The Silliest Thing Yet, or Sheer Genius?

One of my previous supervisors, who then worked for NASA, was once asked about how to account for the weight of the software on the space missions. Apparently the bean counters were unwilling to accept an answer of zero weight.

They were, however, willing (according to his story) to accept as the weight of the software the weight of the punched chads from the cards.

According to this version, then, information would in fact have had a mass and weight up until punched cards or paper tape disappeared, at which point the information itself would have evolved into a massless entity.

One correct answer to Meyer's question, however, is that mass and energy are interrelated (Einstein, right?) and thus one estimate of "the mass of the information on the disk" can be obtained from knowing how much energy it took to organize the electrons from the patterns on the disk as shipped.

That's a really tough choice... But because I do believe that every human being (yes, even creationists.) is in possession of at least a minimum amount of common sense, I'd wager that this is not for real. I cannot believe that anyone in this position would suggest that there is no physical difference between a blank and a loaded CD. Or that the "Information" he describes are due to no "materialistic" cause.

Nevertheless I am not sure about this (about 51%), since we're still talking about a creationist here, that is.

One correct answer to Meyer's question, however, is that mass and energy are interrelated (Einstein, right?) and thus one estimate of "the mass of the information on the disk" can be obtained from knowing how much energy it took to organize the electrons from the patterns on the disk as shipped.

According to an article Talk Islam.com, at least part of what you quoted comes from a talk called "Why Can't Biological Information Originate Through a Materialistic Process" on the Unlocking the Mystery of Life dvd.

I am almost certain that this is for real. After all, you can't make up stuff this stupid for no good reason. I once went to a creationist presentation in a church where the guy held up a "spork" and claimed that it was a "transitional form" between a spoon and a fork! Boy, that really proved how wrong evilution is.

Seriously, no argument is too stupid for these people if someone falls for it. We need to adapt Dembski's design detector as a BS detector. Of course he won't let us do that because he is afraid we will turn it on him.

One correct answer to Meyer's question, however, is that mass and energy are interrelated (Einstein, right?) and thus one estimate of "the mass of the information on the disk" can be obtained from knowing how much energy it took to organize the electrons from the patterns on the disk as shipped.

How much energy is required to impart information? We have sensors that can detect quantum events and amplify them to the macroscopic level. What's more, the energy in quantum events is proportional to frequency or inversely proportional to wavelength. And since there is no upper limit to the wavelength of, for instance, electromagnetic radiation, there is no lower limit to the energy required to impart information. In the limit, a designer could therefore impart information into the universe without inputting any energy at all.

They got me on the Egnor thing, but I'm not falling for this one. It has to be a self parody - it just has to be.

The sad thing is that's kind of hard to tell with these guys. Just to be safe we should treat everything that comes out of the Discovery Institue as part of an elaborate April Fools Day joke.

Is this another April Fools?

;-)

You're suppose to answer that question.

Not reducible to matter or energy? Without matter or energy, you have NO information.

Pete Duckelburg --- Well, it is April and they are fools...

:-)

It's a joke; must be. Of course "information" is massless. If I take a bunch of objects and change their configuration in regard to one another so that they have meaning, I haven't added or lost mass. To use the computer disk example, what happens isn't that something is added or removed from the disk; what happens is that magnetic domains are created on the disk by changing the polar orientations of the material from which the disk is made.

An even simpler example; I have a quill pen and an ink pot. As long as the ink is in the pot, there's no information. If I use the pen to arrange the ink into meaningful forms until I use it all up, then I've created information. It's the same exact mass of ink I started with. Nothing's been added or subtracted, it's just an arrangement that can be interpreted by someone who looks at it as meaningful.

So yeah, this is too simple to cut through. Either it's another prank, or else it should be one.

1. Yes it is real. Stephen Meyer really did say it and believe it.
2. Why do I say that? Well I googled it.
3. Pretty sure.

