Upright Biped’s summary on information systems in cell based life
UD participant Upright Biped (of Complexity Cafe U/D: Biosemiosis) has commented recently in the what is knowledge thread, replying to frequent objector CR by summarising key aspects of the role of information systems in observed cell based life. His remarks are well worth headlining:
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UB, 195: >>We can start by summarizing the core physical requirements of the system we are trying to explain: an autonomous self-replicator with open-ended potential (i.e. it can describe itself or any variation of itself).
The system requires:
1) a sequence of representations in a medium of information.
2) a set of physical constraints to establish what is being represented.
3) a system of discontinuous association between representations and referents, based on spatial orientation (i.e. a reading-frame code)
4) functional coordination (semantic closure) between two sets of sequences; the first set establishes the constraints that are necessary to interpret the representations, and the second set establishes a system whereby the representations and their constraints are brought together in the specify way required to produce a functioning end product – an autonomous self-replicator. Coordination is required because changes to the first set affect the second set.
Did you follow all that? You have to have a medium of information, representations, constraints, discontinuous association, a reading-frame code, and semantic closure in order to create a material system capable of Darwinian evolution. Each interdependent piece has a physical manifestation, and each brings a critical capacity to the system.
So … when you remove the translation machinery in order to simplify the system (to meet your ideological requirements), you remove the capacity of the system to specify objects among alternatives. You remove the physical capacities that are enabled only by having a medium of information organized within a system (i.e. RNA, for instance, is only a medium of information when it is organized as such, otherwise it’s just another molecule with its particular characteristics, determined by energy). In other words, you remove the very system that enables Darwinian evolution to exist, not to mention removing the very thing that enables biological organization in the first place.
Thus, what are you then left with? You are left with a system that can only organize itself based upon the energy of the individual and collective components in the system (i.e. your “no-design laws”). But, magnetism does not establish a medium of information. Thermodynamics does not create a reading-frame code. Dissipative processes do not coordinate semantic closure among unrelated sequences of symbols. In other words, you have nothing but your prior assumptions.
So now that we have a lay of the land, we can take a look at your claims:
Claim #1: Darwinian evolution is the source of the translation apparatus.
This claim is dead on arrival. The only way to resuscitate this claim is through a) massive equivocation of terms, and b) abject denial of molecular science. In other words, it’s right up your alley.
Claim #2: Only high fidelity replication requires translation.
You need to get your head straight. The simpler system you are talking about is not a semiotic system that merely operates with poor fidelity, it is a non-semiotic system that operates by pure dynamics. It doesn’t establish a medium of information; it cannot specify objects among alternatives, and it obviously cannot achieve semantic closure. In an effort to save your theory, you can certainly start to equivocate on terms like “specify” and “medium of information”, but at the end of the day, the only thing that such an entity can lead to (be the source of) will be determined solely by dynamics. Thus, I asked you the clarifying question: Does the non-semiotic system you assume preceded and created the semiotic system have to specify the semiotic system that follows it? If so, then how does it do that?
You have no response to that question that doesn’t also include repeating your claim and assuming its true.
The bottom line is that there is no conceivable environment at the origin of life on Earth that inanimate matter operating under physical law (your “no-design laws” for crying out loud) where purely dynamic properties such as electromagnetism, hydrophobicity, etc., will push and pull and cajole molecules and constituents into simultaneously creating a sequence of symbolic representations, interpretive constraints, a system of discontinuous association, a reading frame code, and semantic closure. In short, the issues surrounding the origin of a semiosis in the cell are not about “fidelity”, they are about organization instead.>>
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Again, food for thought. END
PS: As debate points have been raised, here is a summary of protein synthesis, from Wiki:
Protein Synthesis (HT: Wiki Media)
This should be seen i/l/o this more complete overview of the whole synthesis:
Here is Yockey’s info-system view:
Yockey’s analysis of protein synthesis as a code-based communication process
And, here is a summary of the wider metabolism set:
163 Responses to Upright Biped’s summary on information systems in cell based life
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UB’s short summary of informatics and cell based life.
Great stuff, UB! It is only by a deliberate effort that any reasonable person can fail to see the glaring fatal error in the idea that chance and physical law can generate the necessary integrated system components at the heart of Darwinian evolution. Saying that Darwinian evolution produced a system component necessary for Darwinian evolution in the first place, using confusing or misleading semantics, is the height of equivocation and obscurantism.
Thanks KF and Thanks WJM.
CR says the origin of the translation apparatus was “crude enough that it could have arisen by chance and requires no explanation.” It’s certainly striking to find out that, upon analysis, the most complex problem in science turns out to not need an explanation after all. Good grief.
I gave CR four brief requirements of an autonomous self-replicator capable of Darwinian evolution. He responded with a 3,000+ word punt. Not in one word of it did he actually refute anything I said. At this point, it is not obvious that he is even aware of this fact, or that he would allow himself to be.
He appears to be desperate to force his (mis)conceptions about quantum memory into the genetic translation system. Unfortunately for him, he is just an observer, and doesn’t get to decide how the cell describes itself. For someone who calls themselves critical rationalist, you’d think he’d be able to figure that out.
EDIT: By the way, I mothballed ComplexityCafe. (currently not even time to do it right). Biosemiosis.org is the only website I have up (and it is about to be revamped).
ED: Okay, I will adjust OP. KF
UB,
Very good stuff, as usual from you. Thanks.
However, I doubt your politely dissenting interlocutor will understand your interesting explanation well.
The will to understand is highly required.
Does s/he have it?
Wait and see.
KF,
thanks for highlighting UB’s interesting commentary.
BTW, your post on ‘knowledge’ has been catapulted up to the top position in the popularity ranking.
Well done!
It just happened, that’s all. poof!
The theory of happy accidents. Accidental Evolution.
Mung,
“The theory of happy accidents. Accidental Evolution.”
Well, why not? Things happen, don’t they?
Besides, in the particular case of biology, there is a huge pile of solid evidences described with many details in gazillion research papers all over, strongly supporting the theory that you have precisely named “accidental evolution’.
🙂
Excellent post. Thank you!
Myrmidons of materialism are not paid to think, but to keep the vehicle of hegemonic corporate-driven materialism on the road, aren’t they ?
Never mind that it’s a cul de sac, and they’ve reached the closed-end of the road; kind of at cross-purposes with research scientists and theoretical scientists.
Axel,
Unfortunately, the institution of science in the west has become just another conduit for a post-truth cultural and political narrative. IMO, this systematic assault on the very idea of truth and the undermining of fundamental values, principles and premises required for critical thinking/proper living is serving a far, far more sinister purpose than a simple promotion of “materialism” or “naturalism”.
Not understanding the full impact of UB’s argument can only be achieved by either being a complete fool or by being a willing participant in the undermining of what evidence, fact and rational thinking obviously indicates here.
The following link is off topic, but should be required reading.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/12/mock-at-your-peril-naturalism-is-a-jealous-fraud/
William J Murray
Are you thinking in terms of the New World Order?
In my school days in the fifties, I thought the worldly intellect over-rated, and still do, to an extent. However, I understand its role now in the scheme of things.
When Christ described the Pharisees as blind, wilfully blind, it was hardly an exaggeration
However, I could never have imagined our degeneration to a POST-TRUTH culture!!! Just seeing it in writing kind of blows my mind, and makes me half-smile inwardly and half-weep! What could it be? What could it not be, alas?
Myopia would not begin to describe it, would it? As some posters here have described it, in relation to the multiworlds conjecture, etc, it means nihilism reigns – the most primordial nihilism imaginable.
Axel,
This is the result of communists/marxists/nihilists having been largely in control of academia and government bodies that push various curriculum. You can see how primed college students and graduates are to take emotional virtue-signal “commands” from various authorities without any critical thought whatsoever, without any regard to facts or evidence.
Characterize a certain agenda as being about “social justice”, or about “tolerance” or “diversity, and masses of people do not even blink an eye to go to war on the street over nebulous ideas that have zero factual support. Speaking the truth becomes a hate crime; presenting facts and evidence is considered bigotry and prejudice. Logic and math are tools of the white nationalist patriarchy.
You cannot reason with people that have been deliberately taught to abandon reason in favor of over-wrought sensitivity triggered by any difference of opinion or offhand remark. Fortunately, it has created its own counter-culture backlash mocking political correctness and leftist group-think, which has create a huge underground army working tirelessly to bring an end to this NWO madness.
When people see their culture devolve into thuggery and madness on a large enough scale that cannot be ignored or swept aside by a complicit media, they tend to being their own revolt.
UP eloquently stating what is obvious even without his precise description triggers irrational responses precisely because it punches a gaping hole of truth the preferred narrative of nihilists. Apparently, as long as a person “self-identifies” as a “critical rationalist”, it doesn’t matter that what they are is a big bag of rhetoric and equivocation, and it doesn’t matter that their arguments have no foundation upon which to draw rational conclusions.
WJM & Axel, this is the crooked yardstick standard for straightness and accuracy in action. If you are induced to make a crooked yardstick your standard, then what is actually straight (“true”) or upright or accurate will never conform to the crooked standard. Thus, we come to the agit-prop strategist’s dream: people are induced to “instinctively” reject and lock out what would ordinarily correct crookedness because crookedness is their standard. And if they identify with crookedness at deep worldview level, being passionately caught up in its world-narrative, they will put good for evil and evil for good, light for darkness and darkness for light. This will lead to marches of angry, ruinous folly. Only what is patently naturally straight and upright: plumbline, self-evident truths and similarly patent realities or facts, will suffice to correct. Sadly, some will not even be corrected by such, until it is too late, the cliff’s edge has crumbled underfoot and we have broken our backs. Mass folly has serious consequences. KF
PS: Jesus’ words (seen as a response to ideas like the Parable of Plato’s Cave [which would have been current in the Dekapolis town of Sepphoris, 5 mi from Nazareth and where the construction jobs were]) in the Sermon on the Mount are apt:
Reposting from the same thread….
The system we are trying to explain is the relatively recent, cell, which is capable of high-fidelity replication. Namely, when a cell replicates it first makes a copy of the recipe of which transformations of raw materials (matter) are required to make copy of itself. Then it performs those transformations to make a copy of the vehicle from that same recipe. This is contrast to replication in the form of making an atom by atom copy of an entire, previously existing cell, already constructed. This is a key point as if the cell performed a copy of itself in its entity, any damage it incurred during its lifetime would be coped as well. Nor is there is no way to perform error correction by on a vehicle only cell as that requires a recipe for which to compare and correct the entire end result, which would be exponentially more difficult at that stage anyway. To allow for error correction, the recipe must also contain which transformations to perform to correct errors that occur. And the recipe must be stored in such a way that the information it contains is in digital form. This is in contrast to analog information storage (or analog computers), which is not self correcting and fidelity is subject to even slight amounts of drift. All of these things are required for high-fidelity replication.
Now, on to the question of “what are the core physical requirements” for this system we are trying to explain. If only there was some problem or criticism that motivated people to actually work on this very question in detail?
What about Von Neumann? While he pioneered the key concept of replicator-vehicle logic described above, his attempt to provide the design of an actual self-reproducer, in the terms of atoms and microscopic interaction was unsuccessful.
However, fortunately for us there is indeed such a problem. Just as it had brought challenges to our most fundamental theories of information, some members of the scientific community suggested specific aspects of quantum mechanics brought a challenge to our theory of life in that it was incompatible with self-replication. Specifically, they posited some “biotonic” laws, containing the design of organisms or some key aspect of self-replicators, must supplement quantum mechanics. Why?
