvements — especially in nanotechnology, to generate more data, and microscopy, to explore interaction inside cells, along with increased computer power — are required to push systems biology forward. “Combine all this and you can start to think that maybe some of the information flow can be captured,” he says. But when it comes to figuring out the best way to explore information flow in cells, Tyers jokes that it is like comparing different degrees of infinity. “The interesting point coming out of all these studies is how complex these systems are — the different feedback loops and how they cross-regulate each other and adapt to perturbations are only just becoming apparent,” he says. “The simple pathway models are a gross oversimplification of what is actually happening.”
   http://www.nature.com/nature/j.....0415a.html

   Cells Are Like Robust Computational Systems, – June 2009
   Excerpt: Gene regulatory networks in cell nuclei are similar to cloud computing networks, such as Google or Yahoo!, researchers report today in the online journal Molecular Systems Biology. The similarity is that each system keeps working despite the failure of individual components, whether they are master genes or computer processors. ,,,,”We now have reason to think of cells as robust computational devices, employing redundancy in the same way that enables large computing systems, such as Amazon, to keep operating despite the fact that servers routinely fail.”
   http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....103205.htm

   Thus, in all honesty, it is simply completely disingenuous for Darwinists to try to impose their ‘gross oversimplifications’ onto what is happening in the cell since it is, in fact, a gross mis-caricaturization of what is actually happening in the cell, and is far more apt to slow down, and even mislead, future research, than it ever to providing a fruitful, and accurate, conceptual basis for students (and scientists) studying cells seeking to unravel more mysteries of the cell!

   “Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin’s theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.,,,
   Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology. This becomes especially clear when we compare it with a heuristic framework such as the atomic model, which opens up structural chemistry and leads to advances in the synthesis of a multitude of new molecules of practical benefit. None of this demonstrates that Darwinism is false. It does, however, mean that the claim that it is the cornerstone of modern experimental biology will be met with quiet skepticism from a growing number of scientists in fields where theories actually do serve as cornerstones for tangible breakthroughs.
   Philip S. Skell – (the late) Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
   http://www.discovery.org/a/2816

   Verse and Music;

   Psalm 104:24
   O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.

   Creation Calls — are you listening? Music by Brian Doerksen
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwGvfdtI2c0
5. 5
   niwrad says:

   October 17, 2013 at 7:44 am

   Thanks bornagain77

   Along the lines of recognizing design in nature from signs, there is another important quote by Jesus about birds, lilies and humans (Matthew 6,26):

   Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? […] Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?

   Doubtlessly those words should be interpreted in a ID perspective of recognition of design in nature. In fact the “clothes” of birds, lilies and humans Jesus speaks about are symbolically their very bodies. So that, at the very end, the Jesus’ suggestion is to consider the complexity of the bodies of the living creatures, be they birds, lilies or humans, and an ordering or hierarchy of increasing organization.

   Of course Jesus was eminently an IDer ante litteram. Not by chance he was also the “son of the carpenter“, a precise symbolic reference to his “father”, the Great Designer of the universe.
6. 6
   William J Murray says:

   October 17, 2013 at 8:32 am

   Atheistic materialism is a rebellion against the obvious. Only a fool can look at the nanotechnological marvels in a single cell and say “There is no design necessary here.”
7. 7
   niwrad says:

   October 17, 2013 at 9:06 am

   Roy

   For certain systems (e.g. proteins) ID theory can provide CSI calculations that give a good idea of the improbability of a naturalistic origin of them. Indeed in these days some are speaking of proteins as “miracles”.
8. 8
   Barry Arrington says:

   October 17, 2013 at 9:15 am

   niwrad, interesting post. I made a similar point here:
   http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ted-shack/
9. 9
   niwrad says:

   October 17, 2013 at 9:43 am

   Barry Arrington

   Yes, both your excellent previous post and my actual one somehow say the same thing: often the obvious doesn’t need advanced mathematics, and – as you again rightly stated in your post “Doing My Duty” – “design is obvious”.
10. 10
    bornagain77 says:

    October 17, 2013 at 10:03 am

    Roy as to your understanding:

    My understanding is that the issue is not that you cannot calculate CSI perfectly, it is that you cannot calculate CSI at all.

    Perhaps you should convey your understanding to Nobel prize winner Jack W. Szostak

    Functional information and the emergence of bio-complexity:
    Robert M. Hazen, Patrick L. Griffin, James M. Carothers, and Jack W. Szostak:
    Abstract: Complex emergent systems of many interacting components, including complex biological systems, have the potential to perform quantifiable functions. Accordingly, we define ‘functional information,’ I(Ex), as a measure of system complexity. For a given system and function, x (e.g., a folded RNA sequence that binds to GTP), and degree of function, Ex (e.g., the RNA-GTP binding energy), I(Ex)= -log2 [F(Ex)], where F(Ex) is the fraction of all possible configurations of the system that possess a degree of function > Ex. Functional information, which we illustrate with letter sequences, artificial life, and biopolymers, thus represents the probability that an arbitrary configuration of a system will achieve a specific function to a specified degree. In each case we observe evidence for several distinct solutions with different maximum degrees of function, features that lead to steps in plots of information versus degree of functions.
    http://www.pnas.org/content/104/suppl.1/8574.full

    and also covey it to Kirk Durston PhD:

    Mathematically Defining Functional Information In Molecular Biology – Kirk Durston – short video
    http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3995236

    Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins – Kirk K Durston, David KY Chiu, David L Abel and Jack T Trevors – 2007
    Excerpt: We have extended Shannon uncertainty by incorporating the data variable with a functionality variable. The resulting measured unit, which we call Functional bit (Fit), is calculated from the sequence data jointly with the defined functionality variable. To demonstrate the relevance to functional bioinformatics, a method to measure functional sequence complexity was developed and applied to 35 protein families.,,,
    http://www.tbiomed.com/content/4/1/47

    A Scientific Method to Detect Intelligent Design in Biological Life – Kirk Durston – October 15, 2013
    Excerpt: Intelligent Design in Biological life:
    1. If an effect requires, encodes or produces statistically significant levels of functional information or functional complexity, it requires an intelligent mind to produce. (from above hypothesis)
    2. Universal protein Ribosomal S12 requires least 359 bits of functional information to encode.
    3. Therefore, Ribosomal S12 required an intelligent mind to encode.
    http://p2c.com/students/blogs/.....gical-life
11. 11
    niwrad says:

    October 17, 2013 at 11:45 am

    William J Murray:

    Atheistic materialism is a rebellion against the obvious.

    Exactly. In the same time atheistic materialism is a rebellion against the Truth. This is not good for the rebels because:

    The Truth is a reality that cannot be destroyed by what opposes it, rather the Truth destroys what opposes it.
12. 12
    Bateman says:

    October 17, 2013 at 11:52 am

    Forgive my layman approach to this:

    It seems to me that quantifying CSI would be as silly as quantifying comedy. Are they not both qualitative attributes? Are qualitative attributes not as significant in our experience as quantitative ones?

    Enlighten me here!
13. 13
    Eugene S says:

    October 17, 2013 at 12:06 pm

    Hi Roy,

    Leaving CSI aside, perhaps you could explain how inanimate nature selects for utility?
14. 14
    niwrad says:

    October 17, 2013 at 1:50 pm

    Bateman

    Your comment is thoughtful. Quantification is always reductive and simplifying. Per se it is possible to couple or map a number to anything in many ways. Also a comedy, when is written in text format, could be grossly quantified. For example, simply by counting the number of characters. Obviously – you object – we lose the main thing: the meaning of the comedy. You are right: the qualitative attributes are more significant in our experience than quantitative ones. But methodological naturalism would pretend to develop a purely quantitative science. A nonsense and a non-science.
15. 15
    Mung says:

    October 17, 2013 at 2:00 pm

    I would love to see how a purely quantitative science could be used to explain science itself.
16. 16
    bornagain77 says:

    October 17, 2013 at 2:26 pm

    Although ‘classical’ encoded information, such as the encoded functional information Szostak and Durston have quantified in molecular biology (as noted in post 10), and such as the encoded classical information which Marks, Dembski and company have quantified in a more nuanced, elegant, fashion here in their refutation of evolutionary algorithms,,

    LIFE’S CONSERVATION LAW – William Dembski – Robert Marks – Pg. 13
    Excerpt: Simulations such as Dawkins’s WEASEL, Adami’s AVIDA, Ray’s Tierra, and Schneider’s ev appear to support Darwinian evolution, but only for lack of clear accounting practices that track the information smuggled into them.,,, Information does not magically materialize. It can be created by intelligence or it can be shunted around by natural forces. But natural forces, and Darwinian processes in particular, do not create information. Active information enables us to see why this is the case.
    http://evoinfo.org/publication.....ation-law/

    Before They’ve Even Seen Stephen Meyer’s New Book, Darwinists Waste No Time in Criticizing Darwin’s Doubt – William A. Dembski – April 4, 2013
    Excerpt: In the newer approach to conservation of information, the focus is not on drawing design inferences but on understanding search in general and how information facilitates successful search. The focus is therefore not so much on individual probabilities as on probability distributions and how they change as searches incorporate information. My universal probability bound of 1 in 10^150 (a perennial sticking point for Shallit and Felsenstein) therefore becomes irrelevant in the new form of conservation of information whereas in the earlier it was essential because there a certain probability threshold had to be attained before conservation of information could be said to apply. The new form is more powerful and conceptually elegant. Rather than lead to a design inference, it shows that accounting for the information required for successful search leads to a regress that only intensifies as one backtracks. It therefore suggests an ultimate source of information, which it can reasonably be argued is a designer. I explain all this in a nontechnical way in an article I posted at ENV a few months back titled “Conservation of Information Made Simple” (go here). ,,,

    ,,, Here are the two seminal papers on conservation of information that I’ve written with Robert Marks:
    “The Search for a Search: Measuring the Information Cost of Higher-Level Search,” Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics 14(5) (2010): 475-486
    “Conservation of Information in Search: Measuring the Cost of Success,” IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics A, Systems & Humans, 5(5) (September 2009): 1051-1061
    For other papers that Marks, his students, and I have done to extend the results in these papers, visit the publications page at http://www.evoinfo.org
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....70821.html