Or are you asking if he is correct:

1. Yes, absolutely. His arguments support my own views on gravity, and the atheist conspiracy surrounding Newtonist views.
2. Why? Come on. If everything falls down, how could I possibly lift anything up? That would mean when I lift this can of Coke, I'm violating the laws of physics. Also birds fly, how does that happen? So-called scientists rule out a priori an Intelligent Lifter (who may or may not be Yoda.) You can tell this because of Irrefutable Height. Take those discs Meyer was holding. Say he was holding one higher than the other. The higher one has IH, and guess what, the discs both have the same mass. Height is a massless quantity, so how can any materialistic explanation explain its origin? Height is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. (Cannot produce! No sireee Bob! No relation to energy there at all! Unless you mean The Force, or whatever energy field you coincidentally happen to believe that binds the galaxy together.)

3) How sure am I? I'm open minded enough to know the Newtonists are completely wrong. They should learn science, and stretch out with their feelings.

May the Force be With You.

Well OK, it's April 1 and all that, but then again he probably wrote it earlier.

What's particularly stupid is that it is indeed likely that there is the same amount of information on a blank disk as on a written disk (any difference is likely to be trivial, though a tiny difference ispossible). The domains (if we're talking about magnetic media) are already "coding" 1s or 0s, holding information that is utterly uninteresting to us---we replace that information with information we find interesting/useful.

That's the way it is with these ignorant types, they don't know the difference between information and meaningful information, thus they think that information cannot arise.

And really, what is wrong with a purported philosopher not having even a slight acquaintance with the ancient notion of "formal cause" as being related to information issues? There's nothing at all new about "information" as an issue, if we don't insist upon a formal definition for "information". Meyer ought to know enough about language as a "philosopher" even to recognize that in-form-ation has, in some sense, to do with (internal) form, a very ancient concept (almost certainly prehistorical).

Plato, and even more so Aristotle, discussed information (as form) reasonably and usefully, which means that even a poorly educated philosopher ought to know something about it.

Discuss entropy, please, Meyer. There's where information is inextricably tied into physics, and governs the effects of energy. The trouble is that you, like your cohorts, really know nothing about science as a universal practice, you guys only know bits and pieces, so it is hardly surprising that you never manage to recognize a successfuly synthetic theory as such.

They like to accuse us of being "reductionists", never realizing that they are the supreme reductionists, for they don't know how energy and information are related. Likewise, they also think that the information in biology is all accident, whim, or whatever is supposed to drive their designer (they evidently agree that making the best design for a given function is not driving said designer---the one way in which they have characterized the "designer", albeit not in a straightforward manner). Everything in their "biology" is reduced to disconnected bits, mere bits in an inherently not-understandable set of parts.

Of course the piece is real, for it is uncomprehending and totally disconnected from any reasonable discussion of the highly interconnected and comprehensive scientific explanations that his foes have worked out.

Glen D
http://tinyu

Not reducible to matter or energy? Without matter or energy, you have NO information.

— Jesus Christ

Funny enough, Egnor makes a similar claim on the "Evolution News and Views" webpage. I realize that it's April 1st, but it seems to be a legitimate post (unlike the one on evolutionnews.net). Egnor writes: "Materialism is nonsense, because if matter and energy are all that exist, then truth doesn't exist (it's neither matter nor energy). If truth doesn't exist, then materialism can't be true."

Wow. Is that dumb. I would think it was an April Fool's day joke, but the rest of the article is pretty typical IDist claims.

Information on a computer disk is encoded in an arrangement of materials so it directly exists as a material entity. It is created through a process that manipulates the structure of the disk and which must follow basic laws of physics, including of course the laws of thermodynamics regarding the conservation of energy. DNA encodes genetic information. The information does not float around without a physical structure connected to it.

What the hell is this "materialistic" label? You see this kind of wording in Islamic materials - see Taner Edis' The Illusion of Harmony about science and Islam. In their usage, which seems to mirror this, "material" is a derogatory label applied to maintain the Islamic necessity that the spiritual approach must dominate. Edis explains how this approach roots in the Quranic statements and the accompanying belief that the text is without doubt. This "without doubt" statement limits the ability of Islam to process ideas which create doubt.