From section 1 of this paper…
Note that the term “no-design laws” refers a set of “core physical requirements” (our current laws of physics, including quantum mechanics). It’s not a new set of laws. Rather, it’s referring to existing, general purpose laws and resources, that are not design-specific. In fact it’s the absence of a new set of yet to be proposed laws that somehow contain the design of self replicating cells, already present.
While this was not specifically directed at ID or UB’s claims (there are no alternative theories to Neo-darwinism, including ID, because there has yet to be proposed a critical test for which ID can explain the same phenomena at least as well, let alone any critical difference indicated in any yet to be proposed critical test. Nor does merely pointing out a problem in Neo-darwinism result in creating a new theory. [see #175]), it is still relevant to the question at hand. This because this criticism results in asking the question: which physical laws (“core physical requirements”) are compatible with high-fidelity replication.
(This more fundamental question is key because, even if we could go back in time and watch life appear and evolve into the biosphere we see today, one could always retreat to the claim that the design of critical aspects of self replicating cells, or even all organisms, was already preset in the laws of physics, at the outset. This would be like the claim of “front loading” but at the laws of physics, rather than the genome.)
So, why had no theory yet to have been presented to supplement neo-Darwinism, properly refuting those claims?
This is why Von Neumann was unsuccessful and is yet another reason why the paper doesn’t merely attempt to predict anything specific, such as the appearance of a goat, is true or probably true, given some initial conditions and the laws of motion.
?What we need is a way to express the “core physical requirements” of the system, along with concepts such as the appearance of design, information, no-design laws, etc, in exact terms, as apposed to approximations.
Our motivation to answer the very question UB asked, which “core physical requirements are necessary”, is where constructor theory comes into play.
However, it seems that UB isn’t really serious about finding out what those “core physical requirements” are as he appears to be willing to settle for incomplete approximations. This would be like settling for Newton’s laws of motion with is much more of an approximation than Einstein’s more fundamental general relativity.
Example? UB wrote….
The first problem is that UB’s theory of information, if we can call it that, is an approximation. We cannot use it at the level of quantum physics any more than you can use Newton’s laws to build a GPS satellite. It simply doesn’t scale. Furthermore, he appeals to these approximations as if they somehow support “his theory”, as someone might might try to appeal to the ability to launch rockets into space somehow presets a problem to Einstein’s general relativity. It doesn’t. Again, this was addressed in #175.
Second, UB’s theory does not address key aspects of the system, such as copying information, error correction, distinguishability, digital information, as opposed to analog, etc. These key aspects are what make high-fidelity replication possible. Furthermore, if some designer put the information of which genes will result in the right proteins which will result in the right features, into the cell as ID claims that too would reflect the same process that occurs when the same information is copied during replication. Right? Or does ID suggest that information spontaneously appeared there because the designer wanted it to?
None of UB’s “information theory” addresses “the core physical requirements” for these key aspects of the system. So, it’s not that I “do not follow” what UB presented. It’s very much the opposite. I follow them well enough to recognize what he presented is expressible as more fundamental, exact statements in constructor theoretic terms. Specifically, a network of tasks with subtasks of subtasks, etc. which eventually reaches a subtask that is not specific to replication. IOW, we can exactly model cells as constructors in constructor theory. This is outlined in detail in section 3.1 of the referenced paper.
IOW, the paper answers the question of what these “the core physical requirements” are. Yet, apparently, he has some yet to be disclosed objection. This is like UB objecting to pointing out launching rockets into space can be explained more accurately and at a more fundamental level by using Einstein’s GR, than by using Newton’s laws.
The very aspects of the physical objects that play the roles UB describes in the translation system themselves represents information. Example? Some one in a lab could apply transformations to move stop codons from their naturally occurring locations to test a theory of protein expression. Those transformations represent information need to setup up a repeatable experiment. If all information needs to be interpreted, then you either have a circular definition of distinguishability or an infinite regress. Again, this is outlined in the constructor theory of information which defines information based on a set of physically possible tasks. This includes what tasks must be possible to copy information, which is a key aspect of replication. Again, UB’s theory says nothing about this.
First, no one suggests any point in cellular development consisted of cells with the current level of high-fidelity replication (and necessary aspects described above to enable them) but with the translation machinery removed. That’s simply false. Is there no one willing to actually address the arguments actually being presented, as opposed to a straw man?
Second, you have confused the universal theory that knowledge grows via some form of variation and criticism with an “ideological requirement”. Theories are tested by observations, not derived from them. As such, so would any theory that suggests cells were always capable of high-fidelity replication. That idea isn’t out there for anyone to observe any more than any other.
Third, as the paper points out, we can model replication via constructor theory as constructors with a spectrum of various degrees of accuracy – with replication being performed initially by the environment and then transitioning to both the environment and self replication. Again, this represents the very question UB asked: “what are the core physical requirements” for this system.
This is a natural transition because such a transition already exists when self-replication specific recipe subtasks eventually rely on generic, elementary tasks that are not specific to replication and are found in the environment.
Note that constructor theory allows us to exactly define what is mean by the appearance of design, which is crucial to indicating what kinds of constructions exhibit it and therefore require different levels of accuracy, resources, storage types, etc.
So, to summarize. Neo-Darwinism cannot explain the appearance of life under the current conception of physics. This is because the current conception doesn’t allow defining key aspects of the problem in exact terms. However this is possible though using a new mode of explanation: constructor theory, which does allow defining those key aspects in more fundamental and exact ways.
The thing is, I don’t need to refute those requirements.
First, it’s unclear how those requirements actual get UB to ID, even at face value. UB would need to add something to them which has yet to be explicitly disclosed.
After what seems like putting teeth, the best I can get is that “There are abstractions in nature”, intelligent agents use abstractions, so some intelligent agent(s) put it there. But that’s simply inductivism in that the distant past resembles the past.
Even *if* abstraction was the only way to information could exist in a cell, what other options would there be? If knowledge was genuinely created by variation and selection, what how else would the result be stored? Observations of people exploiting the laws of physics for their own purpose doesn’t mean that the laws of physics can only be explored by people. IOW, this is like saying, since people use sprinklers, rain must be designed. What other options would nature have?
Furthermore, none of the papers referenced actually reach that conclusion. And at least on one of them explicitly said ID is not a conclusion. So, apparently, UB has some personal theory that he has yet to disclose.
Second, someone could give four brief requirements for launching a rocket into space. Would someone criticizing Newton’s laws need to refute those requirements? No, they just need to point out how those requirements are approximations and how we cannot use them to, say, build a GPS satellite.
IOW, those same requirements can be expressed in more fundamental way via Einstein’s general relativity, which suggests something completely different is going on in reality, than Newton’s laws. Nor did we have to rebuild bridges or buildings after it was refuted.
In the same sense, the same requirements UB listed are approximations can be more fundamentally explained as a series of tasks with subtasks and other subtask that eventually end up with non-replication specific subtasks in the environment. UB has no response to this other than to keep repeating the same requirements.
This would be like someone simply repeating the fact that we can launch rocket into space as an attempt to defect criticism of Newton’s laws.
“But, we can launch rockets into space using it! You can’t refute that!”
So what?
The idea that someone would need to is apparently lost on UB. To quote UB, “At this point, it is not obvious that he is even aware of this fact, or that he would allow himself to be.”
See my above comment for details.
Note, this isn’t the first time UB was mistaken about a theory “scaling”. Specifically, UB claimed…
But this doesn’t apply at the level of quantum physics, so it doesn’t actually scale to “any physical object”, as I pointed out here.
Furthermore, UB’s “theory of information” does not scale to quantum mechanics, either. Nor does it actually connect to physics in a fundamental way, any more than Von Neumann’s cellular automata does.
For example, if some designer copied that knowledge into a cell, what are ramifications of that based on the requirements of what is physically required to copy information? UB simply doesn’t say anything about that. At. All. Is’t that odd omission for a supposed physical theory of information?
Then again, I can’t say I blame him for avoiding this, either, as it has implications that do not suit his purpose. As such, it’s no surprise that not only was it absent initially, but it continues to be absent after having pointing it out over and over again.
Critical Rationalist @15:
Allow me to translate from CR-speak into plain English: “Critical rationalists such as myself do not need a theory that is in any way connected to observations or inferences from observations, because we can pull just so stories out of our asses. Who needs evidence when you can do that?”
Critical Rationalist @ 16:
Again, I will translate: “I don’t need to address UB’s argument no matter how compelling it may seem to be. Why? Because critical rationalists such as myself can pull just so stories out of our asses. Who needs to address counter arguments based on logic and evidence when you can do that?”
This is dishonest rhetoric. You know exactly how this “gets me” to intelligence. Prediction, logic, experimental result, and the scientific literature demonstrate that the physics of the gene system can only be identified elsewhere in written language and mathematics – two unambiguous correlates of intelligence. You know this explicitly, yet you just wrote that you didn’t know. It’s pure rhetoric.
I’ve offered no additional response to this because, to whatever extent it makes any sense at all, it is still incoherent. You have this grand conception in your head that if you can reduce the gene system down to physical “tasks” that are not specific to the gene system, then you can say that the gene system is explained by a set of generic tasks that are “possible under no-design laws” and therefore “require no explanation”.
It truly would be hard to imagine a more useless (and illogical) explanation of origins.
This is more dishonest rhetoric. How do I know this? Because you’ve quoted me directly from an article on my website where I explain this in detail. You have yet to challenge those details. I suspect this is because none of them is even controversial.
I have a question for you, CR. Does the non-semiotic system you assume preceded and created the semiotic system have to specify the semiotic system that follows it? If so, then how does it do that? How does it organize semantic closure?
Except, that’s not what I said. That’s would be like saying “General Realativistists do not need a theory that is connected to observations or inferences from those observations, because they can just put so stories out of their asses.”
I’ll ask yet again.
Are those observations a “problem” for general relativity? Do they have to be refuted? Yes or No?
Does anyone criticizing Newton’s laws in favor of general relativity need to suggest the ability to launch a rocket using newton’s laws was not “connected to reality or observations”? Yes or no?
It’s really simple question. Can’t anyone here answer it?
More rhetoric. All rhetoric.
If a critic of Newtonian mechanics suggested that it was not necessary to overcome gravity in order to launch a rocket, then yes, that would be a problem. And that is exactly what you are doing here. You need to remove barriers to Darwinian evolution (Von Neumann’s threshold of complexity) so that you can convince yourself that the system was “crude enough that it could have arisen by chance and requires no explanation”. This is the sole purpose of this utterly ridiculous line of attack. Unfortunately for you, the simultaneous requirements of a medium, representations, constraints, discontinuous association, spatial orientation and semantic closure are not subject to erasure (or any other contrivance) on the part of the observer, no more than gravity can be ignored when you launch a rocket.
Thus, you are left with an unavoidable need to create these convoluted scenarios and then lament the fact that they don’t interest anyone — everyone keeps spitting out the hook. Apparently, that’s still better than having to address the gene system and its requirements.
CR
Why don’t you answer this really simple question CR? Why not tell us what the first step is from a non-semiotic system to a semiotic system? Do we get a translation system first and then the code, or vice versa?
You often speak of “unreliable replication”. What does that look like? Where can we find it now in nature? And why would it be on a course towards more organization instead of what the Second Law [ED: i.e. of thermodynamics] prescribes?
Some people worship randomness, they should stop that
“It appears to be a quite general principle that, whenever there is a randomized way of doing something, then there is a nonrandomized way that delivers better performance but requires more thought.”
E. T. Jaynes
@UB
No, it’s not. You still seem to be confused.
What I’m referring to is a definition of what information is, what is physically required for it, etc. which is information theory. This is contrast to suggesting information isn’t needed. Just like my analogy, which is based on our current theory of gravity, not that gravity doesn’t need to be overcome.