    Although these definitions for classical functional information are good as far as they go as to clearly demonstrating the sheer implausibility of the atheistic Darwinian scenario as to generating functional information, in fact a single instance of what are perceived to be purely material processes generating functional information would be enough to falsify Intelligent Design in most people’s mind,

    Orr maintains that the theory of intelligent design is not falsifiable. He’s wrong. To falsify design theory a scientist need only experimentally demonstrate that a bacterial flagellum, or any other comparably complex system, could arise by natural selection. If that happened I would conclude that neither flagella nor any system of similar or lesser complexity had to have been designed. In short, biochemical design would be neatly disproved.
    – Dr Behe in 1997

    Michael Behe on Falsifying Intelligent Design – video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8jXXJN4o_A

    The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity: David L. Abel – Null Hypothesis For Information Generation – 2009
    To focus the scientific community’s attention on its own tendencies toward overzealous metaphysical imagination bordering on “wish-fulfillment,” we propose the following readily falsifiable null hypothesis, and invite rigorous experimental attempts to falsify it: “Physicodynamics cannot spontaneously traverse The Cybernetic Cut: physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration.” A single exception of non trivial, unaided spontaneous optimization of formal function by truly natural process would falsify this null hypothesis.
    http://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/pdf

    Can We Falsify Any Of The Following Null Hypothesis (For Information Generation)
    1) Mathematical Logic
    2) Algorithmic Optimization
    3) Cybernetic Programming
    4) Computational Halting
    5) Integrated Circuits
    6) Organization (e.g. homeostatic optimization far from equilibrium)
    7) Material Symbol Systems (e.g. genetics)
    8) Any Goal Oriented bona fide system
    9) Language
    10) Formal function of any kind
    11) Utilitarian work
    http://mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/ag

    Although these definitions for classical functional information are good as far as they go as to clearly demonstrating the sheer implausibility of the atheistic Darwinian scenario as to ever generating functional information, they still fall far short as to quantifying the total information content inherent in a cell. Many people, such Bateman and Roy have done in this thread, due to the transcendent nature of 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

    such people, such as Bateman and Roy, may hold that it is impossible to get a more precise measure on the functional information inherent in the cell, than that which has thus far been demonstrated, but such people would be wrong in their presupposition as to what is possible in the measure of the information inherent in the cell. Due to the tight similarity of the equations entropy and information,,

    “Is there a real connection between entropy in physics and the entropy of information? ….The equations of information theory and the second law are the same, suggesting that the idea of entropy is something fundamental…”
    Siegfried, Dallas Morning News, 5/14/90, [Quotes Robert W. Lucky, Ex. Director of Research, AT&T, Bell Laboratories & John A. Wheeler, of Princeton & Univ. of TX, Austin]

    Due to this tight similarity, between the equations of entropy and of information, a much more rigid approximation has been worked out for the functional information inherent within a cell. The information content that is derived in a ‘simple’ cell, when working from a thermodynamic perspective, is as such:

    “a one-celled bacterium, e. coli, is estimated to contain the equivalent of 100 million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. Expressed in information in science jargon, this would be the same as 10^12 bits of information. In comparison, the total writings from classical Greek Civilization is only 10^9 bits, and the largest libraries in the world – The British Museum, Oxford Bodleian Library, New York Public Library, Harvard Widenier Library, and the Moscow Lenin Library – have about 10 million volumes or 10^12 bits.”
    – R. C. Wysong

    ‘The information content of a simple cell has been estimated as around 10^12 bits, comparable to about a hundred million pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica.”
    Carl Sagan, “Life” in Encyclopedia Britannica: Macropaedia (1974 ed.), pp. 893-894

    For the calculations, working from the thermodynamic perspective, please see the following site:

    Moleular Biophysics – Information theory. Relation between information and entropy: – Setlow-Pollard, Ed. Addison Wesley
    Excerpt: Linschitz gave the figure 9.3 x 10^12 cal/deg or 9.3 x 10^12 x 4.2 joules/deg for the entropy of a bacterial cell. Using the relation H = S/(k In 2), we find that the information content is 4 x 10^12 bits. Morowitz’ deduction from the work of Bayne-Jones and Rhees gives the lower value of 5.6 x 10^11 bits, which is still in the neighborhood of 10^12 bits. Thus two quite different approaches give rather concordant figures.
    http://www.astroscu.unam.mx/~a.....ecular.htm

    Some people have argued, even though the equations are the same, that there is no ‘real’ connection between thermodynamics and information, but that false claim was recently put to rest:

    Demonic device converts information to energy – 2010
    Excerpt: “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,” says Christopher Jarzynski, a statistical chemist at the University of Maryland in College Park. In 1997, Jarzynski formulated an equation to define the amount of energy that could theoretically be converted from a unit of information2; the work by Sano and his team has now confirmed this equation. “This tells us something new about how the laws of thermodynamics work on the microscopic scale,” says Jarzynski.
    http://www.scientificamerican......rts-inform

    Thus the equations of information and thermodynamics, though almost certainly still in rough form, are physically demonstrated to be interchangeable and thus a much more precise measure of the functional information inherent in a ‘simple’ cell (and for life in general) can be worked out from the thermodynamic perspective.

