Touring the AlloSphere

I don't see the benefits of the Allosphere, when compared to several pairs of virtual reality googles. On the other hand, a team that can help scientists map data into several sensory modalities at once is very useful. But to address Dr. Dembski's question, the Allosphere is not an engine, it is just an interface to a multivariate data set. It helps create a 'consensual hallucination', William Gibson's first definition of cyberspace. The engines are still between the ears of the researchers. Based on Dr. Dembski's previous work, I would guess the engine for detecting design is more likely to be Mathematica than the Allosphere. Nakashima

Bill... I will say it once and for all... you need to get back into exploring the No Free Lunch Theorems and how they can be used to elucidate an engineering theory of ID- perhaps using some of the ideas you expressed in NFL- such as thermodynamics- and of course how this all can be applied to biology and genetics. The NFL theory of evolution is the best functional explanation of the theory of ID. When I was in high school and I realized there was nothing about natural selection that necessitated or produced novel beneficial traits in living things it was this simple to complex design that i knew could not be obtained by pure chance and or random selection- after all, and it is VERY important to note, in Darwinian evolution natural selection cant know what it is selecting for. Frost122585

William Dembski wrote:

Can the AlloSphere be used as an engine for detecting design?

I have no idea. I would appreciate knowing why Dr Dembski asked this question. Adel DiBagno

Sorry this is not related to the post, but I don't know where else to submit this. I guess it should go to the attention of Barry Arrington as the faq editor. In the faq, the first heading is misspelled; it should be "FOREWORD" instead of "FORWARD". Thanks to the faq contributors for a valuable resource! Regarding this post... can anyone link to a text writeup or summary of the presentation? I can't (shouldn't) watch YouTube videos at work, but would like to get an idea of the topic of this post. lars

I would be interested to know how the physical measurements of the data are mapped into the allosphere for 3-D viewing and auditory feedback. In the brain tour she said it was her colleague's brain. What instruments were used to collect the actual data of denisties, blood flows, physical layouts that were translated by the Alloshpere program to create the 3-D image? WHile this is certainly a stunning presentation, if its to be used for actual research and diagnostic applications, then the data fed into it has to be accurate. So how is that data generated and then translated? DonaldM

Where do you get tickets? Jack Golightly

One part of this video had me rushing to my chemistry textbook, which provided no help. How do 4 Zn atoms bond with 1 Hyydrogen atom? I'm assuming it's an ionic bond, but I can't make the charges work to create a neutral compound. H is typically has a +1 charge and Zn is +2. So how are these atoms bonding? Anaxagoras_Rules

Thanks for the link. Interesting how many different places in the world we find ordered information. J. K. Jones