Returning to an analogy of gravity analogy. It’s as if you’re saying since our explanation for gravity is that it works like X (Newton’s laws), in reality, and since gravity is key process in Q then Q must be designed.
But X has been superseded by a theory that explains everything that X did and even more, in a different, more fundamental way: Z (space-time of general relativity), and suggests something completely different is happening there, in reality. This is because gravity working like X, in reality, cannot also explain P (GPS). As such, the more fundamental explanation that gravity works like Z, in reality, explains both P and Q, while X does not. X is an approximation because if we assume it is true, in reality, the conclusion it implies do not hold at very high mass or velocity.
The fact that we can pretend that gravity works like X, in reality, to launch rockets into space does not change the fact that we actually think gravity works like Z, in reality, not X. Nor does the fact that we can pose a problem for Z. We can conceive of the very same physical, empirical aspects of launching rockets into space in a more fundamental way.
Furthermore, just like there were observations that were problematic to theory X, and caused us to create theory Z to resolve them. There are observations that are problematic to Z. Namely that we do not have a theory of quantum gravity (R). So, at least quantum mechanics, general relativity (Z) or both are actually approximations as well. This may result in us creating yet another explanation (Y) for how gravity works that suggests that completely different is happening there, in reality, instead of what was thought to be happening there, in reality, by theories X and Z.
Should that be the case, our ability to pretend that gravity works like Z, in reality, while building GPS satellites, and that gravity works like X, in reality, while launching rockets into space, would not a problem for theory Y. It would be a more fundamental theory than X and Z, and it would also be our actual explanation for gravity in not only the case of R and P, but Q as well. Both Z and X would be approximations of Y.
Most importantly, the argument that Q is designed because we think gravity works like X, in reality, simply no longer follows. We wouldn’t pretend gravity works like X, when evaluating arguments, because we no longer actually think that is the case, in reality.
With that out of the way, let’s return to the theory of information you’ve presented (X), if we can call it that. You’re claiming that since information works like X, in reality, and since information is key in self replicating cells, then self replicating cells (Q) must be designed.
However, like Newton’s laws, your theory (X) doesn’t scale. Furthermore, there is a theory that explains everything that X did and even more, in a different, more fundamental way: Z (The constructor theory of information), which suggests something completely different is happening there, in reality. This is because information working like X, in reality, cannot also explain P (quantum information). Nor does it even scale to all classical systems. As such, the more fundamental explanation that information works like Z, in reality, explains both P and Q, while X does not. X is an approximation because if we assume it is true, in reality, the conclusion it implies does not hold in quantum systems.
The fact that we can pretend that information works like X, in reality, in some classical systems does not change the fact a far better theory indicates information works like Z, in reality, not X. Nor does the fact that we can pose a problem for Z. We can conceive of the very same physical, empirical aspects of information in a more fundamental way that does not require anthropomorphic aspects like interpretation, etc.
This theory is outlined briefly in this paper as a primer for application in the constructor theory of life, and is expanded on in significantly more detail in this paper, in which it is the main topic.
So the argument that cells are designed because information works like X, in reality, no longer follows. We need not pretend that information works like X, in reality, while evaluating arguments because X is no longer tenable as an explanation for it.
Now, perhaps you’ve retreated here or merely tried to pass off a claim of irreducible complexity as some kind of theory of information. But, either way, ‘information is complex” is just another version of the same flawed argument.
Now, it seems to me that if you still have some objection, you have two choices.
A, You think that the ability to launch rockets into space by pretending gravity works like Newton’s laws, in reality, is somehow a problem for General relativity.
or
B. You do think there is some yet to be expressed problem the with constructor theory of information, in which it does not provide a more fundamental explanation for information, at both the classical and quantum physics, in the same sense that general relativity is a more fundamental explanation for gravity.
Or perhaps, you’ve merely tried to pass off a claim of irreducible complexity as some kind of theory of information? But, ‘information is complex” is just another version of the same flawed argument.
Of course, if I’m mistaken, then please elaborate.
What was the first step in the Arabic number system? Tallies. Or how about the previous step before universal Turing machines (UTM)? Each of these things represented leaps to universality that were disproportionate to the underlying change that occurred. Nor is their explanation found at the level of atoms, etc. Furthermore, we stumbled upon them. For example, some number systems would have been universal but they had rules that actually prevented it. In each case, this universality is an emergent property of cogs, transistors, vacuum tubes, etc.
The desire to reduce errors and make it faster to reconfigure a dedicated computer to perform different tasks resulted in UTMs that can run any algorithm that any other UTM can run. Making them universal was a unintended but extremely useful side effect. People only originally cared if they could represent numbers of the scale that they actually had to detail with on a daily basis. An attempt to bump up the capacity in the favor of reduced notation ended up making a leap to represent any possible number (universality.)
So, as like all aspects of Neo-Darwnism, the theory is that aspects of the cell that performed some other function was up also being useful in that ended up producing that leap to universality as well. I’ve already pointed out an example of that in a previous thread, in that multiple molecules can take the place of single molecules in the translation system that were though to be always present across all cells.
Constructor theory is the theory that all scientific theories can be expressed as which tasks are physical possible, which tasks are physically impossible and why. This includes the theory of evolution. As such, what current cells look like, in addition to what more primitive cells would look like would “look like”, how they both replicate, etc. is described in that form in the referenced paper. Constructor theory is the ultimate generalization of the idea of catalysis.
From the paper….
For example, the cells in your body are modeled as approximate replicators. They heavily rely on error correction, which can be modeled separately. The appearance of design is also expressed in constructor theoretic terms as well. In addition to in what sense our current claws of physics do not contain the design of high-fidelity replicators, already present.
Nor do we think more primitive cells are like current day cells, just with the translation system removed. That would be a straw man.
You’ve head of this thing called the sun, right?
CR,
I’m not confused by this situation at all CR. You need to pack on as many words as possible in order to give your participation here the gloss that you are still in the conversation, dealing with important concepts. Yet, you still haven’t actually engaged any of the requirements of the genetic translation system (as I have listed them) and shown them to be unnecessary or factually dubious in any way. You’ve merely squirreled and dissembled yourself into a ridiculous position where you hope to sell the idea that you don’t have to address the physical evidence because ‘Newton doesn’t scale to general relativity’ – which has absolutely nothing to do with the issues at hand. You need to get this through your head: you are an observer, and you do not get to decide how the cell describes itself.
@UB
It doesn’t? So, you’re basally claiming that the translation system in cells we can observe are irreducibly complex, irrespective of a working theory of information.
Again, without a theory of information that actually scales, it’s unclear why we should pretended that information actually works like you think, in reality. As such, information has nothing to do with it. You’re just merely trying to pass of the tired claim off “irreducibly complexity” as a theory of information.
We do not pretend that the translation system requires the establishment of a medium of information, and representations within that medium. The question to you: Does it?
We do not pretend that the translation system requires the as set of physical constraints to establish what is being represented. The question to you: Does it?
We do not pretend that the translation system requires a system of discontinuous association and a reading frame code. The question to you: Does it?
We do not pretend that the translation system requires semantic closure. The question to you: Does it?
To my knowledge UB has never done such a thing, nor has anyone else. Frankly, I have no idea what it would look like to have irreducibly complexity as a theory of information.
CR, instead of making incoherent unsupported claims about the position of others, it would help if you provide quotes in support.
And, as an observer, we do not get to decide how to launch a rocket into space. That did not change one bit, despite the fact that now conclude something completely different is happening there, in reality, when Newton’s laws were superseded by general relativity.
The ability to pretend that Newton’s laws were not refuted, in the specific case of launching rockets, doesn’t mean we actually thing gravity works like Newton’s laws, in reality, in the specific case of launching rockets into space. It’s an approximation.
So is your ‘theory” of information in regards to how the cell describes itself.
The ability to pretend your theory of information works like you think it does, in the specific case of how a cell describes itself, does’t mean we should actually think information works the way you think it does, in reality, when when considering your argument.
So, at best, it’s irreducible complexity in sheeps clothing.
Good grief. Does the system require what is listed and operate as it is described in the literature, or does it not?
CR,
“When a ribosome pairs a “CGC” tRNA with “GCG” codon, it expects to find an alanine carried by the tRNA. It has no way of checking; each tRNA is matched with its amino acid long before it reaches the ribosome. The match is made by a collection of remarkable enzymes, the aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. These enzymes charge each tRNA with the proper amino acid, thus allowing each tRNA to make the proper translation from the genetic code… “ — Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics; PDB – Protein Databank
When a specific codon is presented to the ribosome, a specific amino acid is added to the protein being constructed.
Does the codon determine which amino acid is added?
CR, when the cell synthesizes a protein, the anticodon-to-amino acid association (establishing the constraints in the system, i.e. the code) is spatially and temporally isolated from the codon-to-anticodon association (which occurs when the medium is being read).
Is that true or false?
This architecture establishes a physical discontinuity in the operation of the system, where the lawful process of constructing a protein includes a variable and that variable is determined outside the process of the construction. The variable is determined independently by the organization of the constraints.
Is that true or false?
Do you make a habit of quote mining?
Are you saying that, since Newton’s laws were refuted, we do not think something completely different is happening there in reality, and that is of completely no consequence? Of course, not.
Specifically, we have to know under what conditions Newton’s laws would be insufficient to result in a successful rocket launch, such as the presence of objects that has a significantly larger mass or is moving at a very high velocity, etc. Needing to know when Newton’s laws will work, and when they will not, is a consequence of those laws having been refuted. We have to take that into account because we think something different is happening there, in reality. General relativity, on the other hand, doesn’t require making those specific exceptions. Our explanation for how gravity works, in reality, scales to very high velocity or a very high mass, with the exception of, say the center of a black hole, in which it breaks down.
So, there are only specific conditions when we can pretend those laws had not been refuted. I’m suggesting the same thing with how the cell describes itself.
Since your theory of information does not scale, the idea that it works like you think it does, in reality, is untenable. A more fundamentally theory is needed, which explains both classical and quantum information in a way that assumes something completely different is happening there, in reality. And that conflicts with information theory specific claims, such as all information needs to be interpreted, etc.
As I understand it, this is what would separate your argument from merely claiming “how the cell describes itself” is irreducibly complex.
Again, you seem to have two choices. Either…
A. You think the ability to pretend a refuted theory is true, under specific conditions, is a problem for the theory that refuted it
B. You think there is some yet to be expressed problem the with constructor theory of information, in that you think it does not provide a more fundamental explanation for information, at both the classical and quantum physics – in the same sense that general relativity is a more fundamental explanation for gravity.
Otherwise, your argument can be boiled down to merely, the way the cell describes itself is irreducibly complex.
Are you denying that you do not think the way the cell describes itself is irreducibly complex? if that’s not the argument your making, then what is it?
Answer the question.
F/N: I have added some diagrams of protein synthesis in context, including Yockey’s mapping to the classic communication system model. KF
UB,
The more I read your discussion with your politely dissenting interlocutor, the more I’m convinced that you’re a strong candidate for the “most patience” award. Normally that recognition is given to KF and GP, but this time it seems like you’re the man.
My friend, I don’t even understand what your interlocutor means in his comments, but my reading comprehension is rather poor.
KF,
Thanks for adding graphic illustration.
This subject discussed by UB here is fundamental.