    Of supplemental note: Encoded ‘classical’ information such as what Dembski and Marks demonstrated the conservation of, and such as what we find encoded in computer programs, and yes, as we find encoded in DNA, is found to be a subset of ‘transcendent’ (beyond space and time) quantum entanglement/information by the following method:,,,

    Quantum knowledge cools computers: New understanding of entropy – June 2011
    Excerpt: No heat, even a cooling effect;
    In the case of perfect classical knowledge of a computer memory (zero entropy), deletion of the data requires in theory no energy at all. The researchers prove that “more than complete knowledge” from quantum entanglement with the memory (negative entropy) leads to deletion of the data being accompanied by removal of heat from the computer and its release as usable energy. This is the physical meaning of negative entropy. Renner emphasizes, however, “This doesn’t mean that we can develop a perpetual motion machine.” The data can only be deleted once, so there is no possibility to continue to generate energy. The process also destroys the entanglement, and it would take an input of energy to reset the system to its starting state. The equations are consistent with what’s known as the second law of thermodynamics: the idea that the entropy of the universe can never decrease. Vedral says “We’re working on the edge of the second law. If you go any further, you will break it.”
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....134300.htm
17. 17
    bornagain77 says:

    October 17, 2013 at 2:27 pm

    That quantum entanglement can be used as a ‘quantum information channel’ is noted here:

    Quantum Entanglement and Information
    Quantum entanglement is a physical resource, like energy, associated with the peculiar nonclassical correlations that are possible between separated quantum systems. Entanglement can be measured, transformed, and purified. A pair of quantum systems in an entangled state can be used as a quantum information channel to perform computational and cryptographic tasks that are impossible for classical systems. The general study of the information-processing capabilities of quantum systems is the subject of quantum information theory.
    http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/

    Moreover, in a development that is completely antagonistic towards the reductive materialism that neo-Darwinism is based upon, using the ‘quantum information channels’ of quantum entanglement, a particle and/or photon can be reduced to quantum information and instantaneously teleported to another location in the universe,,

    Quantum Entanglement and Teleportation – Anton Zeilinger – video (notes in video description)
    http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5705317/

    In fact an entire human body can ‘theoretically’ reduced to quantum information and teleported:

    New Breakthrough in (Quantum) Teleportation – video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xqZI31udJg

    Quote from preceding video:
    “There are 10^28 atoms in the human body.,, The amount of data contained in the whole human,, is 3.02 x 10^32 gigabytes of information. Using a high bandwidth transfer that data would take about 4.5 x 10^18 years to teleport 1 time. That is 350,000 times the age of the universe.”

    for comparison sake:

    “The theoretical (information) density of DNA is you could store the total world information, which is 1.8 zetabytes, at least in 2011, in about 4 grams of DNA.” (a zettabyte is one billion trillion or 10^21 bytes of digital data)
    Sriram Kosuri PhD. – Wyss Institute

    In the preceding video they speak of having to entangle all the material particles of the human body on a one by one basis in order to successfully teleport a human. What they failed to realize in the video is that the human body is already ‘teleportation ready’ in that all the material particles, all the DNA and Proteins, of the human body are already ‘quantumly entangled’:

    Quantum Information/Entanglement In DNA – Elisabeth Rieper – short video
    http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5936605/

    Coherent Intrachain energy migration at room temperature – Elisabetta Collini and Gregory Scholes – University of Toronto – Science, 323, (2009), pp. 369-73
    Excerpt: The authors conducted an experiment to observe quantum coherence dynamics in relation to energy transfer. The experiment, conducted at room temperature, examined chain conformations, such as those found in the proteins of living cells. Neighbouring molecules along the backbone of a protein chain were seen to have coherent energy transfer. Where this happens quantum decoherence (the underlying tendency to loss of coherence due to interaction with the environment) is able to be resisted, and the evolution of the system remains entangled as a single quantum state.
    http://www.scimednet.org/quant.....d-protein/

    Also of note, quantum entanglement requires a non-local, beyond space and time, cause in order to explain its effect:

    Looking Beyond Space and Time to Cope With Quantum Theory – (Oct. 28, 2012)
    Excerpt: The remaining option is to accept that (quantum) influences must be infinitely fast,,,
    “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” says Nicolas Gisin, Professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland,,,
    Per Science Daily

    Moreover, quantum entanglement/information is ‘conserved’:

    Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time
    Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment.
    http://www.physorg.com/news/20.....tally.html

    Quantum no-deleting theorem
    Excerpt: A stronger version of the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem provide permanence to quantum information. To create a copy one must import the information from some part of the universe and to delete a state one needs to export it to another part of the universe where it will continue to exist.
    per wikipedia

    Moreover,,,

    The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings – Steve Talbott
    Excerpt: Virtually the same collection of molecules exists in the canine cells during the moments immediately before and after death. But after the fateful transition no one will any longer think of genes as being regulated, nor will anyone refer to normal or proper chromosome functioning. No molecules will be said to guide other molecules to specific targets, and no molecules will be carrying signals, which is just as well because there will be no structures recognizing signals. Code, information, and communication, in their biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary.
    ,,,Rather than becoming progressively disordered in their mutual relations (as indeed happens after death, when the whole dissolves into separate fragments), the processes hold together in a larger unity.
    per New Atlantis

    So where does this conserved ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, quantum information go upon the death of our temporal bodies?

    Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – Stuart Hameroff – video (notes in description)
    http://vimeo.com/29895068

    Quantum Entangled Consciousness (Permanence of Quantum Information) – Life After Death – Stuart Hameroff – video
    https://vimeo.com/39982578

    Verse and Music:

    John 14:2
    In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

    Evanescence – The Other Side (Lyric Video)
    http://www.vevo.com/watch/evan.....tantsearch
18. 18
    TheisticEvolutionist says:

    October 17, 2013 at 2:53 pm

    Quantum woo is the justification of irrational beliefs by an obfuscatory reference to quantum physics. Buzzwords like “energy field”, “probability wave”, or “wave-particle duality” are used to magically turn thoughts into something tangible in order to directly affect the universe. This results in such foolishness as the Law of Attraction or quantum healing. Some have turned quantum woo into a career, such as Deepak Chopra, who often presents ill-defined concepts of quantum physics as proof for God and other magical thinking.

    When an idea seems too crazy to believe, the proponent often makes an appeal to quantum physics as the explanation. This is a New Age version of God of the gaps.

    http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quantum_woo

    I recommend the above article bornagain.
19. 19
    bornagain77 says:

    October 17, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    TheisticEvolutionist, I’m always amazed, given your handle, that you, as far as I can tell, take the atheistic position in your posts. Now you have sunk so low as to cite the notoriously atheistic site of rational wiki. Do you also want to reference the rational wiki article on intelligent design while you are at it?

    Intelligent design
    Excerpt: Intelligent Design is just Creationism dressed up in a lab coat.
    —Matt Dillahunty (host, The Atheist Experience)

    Intelligent design creationism (often referred to as intelligent design or “ID”) is a pseudoscience
    http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
20. 20
    bornagain77 says:

    October 17, 2013 at 3:18 pm

    Anything other than materialism is woo woo, If you disagree,,,
    http://www.facebook.com/photo......38;theater
21. 21
    TheisticEvolutionist says:

    October 17, 2013 at 5:23 pm

    TheisticEvolutionist, I’m always amazed, given your handle, that you, as far as I can tell, take the atheistic position in your posts. Now you have sunk so low as to cite the notoriously atheistic site of rational wiki. Do you also want to reference the rational wiki article on intelligent design while you are at it?

    Rationalwiki is not an atheistic website, it’s true lots of atheists run that site, but there are some theist and deist editors as well. It is a website that is anti-pseudoscience that is all. I’m sorry but 90% of the stuff you paste in is pseudoscience. You have done some good as occasionally you have the good anti-Darwinian paper or papers against Neo-Darwinism such as from Denis Noble that you paste in but you ruin it all by linking to pseudoscience. The majority of your stuff is links to young earth creationists, or quantum woo about quantum physics proving a soul. Sorry but it’s quackery mate. You have fooled yourself. It doesn’t make intelligent design look good.

    As for the rationalwiki article on ID, I have no problem with it. The design argument to me is strictly philosophical. It’s not science in my opinion it’s not testable and it makes no predictions… so if people want to call it pseudoscience they can. The only thing I have in common with IDer’s is anti-Darwinism.
22. 22
    bornagain77 says:

    October 17, 2013 at 5:53 pm

    TheisticEvolutionist, funny that atheists on rational wiki (and apparently you) are in lock step in deriding anything that contradicts their/your naturalistic philosophy (and/or your indefinable theistic philosophy). Do you also happen to call Max Planck, the father of Quantum Mechanics, and also the scientist who brought Einstein out of obscurity, a pseudo-scientist?

    “As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”
    Max Planck – The Father Of Quantum Mechanics – Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944)(Of Note: Max Planck Planck was a devoted Christian from early life to death, was a churchwarden from 1920 until his death, and believed in an almighty, all-knowing, beneficent God.

    Perhaps Schroedinger should also suffer the wrath of your, and your atheist buddies, materialistic scoff?

    “Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.”
    (Schroedinger, Erwin. 1984. “General Scientific and Popular Papers,” in Collected Papers, Vol. 4. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences. Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig/Wiesbaden. p. 334.)

    Perhaps Nobel prize winner Eugene Wigner is also not worthy of your (ahem) highly esteemed approval either?

    “It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts may develop, that the very study of the external world led to the scientific conclusion that the content of the consciousness is the ultimate universal reality” –
    Eugene Wigner – (Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, Eugene Wigner, in Wheeler and Zurek, p.169) 1961 – received Nobel Prize in 1963 for ‘Quantum Symmetries’

    TheisticEvolutionist, whether you find it incredible or not, consciousness is far from being reduced to material causation as even the atheist Nagel admits,,

    Mind and Cosmos – Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False – Thomas Nagel
    Excerpt: If materialism cannot accommodate consciousness and other mind-related aspects of reality, then we must abandon a purely materialist understanding of nature in general, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history.
    http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/pro.....9919758.do

    Thus in actuality, despite your seeming dogmatic adherence to materialism (despite your handle), it should be of no surprise to you that consciousness is found to be integral/foundational to quantum mechanics (and reality in general,,

    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

    You can stick your head in the sand if you want, but I will follow the evidence!

    the argument for God from consciousness can be framed like this:

    1. Consciousness either preceded all of material reality or is a ‘epi-phenomena’ of material reality.
    2. If consciousness is a ‘epi-phenomena’ of material reality then consciousness will be found to have no special position within material reality. Whereas conversely, if consciousness precedes material reality then consciousness will be found to have a special position within material reality.
    3. Consciousness is found to have a special, even central, position within material reality.
    4. Therefore, consciousness is found to precede material reality.