The oddity of finding this sentiment expressed in Christian fundamentalist thought is striking because the war about doubt in the Bible was over, in the history of Western civilization, with the Englightenment, meaning that Mr. Meyer, probably without realizing it, has expressed a medieval, pre-Englightenment point of view, one which agrees with fundamentalist Islam.

I have to do a little nit-picking here, since (disregarding the obvious confusion Meyer has with the concept of information in system state permutations) there is a difference in mass between blank and written CD discs. CDs function optically, that is, one must mold small ridges in the grooves on the CD surface to store binary data. This causes a minuscule reduction in disc mass (or, in the case of CD-Rs, grooves are not burnt, but the reflective properties of the surface are changed which, I believe, still causes an even more minuscule difference in mass).

This has no relevance whatsoever with the computational complexity of a physical system, just thought I'd mention it. I'll leave tearing the real argument to the professionals.

According to an article Talk Islam.com, at least part of what you quoted comes from a talk called "Why Can't Biological Information Originate Through a Materialistic Process" on the Unlocking the Mystery of Life dvd.

Stephen C. Meyer, a philosopher of science from the Cambridge University and who is critical of the theory of evolution as well as materialism, says in an interview: One thing I do in classes to get this idea across the students is that I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, the other one is blank. And I ask, "What is the difference in mass between these two computer disks as a result of the difference in the information content that they possess"? And of course the answer is zero, none, there is no difference as a result of the information. That is because information is a massless quantity. Information is not a material entity.

Actually, in the information-theoretic sense there is likely to be more information on the blank disk. (Well, it depends on how it was manufactured, I suppose.) Information, in so far as it has a precise definition, means more or less the opposite of what Meyer, Dembski, et. al. think it does. It is, informally, the absence of pattern. That is, a random string has much more information that a string with a concisely described pattern. See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity

for a more precise definition of algorithmic information.

As for the idea that information in the sense of order cannot be created by material means, that is simply an assertion with no basis in fact. And, as it happens, it's a false assertion. See Stuart kauffman's The Origins of Order for a (somewhat technical) discussion of this.

And no, I don't think it's an April Fool's joke, but even if it were, the fact that it's hard to tell is all you need to know.

There is zero information on either disk unless you have some way to read and interpret it. Take 2 5 1/4" disks. Both are CP/M formatted and one contains Wordstar, the other nothing. Now tell me which is blank and which contains information. I'm picturing an Uncertainty Priciple of Information. It is non-existant until observed...

Come on - that is just as valid an observation as Meyer's insn't it? :-)

I'm going to say this is not for real, just because the argument is so convoluted. If you use the same media across the board, then the more information you accumulate will make the mass of media increase. In the example with the floppy disks it should be easily recognized that if one photo fits on one disk, then 10 photos of the same quality and size will take up ten disks. This is such a simple concept I find it hard to believe it could even trick a bunch of first graders.

Also, I'm not aware if Stephen Meyer would know this, but scientist can measure the weight of DNA, and guess what DNA from bacteria weighs less than from a humans. I wonder if that is because human DNA has more information? In fact if we put the DNA of a bacteria on 3.5" floppy disks, and DNA from humans and the same media you would have more disks for the human DNA than for the bacteria. And if you used a scale to measure the total weight of the disk, guess which one would weigh more? I really really hope this is bull crap, if not screw you guys I'm switching sides. I am pretty sure I could BS my way into a pretty high paying job telling people crap I made up. I mean if their dumb enough to fall for it anyway, why not make a couple of bucks?

If it's not real it deserves to be - the quality of the argument is as good or better than average for the ID'er attempts to persuade. Can information exist in the absence of matter and energy? It surely takes physical processes to create it, store it and access it. The success of the argument would depend on following up with further similarly flawed arguments before the victim's brain can kick into gear. It happening in the presence of massed true believers providing a sense of belonging (you can belong too)is also a good way to sidetrack reasoned thought. I have to vote for yes it's real.