CR, dumping energy into a system tends to INCREASE entropy, as the Clausius heat transfer model used to derive his 2nd law statement highlights. It requires carefully channelled coupling to partly convert input energy into shaft, constructive work, with exhaustion of waste degraded energy (typically, heat). The oh the earth is open to the sun rhetoric utterly fails to account for the rise of functionally specific complex organisation of metabolising entities joined to a von Neumann kinematic self replication facility using alphabetically coded information (which implies language . . . a strong sign of intelligence). And that is what needs to be accounted for. KF
PS: FSCO/I is NOT a synonym for irreducible complexity. It is speaking to complex, coherent functional organisation beyond a threshold of 500 – 1,000 bits. Debates on whether removal or disabling of any one of several core parts instantly cripples function are irrelevant to this. Though, it is common that only very limited perturbation is tolerable, without functional collapse — even, allowing for redundancies and the like.
@UB #35
From this paper…
Is a system required to launch a rocket into space not compatible with the literature of Newton’s laws of motion? Of course it is. However, Newton’s have become untenable as an expiation for how gravity works as it has been refuted by general relativity. It’s an approximation.
CR your cite (alternate pathway) does not answer the question posed, so I’ll try again:
When the cell synthesizes a protein, the anticodon-to-amino acid association (establishing the constraints in the system, i.e. the code) is spatially and temporally isolated from the codon-to-anticodon association (which occurs when the medium is being read).
Is that true or false?
CR
Newton held that gravity is a force and GR informs us that it is something that arises from the curvature of space and time.
What we see here is that both theories make an effort to explain the same thing: gravity.
GR could not replace Newton’s theory of gravity if it were differently, because it would have no replacement to offer.
This brings us to your discussion with UB. The question is:
in what sense does your theory attempt to explain the same phenomena, as pointed out by UB?
But you haven’t refuted that how semantic memory works, have you? You haven’t refuted the description of genetic memory, have you? What you’ve done (in an effort to plaster over the failure of your claims in the OP) is to claim that the observations of semantic memory in the gene system do not scale to quantum memory. But you have two problems that you fail to address: #1) the cell describes itself in a system of semantic memory, not quantum memory; and #2, this …
CR,
When you say you are referring to “quantum storage memory” in your comments here, why don’t you give us an example of this system? Give us a specific example.
@UB.
Again, what you just descried is compatible with “the literature” just as what is required to launch a rocket into space is compatible with the literature of Newtown’s laws.
So what?
I’m saying is that what “the literature” that you seem to be appealing to doesn’t scale. We can explain information in a more fundamental way that doesn’t require a knowing subject, etc.
Now, If you’d like to dispute that, be my guest. However, this seems unlikely as, despite asking at least a dozen times, you have still yet to reference an actual physical theory of information. For example, when I pointed out your site links to Shannon’s theory, and that doesn’t scale, you seemed to imply it wasn’t even relevant to the problem at hand. It’s unclear how you could depute the status of a theory you refuse to disclose.
So, where is the literature for your physical theory of information? Put your money where your mouth is.
Here’s a hint. Merely saying parts of the genome / translation system could be interpreted as symbols isn’t a formal physical theory of information. For example, it doesn’t address, in a more fundamental way, what tasks are necessary for people to exploit the laws of physics that make symbols possible. Nor does it address what tasks must be physically possible to copy information from one medium to another.
After all, that’s what ID claims, right? A designer copied information from one physical source medium external to the cell to a second physical destination medium internal to the cell. Or did I get it wrong?
“More fundamental” is incoherent when you cannot explain the semiotic system on which it depends.
I’ve referenced a theory of information that operates at a more fundamental level, which explains why symbols are possible in the first place. Constructor theory is even more fundamental than our most current fundamental physical theories: GR and QM.
From this paper….
In addition, in constructor theory, neither reductionist and emergent explanations are more important than another. Nor is it concerned with trying to justify theories as initial conditions are often untraceable and uninteresting in respect to solving problems, in practice.
IOW, constructor theory formalizes the view that, in science, justification isn’t possible or even desirable and brings emergent phenomena, such as information, into fundamental physics, though the use of exact statements about what transformations are possible, which transformations are impossible and why.
IOW, the idea that we need to “ground” our theories in some initial conditions is explicitly not part of constructor theory or its subsidiary theories.
Does this mean you don’t have an example?
UB @51:
Of course!
For some of us unfamiliar with the concepts and terminology used in this discussion:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/DH5kn1aT76c
@Origenes
The constructor theory of information brings information into fundamental physics. Not only is this something that UB’s “theory” does not do, it is something UB is opposed to, in principle.
As I’ve said before in other threads, we’re not going to get anywhere because we still don’t agree on a definition of information at a fundamental physical level, or if it’s even possible, in principle.
@53 addendum
https://www.youtube.com/embed/liFXYpdAZnQ
The interchange between UB and CR is one of the most astonishing things I’ve seen in years.
CR has failed to make the slightest dent in UB’s argument; yet he continues to spill hundreds and hundreds of words into the combox, proving once again that he believes “typing” is a synonym for “arguing.”
By now the question is no longer about the science. The really intriguing question to me is the psychology behind CR’s dissembling. No one believes his shtick, least of all him. But he persists. He is like that bunny in the battery commercial. It is truly astounding.
Still no example.
I can look one up for you.
Is this the kind of “quantum storage memory” you are talking about, CR?
UB,
That seems like an interesting paper, at least judging by the abstract.
Thanks.
.
Is this related to the discussed topic?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5383835/#!po=0.641026
https://academic.oup.com/nar/article/45/3/1059/2605964
CR:
First, no-one has discussed justification as a component for knowledge, as post Gettier, to be justified in holding a belief that turns out to be true is understood for cause as not equal to knowledge. The matter of warrant has long since been brought to your attention repeatedly but insistently ignored. Thus, you have shamelessly played the strawman tactic.
And, as the discussion of knowledge has played out on other threads, I simply note that scientific knowledge claims fall under a weak, fallibilist, inductively grounded sense of knowledge, warranted, credibly true (and empirically reliable) belief.
I add: note, the very name, “Science,” is derived from a Latin word denoting knowledge. Dictionaries are useful points of reference:
Thus, we need to reckon with the provisional, incremental, inductive sense of knowledge so derived. A point well understood since Newton, here, I clip Opticks, Query 31:
Of course, our understanding of inductive reasoning has been updated to denote arguments where premises (often, empirically derived) provide support for the credible truth of conclusions, as opposed to entailing them. Where, a key aspect of this is that if something has a stable distinct identity, it can be expected to behave in a consistent, reasonably predictable pattern. Kusha bushes produce thorns reliably (so that a donkey I heard of would deliberately brush its rider against these bushes, if it was displeased with him). Manchineel trees produce sweet tasting but caustic, toxic beach or death apples. Mango trees produce thousands of varieties of that luscious fruit. Unsupported objects near earth tend to fall under a force of 9.8 N/kg or thereabouts. The earth, due to angular momentum being conserved, rotates once every 23 hrs 56 minutes relative to the “fixed” stars. And so forth.
So, there are good common-sense grounds to expect orderly, coherent patterns in the world. But common sense can be a suspect commodity when there is a dominant ideology to the contrary.
But, we must go on. Knowledge, itself, is from a Greek term, gnosis, so let’s use Wikipedia on that term as a handy reference:
Such words refer to a common, important phenomenon, which we have to reckon with in philosophising about it, i.e. in epistemology.
First, without a knowing subject willing to accept and act on a claim, we are not dealing with knowing or knowledge. Without reasonable and responsible grounds, one is not warranted to accept a claim or perception etc as credibly true (and reliable), but that warrant needs not be wholly held by a given subject; we all routinely accept warrant per credible authority and/or perhaps simplified explanation or examples.
Likewise, warrant chains as A as B, B as C etc. Thus, there is a regress, where infinite chain is impossible, question-begging circularity is futile, so we face finitely remote first plausibles taken as a credible start-point or foundation or root of one’s worldview.
Yes, there is a positive hatred for the suggestions that we have a finitely remote foundation involving trust in first plausibles but that is actually patent.
And, worldviews need not be question-begging once held i/l/o comparative difficulties across factual adequacy, coherence and balanced explanatory power (elegantly simple not simplistic or an ad hoc patchwork).
In such, key self-evident elements starting with the point that distinct identity (A vs ~ A) leads directly to the triple first principles of right reason, LOI, LNC, LEM as well as to the set of natural numbers thence the logic of structure and quantity, AKA Mathematics. Self-evident truths are examples, in turn, of strong-form knowledge, warranted as certainly true and thus accepted as undeniable on pain of absurdity on the attempted denial.
Thus, warrant is an integral component of knowledge, which is a function of knowing subjects. And, science is a weak form, with facts of observation being far better warranted than integrative theoretical constructs, which are best understood as explanatory, abductively warranted models which are possibly true as opposed to credibly true.
Thus, while information can and does play a role in fundamental physics — e.g. the position-momentum and energy-time versions of the Heisenberg-Einstein uncertainty principle — that is not where it is primarily founded. Information theory is an extension of physics indeed, but that in the end is about distinct identity leading to designation of entities by labels tracing to y/n chains in structured description languages, or to analogues that then face issues of storage, processing, modulation, transmission etc. Information is not knowledge but is involved in the process. And, the reality of phenomena in the world is not reducible to information without residue. That is, there is a real world.
Now, let’s pick up and do some inline commenting on your un-sourced text gobbet. Of course on track record you will studiously ignore or find some tangent to divert, but record is needed:
For record.
KF
“The genetic code that defines the rules of translation from the 4-letter nucleic acid alphabet to the 20-letter alphabet of proteins is arguably the single central informational invariant of all life forms […]”
“[…] the code is universal among modern life forms because any change in codon assignment would be highly deleterious.”
“[…] 49 years of code studies have elucidated notable features of the standard code, such as high robustness to errors, but failed to develop a compelling explanation for codon assignments.”
“In particular, stereochemical affinity between amino acids and the cognate codons or anticodons does not seem to account for the origin and evolution of the code.”
“The 64 triplet codons are neatly organized in sets of four or two, with the third base of a codon typically being synonymous. The assignment of codons to amino acids across the code table is clearly non-random […]”
Frozen Accident Pushing 50: Stereochemistry, Expansion, and Chance in the Evolution of the Genetic Code
Eugene V. Koonin
Life (Basel). 7(2): 22.
doi: 10.3390/life7020022
“The origin and evolution of the translation system is a forbiddingly difficult problem, and therefore, in many studies on the code evolution, it is formally treated as a separate issue and approached almost like a mathematical puzzle […]”
Frozen Accident Pushing 50: Stereochemistry, Expansion, and Chance in the Evolution of the Genetic Code
Eugene V. Koonin
Life (Basel). 7(2): 22.
doi: 10.3390/life7020022
The known -not the unknown- clearly points to complex functionally specified informational complexity.
“It is almost impossible to discuss the origin of the code without discussing the origin of the actual biochemical mechanisms of protein synthesis” – Francis Crick
“[…] none of the three major theories of the code evolution has been fully successful in providing a definitive explanation although each has highlighted important features of the code.”
Frozen Accident Pushing 50: Stereochemistry, Expansion, and Chance in the Evolution of the Genetic Code
Eugene V. Koonin
Life (Basel). 7(2): 22.
doi: 10.3390/life7020022
“The standard genetic code (SGC) is virtually universal among extant life forms.”
“The structure of the SGC is nonrandom and ensures high robustness of the code to mutational and translational errors.”
Origin and Evolution of the Universal Genetic Code.
Koonin EV, Novozhilov AS
Annu Rev Genet. 51:45-62.
doi: 10.1146/annurev-genet-120116-024713.
Did somebody say ‘nonrandom’?
The papers referenced @63-68 were published this year.