    Four intersecting lines of experimental evidence from quantum mechanics that shows that consciousness precedes material reality (Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries, Wheeler’s Delayed Choice, Leggett’s Inequalities, Quantum Zeno effect):
    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G_Fi50ljF5w_XyJHfmSIZsOcPFhgoAZ3PRc_ktY8cFo/edit

    Colossians 1:17
    And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
23. 23
    TheisticEvolutionist says:

    October 17, 2013 at 6:40 pm

    Bornagain what you are doing is quote mining old books for one line or two from the early 19th century. It is an appeal to authority to be quoting those scientists. You ignore most their scientific work but only quote anything from them which you believe proves God or something supernatural. These are old quote-mines. There are millions of scientists that believe quantum physics has nothing to do with consciousness or proving the existence of deities but you will ignore them.

    Erwin Schrödinger was heavily influenced by Vedanta and Hinduism. He read the Bhagavad Gita in his youth, he was philosophical idealist. This is an extreme minority amongst physicists. There’s other as well such as Arthur Eddington;

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.....n#Idealism

    I have read them all. There’s no evidence for idealism, it’s a philosophical argument that goes back 1000s of years to eastern philosophies.

    the argument for God from consciousness can be framed like this

    Which God? And I fail to see how that is an argument for any God. IMO You are wasting all your time on this philosophical mumbo jumbo in an attempt to prove God when you could be learning about science.
24. 24
    bornagain77 says:

    October 17, 2013 at 6:45 pm

    TheisticEvolutionist, tell you what, for me to care what you think or say, you can simply provide the hard evidence that shows consciousness arising from a materialistic basis. Until then your opinion in this matter (or ID in general) means less than nothing to me!
25. 25
    TheisticEvolutionist says:

    October 17, 2013 at 6:46 pm

    TheisticEvolutionist, whether you find it incredible or not, consciousness is far from being reduced to material causation as even the atheist Nagel admits.

    Bornagain, I have no problem with materialism. Everything is made of matter. Science deals with the material world. If you see my posts on the non-religiously motivated dissent from Darwinism thread there are many materialists that have rejected Darwinism. I’m sorry but there’s no evidence quantum physics has proven the soul or any of this other mystical stuff. I hope there is life after death it would be awesome but there’s no scientific evidence for it.
26. 26
    bornagain77 says:

    October 17, 2013 at 8:13 pm

    Funny TheisticEvolutionist, I ask you for hard evidence for a materialistic origin of consciousness and you give me none. In fact, despite what you may believe, you can give me no evidence for what you falsely presume to be your ‘scientific’ position:

    Neuroscientist: “The Most Seamless Illusions Ever Created” – April 2012
    Excerpt: We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good.
    Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor
    http://darwins-god.blogspot.co.....sions.html

    Darwinian Psychologist David Barash Admits the Seeming Insolubility of Science’s “Hardest Problem”
    Excerpt: ‘But the hard problem of consciousness is so hard that I can’t even imagine what kind of empirical findings would satisfactorily solve it. In fact, I don’t even know what kind of discovery would get us to first base, not to mention a home run.’
    David Barash – Materialist/Atheist Darwinian Psychologist
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....52491.html

    But instead of you honestly admitting this blatantly obvious point that you have no ‘scientific’ evidence for the reductive materialistic position (i.e. that consciousness can ’emerge’ from a material basis), you disingenuously try to turn tables around and falsely claim there is no evidence from quantum physics for a ‘soul’ (or for ‘mystical’ consciousness I presume). Yet, despite your overt denialism (which matters not one iota to the actual ‘scientific’ evidence at hand) that is precisely the ‘scientific’ evidence we have in hand from quantum mechanics. Shoot, the double slit experiment itself, as ‘simple’ as that experiment is, provides solid evidence that the universe cannot be reductive materialistic in its basis.

    Double Slit Experiment – Explained By Prof Anton Zeilinger – video
    http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6101627/

    In the following video Anton Zeilinger, whose group is arguably the best group of experimentalists in quantum physics today, ‘tries’ to explain the double slit experiment to Morgan Freeman:

    Quantum Mechanics – Double Slit Experiment: Is anything real? (Prof. Anton Zeilinger) – video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayvbKafw2g0

    Prof. Zeilinger makes this rather startling statement in the preceding video:

    “The path taken by the photon is not an element of reality. We are not allowed to talk about the photon passing through this or this slit. Neither are we allowed to say the photon passes through both slits. All this kind of language is not applicable.”
    Anton Zeilinger

    Dr. Henry, physics professor at John Hopkins university, bluntly states the implications of Quantum Mechanics here;