However, the state of no information is also massless. As proof, I point to the heads of IDist. Containing air instead of brains, they are both without information and without mass. Yet, IDist have a materialistic explanation - just make your cheque out to "The Discovery Institute". Operators are standing by.

For fun let's make this argument and see how well it holds up. I have three one gallon jugs, I fill one with water, one with vegetable oil, and one with air. So in order of weight it goes air, vegetable oil, and water. Since they all hold the same volume this proves that water has more information in it than air, and vegetable oil. Take that evolution, PROVE ME WRONG!

Stoned college dude #1: "Dude, I just totally realized that information, like, doesn't weigh anything, dude.

Stoned college dude #2: "Man, have you ever looked at your hand? I mean, like, really looked at it?

Stoned college dude #1: "That's gotta, like, demonstrate something really, you know, really heavy, man,

Stoned college dude #2: "Wow, man. Just, wow."

This is just a rehash of the "you can't get something from nothing" fallacy.

A biologist would say, yes you can evolve new information from mutation and selection. All of which involve matter and energy but do not depend on some esoteric third state, not matter or energy.

Micrevolution creates new information all the time, empirically seen countless times and a deadly nuisance occasionally. Flu viruses continually adapt to their hosts by antigenic drift. The AIDS virus adapted to a new host, humans. Cancer cells mutate to resist treatments. So take microevolution, repeat N times. You've gone from a prokaryote to a human.

This argument is proof that footprints are divine creations.

1. Mud without a footprint weighs the same as mud with a footprint (unless it's really sticky mud the footprint is caused by squishing the matter out of the way, not removing it).

2. Therefore there is no possible materialistic cause.

3. Profit!!

Taken off the net Encyclopedia Columbia "Interestingly, the mathematical expression for information content closely resembles the expression for entropy in thermodynamics. The greater the information in a message, the lower its randomness, or "noisiness," and hence the smaller its entropy. Since the information content is, in general, associated with a source that generates messages, it is often called the entropy of the source. Often, because of constraints such as grammar, a source does not use its full range of choice. A source that uses just 70% of its freedom of choice would be said to have a relative entropy of 0.7. The redundancy of such a source is defined as 100% minus the relative entropy, or, in this case, 30%. The redundancy of English is estimated to be about 50%; i.e., about half of the elements used in writing or speaking are freely chosen, and the rest are required by the structure of the language."

Many view information as a logical sequence of bits of some meaning as oppose [sic] to a thermal state, which is a state of randomness. The known scientific knowledge does not support this mystic idea. Shannon has shown that the higher the randomness of the bits in a file, the higher the amount of information in it. The Landauer and Bennet school suggests that the randomness of the bits in a file is related to Kolmogorov complexity. This claim may give an impression that the Shannon information is a meaningful subjective quantity. However, according to the Shannon theory a compressed file, containing meaningful information, has similar amount [sic] of information as an identical file, with one flipped bit that cannot be decompressed and therefore, for us the receivers, it is just a noise. [Reference numbers left out, and bolding added. Mistakes in number by the author probably are due to his being a non-native English speaker.]

Nick has nailed it precisely. As I like to say, ID is the thesis that it is impossible that a footprint should resemble a foot, unless God himself tore the laws of physics asunder to shape it so.

The story goes that Claude Shannon was told by John von Neumann to call his information measure entropy because nobody knew what that meant. So Shannon did...

This sounds to me like a bona fide example of a DIer exploiting his audience's lack of knowledge and willingness to believe whatever codswallop he serves up. Meyer should, and likely does, know better. But it's just so tempting to use such a simple analogy, despite being disingenuous and downright deceitful.