The below referenced paper by the same authors was published around 8 years ago:
“Summarizing the state of the art in the study of the code evolution, we cannot escape considerable skepticism. It seems that the two-pronged fundamental question: “why is the genetic code the way it is and how did it come to be?,” that was asked over 50 years ago, at the dawn of molecular biology, might remain pertinent even in another 50 years. Our consolation is that we cannot think of a more fundamental problem in biology.”
Origin and evolution of the genetic code: The universal enigma
Eugene V. Koonin, Artem S. Novozhilov
DOI: 10.1002/iub.146
Volume 61, Issue 2 Pages 99–111
In those 8 years much has been discovered in biology.
However, the pseudoscientific speculative hypotheses remain imprecise and incoherent.
The known -not the unknown- clearly points to complex functionally specified informational complexity.
I have headlined 62: https://uncommondescent.com/atheism/cr-and-the-question-of-knowledge-with-his-championed-constructor-theory-in-play/ KF
KF @70:
Well done. Another episode in the important discussion on fundamental concepts and associated issues.
Thanks.
@UB
I’ve referenced just such a paper that explains this in detail. Multiple times.
You haven’t. Does this mean you don’t have a physical theory of information?
from the paper….
Of note is that, in the process of bringing information into fundamental physics, by developing a unifying single theory that scales to both classical and quantum physics, there was no reference to observers, knowing subjects, etc.
Still no specific example of a “quantum storage medium”?
Are you about to tell me that you’re actually referring to a different “quantum storage medium” – different than the one where they encode the input and interpret the output?
Wouldn’t the degree that one can identify what is or is not relevant to a subject depend on the degree that one understands that subject?
That is, if you or UB are mistaken on this subject, could you not just as well be mistaken as to what is or is not relevant? Or I could be mistaken about UB’s argument or some other key aspect of the subject. Repeat the same question doesn’t help in that sense.
This is why I have suggested that UB’s argument might actually be a claim of irreducible complexity of how the call describes itself, instead of a based on physical theory of information. In fact, I’d suggest that we don’t even agree on what information is, let alone a physical theory of information would be, or if you and UB think any such theory is actually possible.
Definitions are only useful in that they allow us to communicate ideas that they represent. The criticism of “that doesn’t fit the classic definition of X” is a fallacy.
One could just as well argued that the ability to split an atom didn’t fit the classic definition of “atom” at the time. After all, the origin of the word is French…
Yet, atoms can be split.
Are you concerned that if you finally provide an example of your “quantum storage medium” we will find exactly what I told you months ago? (i.e. that using quantum effects to encode data in a medium is a semiotic system, and thus your entire set of objections are a massive misconception on your part).
@UB,
Let me rephares as a question…
If, to allow us to make exact statement about information that scaled to both classical and quantum information, we had to develop a more fundamental theory of information that was so more fundamental it explained why symbols are possible in both types of media, what would be the impact of that significantly more fundamental theory of information be to your argument?
Furthermore, why would you think a paper that explains how symbols are possible in both classical and quantum mediums would imply that symbols in quantum media are impossible?
UB @75
CR’s theories may be incoherent, they are consistent nevertheless.
(1) Knowledge does not require a knower.
(2) Information does not require a semiotic system.
All that is required is for constructors to spontaneously self-organize into information/knowledge, semiotic systems and knowers, for no reason at all.
CR, symbols are possible in both mediums because a system of discontinuous association has been organized and established in both mediums, i.e. a semiotic system. You are now being openly irrational and deceptive. You’ve landed in the unfortunate position where if you provide an specific example of the “quantum storage medium” you are talking about, it will immediately invalidate your argument. My advice: When the horse is dead, get off.
Origenes, exactly!
@UB #78
No, I’m not.
With a theory of information that is more fundamental than symbols, what you’re left with is a claim of irreducible complexity. That’s a whole different argument.
Or was that just your argument all along?
And it’s one that has been addressed by providing a more fundamental, description of new-darwnism. Namely, by modeling the entire spectrum of replication fidelity as variations of constructors in constructor theory.
@Origenes
From the paper…
So, no, it’s not just (1) and (2) above. Neo-darwnism is supplemented by both constructor theory of life, which includes aspects of the constructor theory of information.
From an earlier comment….
So, I’ll ask for the umpteenth time: is there anyone here that will actually address the argument being presented? What gives?
One strategy to attack a theory one finds objectionable is to present a false version of it, then point out how it is false. How is your comment any different?
So, CR, since you don’t have the intellectual will to stop yourself, I’ll simply ask again:
Do you have a specific example of the “quantum storage medium” that you are talking about?
Yes, or No?
Scratch my request in #82.
Since no example of the “quantum storage medium” you are referring to is forthcoming, it is pointless for me to continue asking. Your steadfast refusal to provide one is already an admission of the issue.
@UB
First, I have presented a paper of a fundamental theory that brings information into physics, which describes what is physically necessary for a quantum storage medium.
Second, as I pointed out, that same paper explicitly explains how symbols are possible in both quantum and classical storage mediums.
So, yes, it’s pointless for you to keep asking for something with the intention of “showing” symbols in classical or quantum mediums, when that is implicitly indicated in the paper and not in question. So, apparently, you’re still confused as what the problem is, and therefore, why it is relevant.
I’l ask yet again, what would any such example of a “quantum storage medium” indicate other than a claim of irreducible complexity?
Is it pointless to keep asking? Is your steadfast refused to provide an answer an admission of the issue?
That’s not an explanation for why symbols are possible. This seems to be a key point of confusion, as any explanation for why symbols are possible must be more fundamental than any theory of information in our current conception of physics or even symbols.
We can explain why they are possible based on what physical transformations must be possible. And, to be exact (so it can scale) that same explanation must also accommodate the fact that some possible transformations in classical systems are impossible in quantum systems.
From the constructor theory of information…
From the constructor theory of life….
And how are things described in constructor theory?
So, the translation system can be described, at a more fundamental level, as a network of transformations that must be possible under the laws of physics.
@UB
Perhaps you object to the very idea behind constructor theory?
Specifically…
Are you suggesting here is a problem the theory part of constructor theory? Specially, that…
Is there some universal problem with this theory?
Or perhaps you think translation system is an exception, for some reason, in that it is not possible to model the translation system, in particular, in a more fundamental, constructor theoretic terms of possible and impossible physical tasks ?
Or, to rephrase, can we not express what’s happening there in a more fundamental way of possible transformations of matter? If not, why?
IOW, you seem to have some objection to constructor theory, but have yet to make it explicit, beyond what appears to be some kind of incredulity.
CR @ 86 says to UB:
“Perhaps you object to the very idea behind constructor theory?”
No, I’m pretty sure he objects to your gutless refusal to answer a simple question. Here, I’ll ask it again in case you missed it:
@Barry
The question has been answered. A quantum storage medium, like all other scientific theories, is defined by what physical transformations must be possible, which transformations are not possible, and why. That’s what it means to make exact statements in constructor theory.
If there was some unique exception regarding an specific example, then it couldn’t be exact, right?
So, any suggestion that I haven’t answered the question must somehow be accompanied with some criticism of the very idea of constructor theory itself, or criticism of the subsidiary theory of information presented.
Furthermore, since the theory describes what physical transformations are required for symbols to be possible in both classical and quantum systems, it would not imply that symbols are incompatible with quantum storage mediums. Right?
So, what is left to object to?
UD Editors: CR, the depth and breadth of your ability and willingness to lie is truly astonishing. You have plainly not answered the question by providing an example (or admitting there is none). Yet you say “the question has been answered. Staggering.
That you can’t provide a single real-world example of what you are talking about.
UB, I applaud your patience. I feel like I’ve just read(watched) a Monty Python skit. Where the guy signs up to argue. Except he’s arguing with himself in the mirror, a Constructor Mirror.
Or, maybe the scene of the Dead Parrot(i.e. Neo-Darwinism), dilly, dilly, silly, neo-Darwinism is not dead, it’s upheld by a Constructor nail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218
Or to simplify it down to task and sub-task. What is possible and not possible.
Constructor Theory is the boat. The man is a Neo-Darwinist….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37W9lFQ783U
LOL 🙂 will you ever get him to answer your question?
CR’s going round in circles…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2szNtnS7Bh4
That’s yet another vague criticism.
Again, see #86.
Are you saying the translation system is a real world example of something that cannot be expressed in constructor theoretic terms? If so, why?
UD Editors: No, he is saying you have not provided a real world example. Everyone knows you can’t CR. Why don’t you just admit that.
Or are you saying the translation system is a real world example of information that cannot be more fundamentally expressed in the subsidiary theory of information? If so, what aspect of information are you referring to?
UD Editors: No, he is saying you have not provided a real world example. Everyone knows you can’t CR. Why don’t you just admit that.
Wouldn’t that require presenting a rival physical theory of information that fundamentally explains just as much as the subsidiary theory of information, plus the delta of whoever problematic aspect of the translation system supposedly indicates?
[crickets]
Funny how that works. UB gets to demand I answer questions, but he doesn’t have to answer one himself.
Again, if a semiotic system, classical or quantum, can be explained in physical theory of information as a network of specific possible tasks, then what is your argument other than a claim of irreducible complexity?
UB, real world application examples cannot be provided by CR because the real world does not exist in Constructor Theory.
And for readers, do not be deceived.
An opinion of Deutsch and Marletto’s Constructor Theory
from Lubos Motl…
https://motls.blogspot.com/2014/05/constructor-theory-deutsch-and-marletto.html
More from Lubos…
That a real-world example from you argument against semiosis requires semiosis in order to function.
Thank you DATCG.
Love the parrot.
Sir, this parrot is no more!!
And that’s not merely a claim of irreducible complexity?
segue noted
CR: Darwinian evolution is the source of the translation apparatus.
UB: Darwinian evolution is enabled by semiosis, and these are the material conditions.
CR: It’s unclear to me and you must be confused. That system does not scale.
UB: I think you have a serious misconception about this topic.
CR: But I’m referring to a quantum storage medium.
UB: Then give me a real-world example.
CR: I don’t have to give you an example — my theory is more fundamental.
UB: When you give me an example, CR, it’s going to turn out to be semiotic.
CR: A HA! Yes! But that’s merely a claim of irreducible complexity!
🙂
A: For the umpteenth time: seeing is the source of sense organs.
B: Seeing is enabled by sense organs; these are the material conditions.
A: My theory is more fundamental.
B: Then give me a real-world example.
A: I don’t have to give you an example, because that would prove you right — my theory is more fundamental.
B: When you give me an example of seeing, CR, it’s going to turn out to be by a sensory organ.
A: A HA! Yes! But, as I said already, that would show you right, which is yet another vague criticism. So, that is merely a claim of irreducible complexity, which is NOT a theory of information! IOW, you seem to have some objection to constructor theory, but have yet to make it explicit, beyond what appears to be some kind of incredulity.
So, I’ll ask for the umpteenth time: is there anyone here that will actually address the argument being presented? What gives?
Apparently, the author of the post assumed constructor theory was a theory of everything, based on the Scientific America article, and it all went down hill from there. What’s particularly ironic is that Deutsch doesn’t think there will ever be a theory of everything. That’s why his latest book is titled “The Beginning of Infinity”. We will always be just scratching the surface, and there will always be new, more fundamental problems to solve (think Hilbert’s infinite hotel. Guests will always have room numbers that are close to the beginning of all numbered rooms).
The author cannot personally cannot conceive of how constructor theory could be useful at something it doesn’t actually do. Therefore, the paper must have no actual content and merely represent and attempt to make someone sound smarter?
Fortunately, science does not consist of what the author can conceive of based on a popular science article and the first reading of a subsidiary theory.