    Quantum Enigma:Physics Encounters Consciousness – Richard Conn Henry – Professor of Physics – John Hopkins University
    Excerpt: It is more than 80 years since the discovery of quantum mechanics gave us the most fundamental insight ever into our nature: the overturning of the Copernican Revolution, and the restoration of us human beings to centrality in the Universe.
    And yet, have you ever before read a sentence having meaning similar to that of my preceding sentence? Likely you have not, and the reason you have not is, in my opinion, that physicists are in a state of denial…
    http://www.uncommondescent.com.....-designer/

    But quantum mechanics has now gone far beyond the ‘simple’ double slit experiment:

    Quantum Physics – (material reality does not exist until we look at it) – Dr. Quantum video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ezNvpFcJU

    If you have trouble accepting the implications of the preceding video, don’t feel alone, Nobel prize winner Anthony Leggett, who developed Leggett’s inequality to try to prove that an objective material reality exists when we are not looking at it, still does not believe the results of the experiment that he himself was integral in devising, even though the inequality was violated by a stunning 80 orders of magnitude. He seems to have done this simply because the results contradicted the ‘realism’ he believes in (realism is the notion that an objective material reality exists apart from our conscious observation of it).

    A team of physicists in Vienna has devised experiments that may answer one of the enduring riddles of science: Do we create the world just by looking at it? – 2008
    Excerpt: In mid-2007 Fedrizzi found that the new realism model was violated by 80 orders of magnitude; the group was even more assured that quantum mechanics was correct.
    Leggett agrees with Zeilinger that realism is wrong in quantum mechanics, but when I asked him whether he now believes in the theory, he answered only “no” before demurring, “I’m in a small minority with that point of view and I wouldn’t stake my life on it.” For Leggett there are still enough loopholes to disbelieve. I asked him what could finally change his mind about quantum mechanics. Without hesitation, he said sending humans into space as detectors to test the theory.,,,

    (to which Anton Zeilinger responded)

    When I mentioned this to Prof. Zeilinger he said, “That will happen someday. There is no doubt in my mind. It is just a question of technology.” Alessandro Fedrizzi had already shown me a prototype of a realism experiment he is hoping to send up in a satellite. It’s a heavy, metallic slab the size of a dinner plate.
    http://seedmagazine.com/conten....._tests/P3/

    Thus TheisticEvolutionist when you say ‘there’s no evidence quantum physics has proven the soul or any of this other mystical stuff’, you are either colossally ignorant of advances in Quantum Mechanics (as well as its history) or else you are just simply lying! Either way I don’t care what you believe for you have more than proven to me, on these pages, that you could care less about what the hard evidence actually says and that you will believe what you want believe no matter what the evidence says to the contrary. Good luck with all that, but please don’t try to pretend to me that you are being objective in you analysis of the evidence for you clearly are not! Now if you choose to respond to this post, all I ask is that you respond with actual experimental evidence refuting the experimental evidence I have presented thus far for I truly could care less what your personal opinion is in this matter! ans only care what the evidence actually says!

    Music and Verse:

    Already There – Casting Crowns
    http://myktis.com/songs/already-there/

    Psalm 118:27
    God is the LORD, who hath shown us light:,,,
27. 27
    EDTA says:

    October 17, 2013 at 8:49 pm

    The inability to calculate other quantities in all cases hasn’t prevented their acceptance. In the same ballpark as CSI is information-theoretic entropy, -1 * sigma(p * log(p)) for a set of symbols and their probabilities.

    Consider this calculation for a sentence from my post. Depending on whether you consider it as English text or ASCII bytes, you will get different answers. Depending on what probability distribution you choose for the symbols, you will get different answers. Do you treat each possible sentence as a symbol, or each character?

    So is the concept of information-theoretic entropy therefore useless? Is it “not science” because we can’t unambiguously calculate it to 50 decimal places in every conceivable application? Of course not. But it’s a common tactic to set the bar unreasonably high if you disagree with the idea…we’ve come to expect it of our detractors.
28. 28
    wd400 says:

    October 17, 2013 at 9:55 pm

    I don’t that you can’t calculate CSI is particular cases. It does seem, to me, to be a problem that calculating CSI requires you to the probability that the thing you are talking about might have arisen by evolutoin (that’s “the probability of being in a given target zone in a search space, on a relevant chance hypothesis”).

    If calculating CSI requires us to know the probability the thing in question arose by evolution, how does it help us test evolution?
29. 29
    Querius says:

    October 17, 2013 at 10:18 pm

    TheisticEvolutionist maintains

    Everything is made of matter.

    Really?

    – Is time made of matter? Does it exist?

    – How much does time weigh?

    – How would you measure the physical dimensions of consciousness? In square or cubic millimeters?

    – Does honesty exist? Is it made of the same atoms as dishonesty or different atoms?

    – Does Plank’s constant exist? What is it made of?

    – How about programming languages? If you weigh a computer, erase the programs on it, and then reweigh the computer, there is no detectable difference in weight, right?

    Science deals with the material world.

    Really?

    – So is the research on the origin of the moon to be considered Science? After all, the moon as it was forming no longer exists in the present, and is not observable.