What is this constructor theory? It’s a sequence of worthless would-be smart sentences sold as a “theory of everything” and a “unifying theory of classical and quantum physics” and “all information in them” which also “defines all forms of information” and transforms all of our knowledge to “claims that some tasks are impossible”.
Constructor theory is a theory about laws. Specifically, the “theory” part constructor theory is is what I described in my comment. Namely, that it’s possible to express all scientific theories through a dichotomy of which physical transformations are possible, which specific physical transformations are impossible, and why. Subsidiary theories are ways of expressing specific scientific theories in constructor theoretic terms.
Nor does is its goal to unify classical and quantum physics. That is not in the SA article, not is it in the referred paper. So, this is yet another misconception.
Principles of thermodynamics already are laws about laws. The Constructor theory of thermodynamics, which is a subsidiary theory, helps us make exact statements as described here. That’s not merely the vague claim that somethings are not possible. And it solves problems.
There are aspects of information that cannot be expressed in the current conception of physics, which is addressed in the Constructor theory of thermodynamics – another subsidiary theory. This is because constructor theory isn’t about the initial conditions and laws of motion. The initial conditions are not fundamental. Again, this is apparently, completely lost on the author. It’s unclear how this has no useful content and merely an attempt to sound smarter.
Strangely I can’t find the quote “They want to ‘unify classical physics and quantum mechanics” anywhere in the paper or the article. What gives?
From the paper…
So, the entire idea that “the comments they are making about things like quantum information are just totally wrong.” is apparently based on a “wrong” interception of the paper or the article.
This is equivocation. Informational content is not the same as a theory of what is physically required for that information that scales.
Again, a reference to content, not theory, etc.
@UB
Incorrect. Did you miss #81?
Want to try again?
For the umpteenth time, is there no one willing to actually address the arguments actually being presented, as opposed to a straw man?
Some questions:
Where do these constructors come from?
Why are they preforming tasks?
Where do the laws come from?
How do laws impose their instructions on constructors?
@Origenes
Read the actual papers I’ve referenced, rather than a popular article, then ask your questions. Your example…
While constructor theory is more fundamental than quantum mechanics or general relativity, this is no way suggests a claim about what the most fundamental components of reality are. IOW, this is coming from the author of the popular article, not the authors of constructor theory.
You did read the papers, right? If not, start here.
For example…
Note the explicit wording here. Nowhere does the paper say constructors are most fundamental entities of all reality. Rather it describes constructor theory in relation to our existing most fundamental theories, in that it underlies them.
Given that the author is a Poppperian, this should come as no surprise.
As for the rest of your questions, “which laws and why” is found in subsidiary theories that uses the formalism of constructor theory to describe them.
Okay, so let me repeat:
Where do these constructors come from?
Why are they preforming tasks?
Where do the laws come from?
How do laws impose their instructions on constructors?
@Origenes
Let me repeat…
Did you read the paper? Did you read my comment?
I’m asking because, you’ve come back and asked the very same questions, which indicates you don’t seem to have a better understanding of why your questions were problematic the first time round.
For example, why are they performing tasks… “is found in subsidiary theories that uses the formalism of constructor theory to describe them.” I’ve already said this and so did the paper.
Your question simply doesn’t make sense. I can’t reformulate every single current scientific theory from the current conception of physics into a subsidiary theory in constructor theory, let lone theories we haven’t come up with yet. Right?
You don’t seem to see the problem, which suggests you do not understand constructor theory, and continue to be willfully ignorant of it. This is why I asked you to come back after you’ve read the paper.
I’ll ask again, have you read the paper? If you have questions about specific parts of the paper, in particular, then reference those parts with your question.
If anyone is being patient here, it’s me.
The paper does not provide answers to my questions CR.
Just so I have this straight, you were able to tell your questions wasn’t the paper in 19 minutes or less?
Note: I commented at 1:56pm and you just posted at 2:15pm.
Is that what you’re suggesting?
Again, your previous questions suggested you didn’t understand constructor theory. Yet, you haven’t changed them. I’ve even pointed out where and why that is the case, by indicating where one of the problems was. Yet, 19 minutes later, you still seem to think they are valid questions.
So, I’ll ask again, did you actually read the paper? Did you try to understand it?
CR@
What is your problem? Just answer my questions.
Let me try again.
For example, you asked “why are constructors performing tasks.”
Constructor theory is the idea that all scientific theories can be expressed as a dichotomy between physical transformations that are possible, physical transformations that are impossible and why. It is thought that all scientific theories – existing and those that will be developed in the future – can be reformatted / expressed in this way. Constructor theory provides a formalism for describing networks of tasks, just like algebra provides a formalism for working with variables. In fact, constructor theory has its own algebra of tasks, parallel and serial networks of tasks, etc.. which is described in the paper. Constructors are not really the subject of constructor theory. Rather the transformations are what take center stage. Nor do the initial conditions play any special role in constructor theory.
IOW, constructor theory represents a new mode of explanation which is more fundamental than our most fundamental theories in the current conception of physics: general relativity and quantum mechanics. In addition, constructor theory brings emergent explanations into fundamental physics, such as information etc. This is why, for example, a kettle can be modeled as a constructor, despite the fact that we cannot predict the motion of each water molecule or the initial conditions outside acting on the kettle, etc. We can abstract alway the kettle and just talk about which transformations of matter that are possible / impossible and why, that explains how it is possible to make tea.
So, constructor theory is a kind or class of explanation or type of explanation, not a concrete explanation. (Just like emergent explanations are a type or class of explanation)
If constructor theory is not an explanation in itself, but a formalism, then is it explanation-less and therefore empty? No, it is not. That would be like saying algebra is empty because it doesn’t include every possible explanatory theory that someone could possibly model with it. There will be theories modeled in algebra that do not exist today. Algebra cannot possibility contain those theories because they haven’t been developed yet. Nor can it include all existing theories modeled with it today. We don’t go around updating it every time new models are formulated with it. That’s simply a category error.
It is in this sense that explanations are developed in constructor theoretic terms that often correlate to existing scientific theories in our current conception of physics and even future theories that haven’t been developed yet. Theories developed in constructor theory are called subsidiary theories. This is where your question of “why are constructors performing tasks.” comes into play.
It’s these Individual theories that explain “why constructors are preforming tasks”. And only a few of the theories in our current conception of physics have been reformulated in this way. I cannot reformulate every existing theory as subsidiary theories. Nor can I reformulate theories that have ye to be conceived of yet.
It’s in this sense that constructor theory is not a theory of everything, but a formalism that can be used to describe every scientific theory. It says that every scientific theory can be described in constructor theoretic terms, even those that have not be developed yet. But this is not a theory of everything, because it does not contain every possible subsidiary theory.
Now do you see why expecting to get an answer for that question indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of constructor theory?
CR @
You focus on just one of my questions, yet, you have not answered it.
So, why do constructors perform tasks, according to these theories?
I’ll take that as a “No”.
There is no one explanation for “why constructors are performing tasks” across all subsidiary theories. That’s my point. It would be specific to each subsidiary theory, including those that do not exist yet. So, how could I possibly answer that?
From the paper….
So, the term “constructors” can refer to anything that is capable of performing a task in that way. They are abstractions, because it’s not really about constructors. It’s about specific physical transformations. So, in that sense, the “why” is specific to each subsidiary theory.
That would be like asking what is the sum of “numbers”, except there is no yet to be conceived of number. You cannot sum the abstract concept of numbers. You can only sum specific, concrete numbers. Right?
Again, it would be helpful if you actually read the paper, rather than just repeating the same question. Or perhaps I’m mistaken in that you’re not genuinely interested in an answer?
I would point out that initial conditions do not play a special role in constructor theory. Perhaps you’re confusing constructor theory with the current conception of physics?
Of course, you knew this already since you’ve already read the paper, right?
CR@
Why does a constructor perform any task at all? Why not, instead, perform no task?
So, in general, why do constructors perform tasks?
@origenes
You’ve got it backwards. Constructors are constructors because they perform tasks. If something didn’t meet the definition of a constructor then, well, it’s not a constructor. So, if there were no possible physical tasks, then there could be no constructors. And the same can be said if nothing was capable of performing those tasks again as a constructor.
Nor is constructor theory a theory of everything, as some people have mistakenly concluded.
But this definition was described in the paper, which you read, right? And I even quoted it above. Here, I’ll quote it again….
Is there something about the above that you do not understand?
CR@
I have asked you 4 questions. You selected one of them and follow up by not answering it?
There simply must be a reason why constructors perform tasks. Something has to drive them. So, why not answer my simple question?
Hint: “I have no clue at all” is also an answer.
CR,
First, I don’t know anything about constructor theory at all.
But after skimming a little information here and there, am I on the right track with this thinking: As an analogy, there are many formulations of QM, for example formulations in terms of path integrals or matrices. Does constructor theory “simply” provide another setting in which you can formulate physical theories?
I get the impression that your interlocutors believe constructor theory is some wacky idea, but if my understanding is at least close to correct, it doesn’t appear to be so.
@origines
Again, constructor theory is not a theory of everything. Yet, it is more fundamental than our most fundamental physical theories in the current conception of physics.
Furthermore, what you’re looking for is specific to individual subsidiary theories. I cannot list and develop subsidiary theories of every current scientific theory, in addition to theories that do not yet exist.
So, you’re question is not possible to answer. Constructor theory is the theory that we can developer subsidiary theories for all scientific theories. But we have yet to develop every scientific theory. The “why” would be in all of those theories, including those we have yet to develop.
CR @
You keep repeating that over and over. I did not claim that is was. I do not care about that at all. If it is of any help to you:
I declare that I do not believe that constructor theory is a theory of everything.
Now can we get passed that?
Okay, since you cannot answer why, in general, constructors perform tasks, can you at least give one example of a specific constructor and tell me why it performs it task? A kettle heating water perhaps?
CR does not want to tell us that constructors and their tasks depend on matter & law. Why not? Because he, like Deutsch, wants constructors to be “more fundamental”…
From Deutsch’s paper:
If physical transformations are fully determined by initial conditions & laws, then the same goes for what is possible and impossible. IOWs the initial state and laws determine what will happen and “what will happen” is the exact same thing as “what is possible” — and “all other outcomes” would be “what is impossible.”
So, given causal determinism, there is no “departure” from the prevailing conception of
fundamental physics at all:
1. Possible transformations = what will happen according to physics.
2. Impossible transformations = anything other than what will happen according to physics.
Note that, according to CR , constructor theory is compatible with determinism.
What is being said here? We learn that constructors have physical substrates. So, given physical reductionism, constructors are reducible to the physical. If so, what does it mean to say that constructors cause transformations in physical systems? Constructors depend on physical substrates & laws and are physical themselves, so what is Deutsch saying beyond “physical stuff causes transformations in physical stuff”?
This is simply incoherent. Let’s break it down:
Constructors, as we already learned, depend on physical substrates & laws, so, since nothing can cause itself, it is logically impossible that any aspect of constructors (such as its task) can cause the laws of nature.
Same thing here: constructors depend on physical substrates & laws, so they cannot be the explanation of its substrates & laws.
Final note: if constructor tasks are emergent properties, it is equally incoherent to state that an emergent property causes the substrate & laws from which it emerges.
Haven’t forgot about you. I have been blocked on a project by a client and they just dumped everyone in my lap.
Furthermore, example “why”s have already presented in the three papers I referenced so, apparently, you’re still having difficulty grasping how constructor theory is a genuinely new mode of explanation, which is fundamentally different than the current conception of physics. Repeating them again will be unlikely to help, so I’m trying to figure out how to address that.