    – Can you perform repeatable experiments on things that happened the past?

    – Can you “weigh” arguments in grams?

    I’m sorry but there’s no evidence quantum physics has proven the soul or any of this other mystical stuff.

    Neither has quantum mechanics proven the existence of time. If fact, QM might be used to demonstrate that our time is only an illusion, and it does not actually exist.

    And if time, doesn’t exist, then there can’t be motion of matter through space, so one can argue that space doesn’t exist either. And matter, at its most fundamental level is simply quantum foam, virtual matter that winks in and out of existence.

    I guess you’re not left with much. Only your illusions.

    I hope there is life after death it would be awesome but there’s no scientific evidence for it.

    Also, I hope that love, peace, and joy exist—it would be awesome, but alas, there’s no scientific evidence for those either. Depressing, isn’t it.

    I bet you collect rectangular pieces of green paper called “money,” but there’s no scientific evidence that these material objects will bring you “satisfaction” (whatever that might be), but you still value them, don’t you! 😉
30. 30
    TheisticEvolutionist says:

    October 18, 2013 at 9:26 am

    bornagain the mainstream scientific position by default is that the brain produces consciousness and this is backed up with countless scientific papers and evidence (just search online), do you really want me to paste in neuroscientific peer-reviews? They are only a click away on the internet. I am not making the magical claim so I do not have to do anything.

    You are the one making an extraordinary claim so you must back it up with extraordinary evidence. But you have failed to this, the burden of proof is on you to prove your magical claim but you have failed. Your references are quote mines to blogspots, young earth creationist websites and YouTube websites on quantum woo, this is not scientific evidence. You have pulled most of this from your own pseudoscientific blog that attempts to prove the Christian God.

    Send me a single peer-reviewed scientific paper (preferably modernish) in a neuroscience journal that has supported your magical claim of consciousness existing outside of the brain or everyday reality only existing when someone is looking at it. None exist. You talk about objectivity but almost every post you paste in Bible quotes. You start with the Bible, and if it had not been written you wouldn’t have any problem with accepting evolution or the facts about nature.

    You say objective material reality does not exist when nobody is looking at it. Well then just get a video camera place it in an empty room and then come back after a few minutes, objective material reality exists my friend and it has nothing to do with needing a human observer!
31. 31
    bornagain77 says:

    October 18, 2013 at 9:44 am

    TheisticEvolutionist, I don’t care about ‘default’ methodological naturalism being a ‘majority opinion’. Nor do care for your personal opinion! You have presented no hard evidence for your position that consciousness can emerge material basis, and the evidence I have presented thus far from quantum mechanics is easily traceable back to the peer reviewed sources if they are not already in fact to the sources already. It is not up to me to baby sit you nor is it my desire to change you from your beliefs. Believe what you want for all I care. The evidence I have laid out is not for you per se but is there mainly for anyone who is open minded to the possibility that materialism is not true.
32. 32
    Mung says:

    October 18, 2013 at 10:35 am

    bornagain the mainstream scientific position by default is that the brain produces consciousness and this is backed up with countless scientific papers and evidence

    sure. Just like the testes produce sperm.

    the mainstream scientific position by default is that the brain produces consciousness and this is backed up with countless scientific papers and evidence

    Buy default, not by empirical findings. So who needs papers?

    the mainstream scientific position by default is that the brain produces consciousness

    And what produces un-consciousness? Or is that just a lack of consciousness-production by the brain?
33. 33
    Querius says:

    October 18, 2013 at 8:16 pm

    Consciousness exists, therefore there MUST be a naturalistic evolutionary explanation for it!

    While Darwinists admit in deep humility that they don’t know quite ALL the answers yet, they can assure you that they’re extremely close, and that Darwinism can fill any gaps of any size, limited only by one’s imagination! 🙂
34. 34
    Mung says:

    October 18, 2013 at 8:24 pm

    Obviously, consciousness emerges from the brain just like sperm emerges from the testes and fortitude emerges from the belly. Therefore, consciousness is in the brain.
35. 35
    Tim Gardiner says:

    October 19, 2013 at 7:03 pm

    I’ve tried to stream line the most basice definition of CSI which helps the layman (myself) understand it and undeniably prove it’s measurability.

    So, a CSI system is both complex and specific. We have to distinguish between the two and also understand the they both have a happy marriage that cannot be seperated.

    Complexity = simply the number of parts in the system. This is obviously quantifiable. A bicycle has 33 parts and a protein has 200 amino acids. Which has more quantity? A 1st grader can figure that out…

    Specificity = This is qualitative. Each of the parts is specifically arranged so that the thing can function correctly. That is the key. You can’t say specificity is subjective, because without the parts being specifically arranged in the right order or pattern, it wouldn’t function, or it’s functioning would be degraded if the specificity is off, therefore it is objective. We observe CSI when the specified arrangement of the parts of a thing actually enables its functionality.

    A CSI system, in any discipline, is noticable when functionality of that system is determined by the specific arrangement of it’s parts.

    I know there is more to it than that and my bicycle and protein example is simplified. But seems to me this is not a complicated or confusing matter. CSI is in fact a reality and is in fact measurable.

    I believe the simplicity of close pin < bicycle < bird is to prove this point..