To summarize, constructor theory isn’t about constructors. It’s about breaking down transformations into tasks with inputs and outputs. A subsidiary theory says these specific laws of nature makes this tasks possible, these laws of nature make these transformation impossible, which is why, when presented with these inputs something (an abstract constructor) can produce these outputs again and again.
So, to use an example, it’s not about determining where an asteroid will be at some time in future, because we know its initial conditions and apply laws of motion. Constructor theory is about where an asteroid can be made to go using resources, such as rockets, fuel and even knowledge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=8DH2xwIYuT0
@Origenes
The departure is from how we explain things in the prevailing conception of physics. Not that physics is somehow different in constructor theory.
No, constructors transform physical substrates.
They are not the explanations of substrates in some ultimate sense. Again, you’re expecting it to be a theory of everything. It’s not. It’s a new mode of explanation.
We’re not trying to solve the same problems.
Are you claiming the current conception of physics the only valid mode of explanation? If so, how have you justified that claim?
@daveS
CR @120
Yes, and given that constructors are physical themselves, that amounts to the unremarkable claim: “the physical transforms the physical”.
Well, Deutsch does not agree with you when he says that they are explanations of substrates — here is the relevant quote again:
So, Deutsch doesn’t think that it is logically impossible for a constructor & task to create itself, by causing its own substrate.
No, my claim is that constructors & tasks cannot be foundational to the physical layer on which it sits.
follow-up #122 //
To be clear:
If at time t, (substrate) A causes (constructor & task) B, then it is not possible for B to cause A — given that time-travel is not an option.
Put another way:
If A is foundational to the existence of B (if B can only exist because A exists), then B cannot be foundational to A’s existence.
Deutsch’s paper is a treasure trove for students of incoherent thought:
Nonsense. Of course, they are not more fundamental. Given that you know what will happen, by implication you know what will not happen. It is simple : A —> B. What is not going to happen? ~B. In fact, the only way to know ~B is by knowing B.
Besides it far more efficient to say that B is going to happen, then to provide an extensive “forbidden-list” of all things that are “~ B”.
The same nonsense. The notion “because that would violate a conservation law” rests entirely on our understanding of what a conservation law (positively) does. By understanding that it causes B, it follows logically that any ~B is not an option. Again, there is no other way to know ~B than by knowing B.
Amazingly, Deutsch, like many things, has it backwards: he seems to think that charges in clouds cause lightning, because teapots, ladies’ undergarments, computers, horses and junk-food are forbidden.
Again, you still seem to be confused. It’s all about what changes we can bring about. Describing a possible deltas we can bring about, as opposed to being based on some initial conditions and laws of nature.
A transformation, regarded as being caused by a constructor, I call a construction.
IOW, parts that causes transformations and can cause that change again, since the key parts that result in those transformations do not undergo change themselves in the process, are constructors. The other parts, which actually undergoes those transformations, are substrates.
This is significantly more than stating “the physical transforms the physical”
Here, it is explicitly clarified that the interactions between constructor and substrates are determined by universal laws. So, it’s more than that….
The above is the “theory” part of constructor theory.
Again, what is key here is the delta between inputs states and output states in regards to substrates, not some ultimate explanation of substrates.
Thinks can only be “understood” in an reductionist sense? And, again, as a Popperian, and author that explicitly denies this, constructor theory is not a of everything, which you apparently suddenly do not agree with anymore?
From this video….
Expressing the whole of physics is not the same as being a theory of everything.
In a system, substrates are the thing that are transformed. Constructor do the transforming when the right inputs are present. They actually exist and are modified.
We want to know what transformations we can make happen and why. One such example would be to cure cancer. That can be expressed as a network of possible transformations of substrates by constructors.
The same can be said for high-fidelity replicating cells. We can model replication as transformations of substrates by constructors. In all cases the system in question can be segmented as constructors and substrates with inputs and outputs.
In primitive cells, the constructor was just the environment and the cell was the substrate. In current day cells, the network of transformations includes the environment and the cell’s recipe. This transition is made visible and naturally explained in constructor theory because constructors are abstract entities which represent the things that do not change. The network of tasks still contains generic transformations performed by the environment, such as how a builder uses gravity to hold down a board while it is nailed into place.
During the transition, the identities are not static. The roles of what is the substrate and what is the constructor changes, but replication continues to occur at different levels of accuracy.
Correction:
@Origenes
Constructor theory underlies general relativity and quantum mechanics. It proposes laws about laws. It’s in this sense that a conception of physics can be more fundamental without being a theory of everything.
Yet, you then go on to quote an example that is more efficient at describing what isn’t possible.
The conservation law is a law about lows. But, since it cannot be a law in that sense, because it would make them siblings, it is a principe about laws. So, It would underly all laws in that sense.
Again, you’re assuming they are siblings, in which it case would be circular. But they are not siblings. And you seem to be referring to essences, based on some kind of identity. Something does something because of its identity. But that is essentialism.
CR @
Did you miss the “in the prevailing conception” part? Deutsch does not agree with the prevailing conception and proposes his alternative.
What Deutsch is saying is this: let’s ignore the fact that constructors are physical themselves by ‘abstracting them away’, and next let’s pretend that constructors are fundamental to physics (hahaha!) — instead of dependent on it — and express all fundamental questions of physics in constructor theoretical terms.
It is simply incoherent.
He doesn’t “agree”? Huh? This is yet another indication that you do not understand constructor theory.
Saying constructor theory is more fundamental and can genuinely contribute new content doesn’t mean the current conception has not been successful. After all, the theory of quantum mechanics is the most successful theory we have.
Constructor theory makes a significant contribution precisely because the current conception cannot mention / identify constructors in a system to abstract them – allowing us to focus on what’s left over: substrates and inputs. So, it’s more than just the current conception of physics.
Except, again, constructor theory isn’t a theory of everything. Constructors are abstract because multiple “things” can be a constructor for the same task.
For the umpteen time, a theory can be the most fundamental we currently have without being a theory of everything.
From this video….
Constructors are abstract in the same sense that a universal computer can be made of cogs, transistors, vacuum tubes, etc. How you make them is inessential to the deep laws of computation. Yet there are no non-physical computers or constructors.
CR@
Yes, he doesn’t agree with the prevailing conception. Again:
In the prevailing conception there is no place for his constructors. Deutsch does not like that. He does not agree with that. He wants to see that differently. Capiche?
I am beginning to think that it is you who has a problem with understanding.
Correct. But your point misses the mark, since nobody says it is the same thing; I certainly didn’t.
A universal hammer is also “abstract” in the exact same sense.
Exactly. The fact that we can make hammers (or computers) from all sorts of materials means that certain specifics are irrelevant to the function, which means that a range of materials can perform that same function. However that specific range of materials is absolutely vital to the function of the hammer — that fact cannot be validly abstracted away. Not being dependent on one single specific matter, but, instead, on a range of materials, doesn’t make the hammer independent from matter, or foundational to matter or “abstract.” The fact that I can use three different types of fuel for my car doesn’t make my car “abstract” in any way.
And for the umpteenth time: not in my wildest dreams would I hold that this incoherent nonsense is a theory of everything.
Does not like? Does not agree? He wants to see the current conception differently? It’s the current conception, which has limitations. That’s it. What does one likes or agrees with have to do with it?
Again, constructor theory underlies our most fundamental theories in the current conception of physics, which includes general relativity and quantum mechanics. And, in turn, our current conception of general relativity underlies other theories, etc.
To have principles about laws implies there are laws to have principles about. it’s unclear how could “not agree” or not like something that would be obey those principles.
Constructor theory is the generalization of the theory of quantum computation. What does the theory of quantum computation imply? Any object can simulate any other object, including a hammer.
So it is about what is possible an why (“knowing how”.)
It’s in this sense that saying something is possible is significant. We can bring it about if we have the “why”. And it will be possible in many different ways. Unless something is forbidden by the laws of physics, the only thing that could prevent us from achieving it is knowing how.
So, it’s about knowledge, not the constructor.
It’s as if you think things serve a purpose because they were created with some kind “essence” about them that has nothing to do with knowing how.
Deutsch mentions it ‘in passing’: “… most constructors are themselves composite objects”. This means the glaringly obvious: constructors come from matter & law and obviously depend on the substrates that make them.
It follows, as clear as day, that constructors cannot be fundamental to physics. This is clearly incoherent, yet it is exactly what constructor theory proposes — see #118.
In post #102 I asked CR four questions. What followed was multiple posts CR not answering those questions.
In post #118 I concluded that:
The kind reader knows that I am correct, see Deutsch’s admission above. What was CR’s response?
So, let us get this straight: I say “constructors and their tasks depend on matter & law” and Deutsch says: “most constructors are themselves composite objects”, which means the same thing.
But CR’s response is “No.”
Combined with not answering my questions, this tells me to stop debating with CR.
@origenes
The very definition of a constructor is part of a physical system that can perform a transformation without undergoing an overal net physical change itself. It’s that lack of change that, in part, allows the constructor to perform that transformation again. And if it is a composite, then the entire compositon needs to, at a minimum, phyiscally end up back in the state where it started at the end of the transformation.
On the other hand, substrates are part of a physical system that we want to transform. The goal is to cause lasting change. A constructor cannot be a substrate because substrates change. Constructors effectively do not.
In a task, some waste products can be part of the output. The waste is a byproduct of the construction, not the substrate, even though it would represent a change in some sense. We don’t intentonally want to bring the waste product about. But we could just as well divide the system up so that same waste product is the desired result. So, what is waste and what is the substrate can be exchanged depending on what the task is.
I do not want to tell you that constructors are more fundamental because that would be a misrepresentation.
That would be like saying “Constructor theory’s constructors are more fundamental.” Which isn’t what Deutsch is saying.
Rather, constructor theory is more fundimental than any of our existing theories. It would underly all other existing theories in the current conception of physics.
Yes, there is no room for constructors in the current conception of physics. That’s because the current conception is limited to descriptions that take the form of initial conditions and laws of motion. There is no way to divide up a physical system as constructors, substrates and inputs / outputs.
It is in this sense that constructor theory is genuinely a new mode of explanation and is more fundamental that explantions in the current conception of physics.
Quantum mechanics represents a more fundamental theory of physics than classical physics. This doesn’t mean that quantum physics is not a theory of physics at all. It is a more fundamental theory of physics. Classical physics cannot describe physical systems at the very small scale. So, it cannot make exact statements about information in quantum systems.
The constructor theory of information “works” (scales) across both classical and quantum systems because constructor theory is a new mode of information that represents a more fundamental theory of physics.
No known theories -whatever their names- can seriously and coherently explain the appearance of a single bacteria or a eukaryotic multicellular system, for example.
Other opinions are gossiping chat for pop tabloids.
Of course. God did it and God cannot be explained. So the appearance of things that God did must remain inexplicable. Otherwise, God couldn’t have done it.
Still unable to offer a single real-world example, eh CR?
(#46, #47, #51, #57, #58, #73, #75, #78, #82, #83, #87, #89, #94, #98)
No?
@141
Wrong! Totally wrong!
God, revealed to His people in the Christian scriptures, is not a “god of the gaps”, but the God of the whole show.
If God were anything close to what atheists describe, I would be the leader of worldwide atheism. 🙂
Thank God that’s not the case. Far from it. Completely different.
The known -not the unknown- clearly points to complex functionally specified informational complexity, which has been empirically proven to be solely the product of an intelligent mind.
The unknown only serves as a strong motivation to keep researching.
Oh, well, the unknown also serves as the badly needs gaps Neo-Darwinism relies on while still hoping to someday find some kind of explanations.
Note that the problems we see around wouldn’t have existed had we remained in Eden. But we chose not to, because we prefer to do things our ways, like in Paul Anka’s famous song, popularized by Frank Sinatra, whose rendition stayed 75 weeks in the UK Top 40, a record still today.
That song, along with John Lennon’s “Imagine” made the favorite hymn in Hades.
Upright BiPed @142
Don’t expect that to happen anytime soon, if at all.
@Dionisio
Some things are the way they are because “that’s just what some inexplicable mind that exists in an inexplicable realm that operates by inexplicable means and methods for reasons we cannot comprehend, wanted them to be that way” is a good explanation?
It’s not even clear that we were in “Eden”. Nor have you explained how you know what God is like.
Q1: How have you infallibly identified an infallible source of what God is like?
Q2: Assuming you somehow managed that, how have you managed to infallibly interpreted this infallible source of what God is like?
@UB
The question is irrelevant. And, unlike you, Ive pointed out what it is irrelevant, rather than just asserting it.
It’s irrelevant because, without a theory of information that scales, all you have is a claim of irreducible complexity. A bacterial flagellum is based on an arrangement of matter. It does not “work” in the absence of that arrangement. That too is a claim of irreducible complexity.
Unless you have a theory of information that says all information must be interpreted in the sense you’re implying, or it’s not information, then all you have is a claim of irreducible complexity. And we all know how well that turned out in the case of the bacterial flagellum.
Not to mention that News referenced an article indicated a significant amount of previously unknown functionality in RNA. That doesn’t bode well for any irreducible complexity argument.
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/viruses-hijack-junk-non-coding-rna-turns-out-many-non-coding-functions-have-not-been-identified/
Of course, I’ve added for such a theory of information before. Far more times that you’ve asked for an example. Yet you still haven’t provided one.
So what gives?
Wait- all bacteria flagella are irreducibly complex AND there aren’t any stochastic processes that can produce one.
That doesn’t follow. Clearly you don’t have a clue as to what IC is. Not only that you don’t have an explanation for functional RNAs.
CR @ 146
“The question is irrelevant.”
I will translate from CR-speak into plain English: UB, the answer to the question destroys my argument; therefore, I will refuse to address the point you raise and write literally thousands of words on other subjects hoping no one notices.
CR, you are a piece of work. Thank you though. With enemies like you . . .
CR, your counter-argument is that the semiotic model does not scale to a “quantum storage medium”. But a quantum storage medium is part of a semiotic system (just as I told you months ago).
You now realize this, but you are intellectually incapable of acknowledging errors in your theory, so you’ve chosen to simply refuse to give an specific example of a quantum storage medium because it would immediately invalidate your claim.
@UB
That’s not my counter argument. Let me repeat it for you.
Is there something about the above that you do not understand?
This has been my argument from the start. You’re just now realizing it.
If there is anything I’ve “just realized”, is that your argument is simply a claim of irreducible complexity.
Let me try yet again.
01. Based on theory C, we think information is limited to X, Y and Z.
02. Oh look. Theory C has problems. If C refers to Shannon’s theory It has a curricular definition of distinguishability, even in classical systems.
03. Theory C also requires a specific transformations to occur (cloning), but those specific transformations in quantum systems are impossible (violates the laws of quantum physics).
04. There is quantum information. So, there must be a more fundamental theory information that works even when those transformations (cloning) is in impossible in quantum systems.
03. If only we had a way to bring information into fundamental physics theories?
04. Constructor theory of information (Q) does just this and, in doing so, solves both problems above.
05 Based on theory Q, we no longer think information is limited to X, Y and Z. Nor do we think it needs knowing subjects, etc.
06. Your argument becomes a claim of irreducible complexity.
Of course, I can’t even tell if your theory of information is based on Shannon’s because you still haven’t provided one. Despite being asked to. Repeatedly.
CR, congratulations, in your quest to protect your theory from valid criticism, you’ve graduated from mere dissembling and deception, to telling outright falsehoods.
The quote above was posted to me by someone commenting under the name “critical rationalist”. Are you not that “critical rationalist”? Are you a different critical rationalist? Are you asking us to believe that there is another critical rationalist posting here?
If not, then you clearly made your claim (many many times, ad nauseam). Do you not remember harping for weeks about Newton’s law’s not scaling to general relativity, and demanding that I respond?
Or perhaps you will want to claim that this quote is too old?
Here is a later example:
And yet example another (weeks) later:
And another example, later still:
And even another example from this very thread:
Your claim has been answered CR. It is false. You’ll have to learn to accept it. Your counter example of a quantum storage medium requires semiosis to function. Just as I told you, months ago.
@UB
Apparently, you still haven’t got it.
C cannot make exact statements about information in quantum systems because those transformations are not possible in quantum mechanics.. As such, it does not scale to quantum mechanics.
I’ve used this terminology before in the case of Newton’s laws and even the laws of thermodynamics. This is nothing new.
It’s not even clear that you’ve provided a theory of information. I keep asking one and you keep falling to provide one. “I’ve even suggested Shannon’s, which you seem to suggest has nothing to do with it. There are symbols in the genome” is not a physical theory of information.
IOW, you seem to think by presenting an incomplete theory of information that fails to address cloning at all, this somehow makes your incomplete theory of information immune to the problem of cloning in quantum systems.
If by “not getting it” you mean I watched with everyone else while you publically sawed off the branch you were sitting on, then yeah, I didn’t get it.
A quantum storage medium is a semiotic system, CR. Get over it.
cheers 🙂
By “not getting it” I mean what I wrote in my comment.
Perhaps you have forgotten that you asked what is physically necessary for information to exist in a storage medium. If you didn’t want the answer, then why bother asking? Apparently, you disagree with what is necessary for information to exist, yet you lack any specific criticism of the answer you were provided.
Again, you haven’t actually presented a comprehensive physical theory of information. That is unless you think information just magically appeared in organisms, And you ignore the fact that recipe (information) must be copied when a cell self-replicates, per Von Neumann. And there is the interoperability principle that defines what tasks must be possible to for symbols to exist.
To be clear, that entails a theory of information that is more fundamental that symbols. This is why you’re left with merely a claim of irreducible complexity, with all of it’s flaws. And that claim fails because knowledge in constructor theory is a new mode of explanation that scales to include a unification of information in both classical and quantum systems. And it does not need a knowing subject. What tasks are possible, what tasks are impossible and why is knowledge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FarXx3IVgws
This allows us to explain the kinds of transformations necessary for cells to replicate in various levels of fidelity. And even exactly describe transformations in current day cells as a network of tasks with subtasks that eventually reach generic transformations that are not replication specific. We don’t need to bring symbols into the mix at this level. Nor do we require knowing subjects, intention, anthropomorphic meaning, etc.
(I’m baffled as to why you think someone presenting a theory of information that (1) explains what is necessary for symbols to exist and (2) does so across both classical and quantum systems would somehow think symbols are impossible in quantum systems. I mean, if you actually thought this, it’s right there in the theory itself. And it would be trivial to point how that assumption would conflict with the theory I was presenting. )
The translation system doesn’t just make proteins. Specific aspects of it aspects of it It consist of information It must be copyable. And if it is copiable, that means there must be specific physical tasks that are necessary for information to be passible at all.
Nor is constructor theory about the idea that something is merely possible in some naive sense. See this video about removing probability, incluidng the concept of credence, from science.
CR, when you are able to acknowledge that storing information in a “quantum storage medium” is a semiotic system, we can continue this conversation.
You mean like I’m able to acknowledging rockets can be launched into space by pretending Newton’s laws are true, in reality?
Is that a problem for general relativity, which suggest that something completely different is happening there in reality?
I can also acknowledge that you can plant a small garden pretending the flat earth theory is true. For the most part, you’ll be just fine, even though it suggests something completely different is happening there, in reality, as well. That is, until you tried to take it seriously, in that we do not need to worry about, say, the impact of astroids, etc.
Can we continue now?
critical rationalist:
Do you know what a semiotic system is?
@mung
Do you know what is physically necessary for symbols to be possible in both classical and quantum systems?
.
UB,
I haven’t read any of these papers.
Are you familiar with any of them?
Thanks.
The Convergence of the Philosophy and Science of Information
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joseph_Brenner2/publication/300245400_The_Convergence_of_the_Philosophy_and_Science_of_Information/links/573f346508ae9ace8413403b/The-Convergence-of-the-Philosophy-and-Science-of-Information.PDF
Philosophy of Information: Revolution in Philosophy. Towards an Informational Metaphilosophy of Science
http://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/2/4/22/pdf
Philosophy Of Information: Revolution in Philosophy
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joseph_Brenner2/publication/318581089_Philosophy_Of_Information_Revolution_in_Philosophy/links/5a3008eb458515a13d852d84/Philosophy-Of-Information-Revolution-in-Philosophy.pdf
Cognitive Informatics: From Information Revolution to Intelligence Revolution
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yingxu_Wang/publication/283753244_Cognitive_Informatics_From_Information_Revolution_to_Intelligence_Revolution/links/564c0df608ae4ae893b82076/Cognitive-Informatics-From-Information-Revolution-to-Intelligence-Revolution.pdf
Measures of Information
http://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/6/1/23/
Information and Inference
http://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/8/2/61/pdf
Information and Meaning
http://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/7/3/41/
Digital Information and Value
http://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/6/4/733/pdf
Information and Semiosis in Living Systems: A Semiotic Approach
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joao_Queiroz2/publication/216816466_Information_and_Semiosis_in_Living_Systems_A_Semiotic_Approach/links/0a2f01a37a4213d42dbcce4e/Information-and-Semiosis-in-Living-Systems-A-Semiotic-Approach.pdf
@Mung
Again, since we have a more fundamental theory of information, at best, UB has a *claim* of irreducible complexity in the case of the translation system. But that has all of the hallmarks of all irreducible complexity claims. It’s based on ignorance.
For example, News posted a story about describing all kinds of unknown functionality in RNA explored by viruses. But that’s still stuck in the current conception.
The constructor theory of life describes the cell as a network of replication specific tasks that eventually transition to generic tasks. So the entire transition from the environment replicating primitive cells to current day cells is already right there, which we can identify by constructor theory. It’s happening right now in each of our bodies. There just was no way to segment physical systems into a constructor, substrate and input/outputs in the current conceptions of physics.
The funny thing is, UB is referring to segmenting physical systems into a Semiotic triad (which virtually no one think leads to the conclusion of ID, anyway)
I’m pointing out there is a more fundamental way to segment physical systems into a generic constructor, substrate and input/outputs. Someone could just as well make the claim that any such segmentation repents an irreducible complex system as well. In fact, knowledge is information that is well adapted to play a causal role in being retained when embedded in a storage medium. Constructor theory is about knowledge.
Yet, when presented with this more fundamental mode of explanation, UB seems to have some affinity for continuing to segment the translation system, in particular, into a Semiotic triad that he has yet to argue for.
Knowledge is a constructor because it can play that role again and again due to being retained when copied. The causal role it plays is as being a constructor.
So, where did that knowledge come from in the case of the genome? That’s where Neo-darwnisism comes in. The constructor theory of life supplements it. That knowledge it is genuinely created over time, rather than having always existed at the outset or having spontaneously appeared in organisms when they were created, etc.
We can transition from the environment as constructor of a primitive cell to the genome as a constructor, and the gradation between them. This is natural in constructor theory because the cell can be described as a network of replication specific tasks with subtasks and subtasks that eventually end up in non-replication specific tasks.
A truly sad sad day. Hugh Masekela passes.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jan/23/hugh-masekela-obituary
Absolutely one of the all-time greats, and a lovely gentle man.
Rest in peace Bra Hugh!