I think Meyer himself realizes that the information on the disk having software is determined by the geometry of magnetic domains (or optical properties, or whatever depending on type of disk) and that the process of emplacing the information can readily be described as occurring via naturalistic processes. So what does he do if one of his students is smart enough not to fall for this ruse? I haven't heard this particular story before, but it is entirely consistent with many other disingenuous analogies used to support ID.

What if the disk is formatted with all blanks?

— Pete Dunkelberg

Forgetting everything else (is this, or is this not a April Fools joke, how information is stored on a disk of any sort, etc.) the challenge to make is to ask Meyer to try hold the same amount of information without the disk, and *then* tell us that no matter or energy is required!

Then we'll see who looks like an April Fool!

Meyer's impeccable proof is so astonishing in its simplicity stupidity that it can be explained sold only to a first grade class!

— Pete Dunkelberg

Let's see if we can analyse the possibilities:

CD type
- Information content
- Mass difference
------------------------------------
Unix
- Retrievable
- NA
Windows
- Highly uncertain
- NA
Mac
- Lots of graphics
- NA
Music
- Music
- Depends on choral composition
ID
- None
- None

" Information" always requires components and is restricted by their physical properties.
I think the notion of biological information is too often misunderstood as a storage of encoded instructions or "programs" in DNA, as in a book or a floppy disk. The basic organization of an organism is in no way comparable to that of a book or a computer, these are usuary-oriented objects that only make sense within a much removed domain of linguistic and human interactions. While analogies can be made, presumably we can find better ways to describe what is going on at the more basic level of DNA within the living cell. Unfortunately In biology the notions of "information" and "program" are used in loose fashion at the cell level, which is ultimately quite misleading.

This is a bit of a tangent but: If we presume that the universe is designed and its contents ordered with "information", then who is to say that the blank disk has more or less information than the one loaded with software? Does he have a metric for the information quantity contained in an object that has not related to material operations?

Also, if I burn both disks, do I lose "information" or does it continue to exist in the paths of the atoms and photons dispersed? Does the one with the program lose more information?

One of the things I do in my classes to get this idea across to students is I hold up two computer disks. One is heated to 30 degrees and the other cooled to 0. And I ask

"What's the difference in mass between these two computer disks as a result of the difference in heat content that they posses?"

And of course the answer is zero - none. There is no difference as a result of the heat. And that's because heat is a massless quantity. Now if heat is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation explain its origin?

Ferrous Patella said: "I hold up two computer disks. One is heated to 30 degrees and the other cooled to 0. "What's the difference in mass?" And of course the answer is zero - none"

Actually, the warmer one is more massive: e=mc^2 (i.e., m=e/c^2).

"What's the difference in mass between these two computer disks as a result of the difference in heat content that they posses?"

E = mc squared. ;)

(Course, that's probably swamped by the mass of random dust particles settling on one disk or the other, so it's not really significant in this context.)

Henry

Steve, thanks for confirming my opinion of the intellectual mass of the Discovery Institute. Information is carried by the ARRANGEMENT of matter and/or energy. Changing the ARRANGEMENT of matter and/or energy doesn't change its mass.

Award that man the Dempski Prize for spinning his intellectual wheels.

Oh yeah, I forgot. Steve, matter and energy are both material.

Ferrous Patella said: "I hold up two computer disks. One is heated to 30 degrees and the other cooled to 0. "What's the difference in mass?" And of course the answer is zero - none" Actually, the warmer one is more massive: e=mc^2 (i.e., m=e/c^2).

I just want to know how you have information if you don't have matter or energy. Really.

Can someone tell me?

Please.

This is the Meyer that just admitted that teaching ID was "premature." The same guy that was advocating teaching ID in the mid 1990's when it must have been even more premature, and that gave the teach the controversy replacement scam to the Ohio rubes back in 2002 without telling them how premature ID was, so my guess is that he really said the junk. I could be wrong, but how can you tell? Might as well flip a coin.

... Meyer proves that information of any sort, not just complex specified information, comes from out of this world!

— Pete Dunkelberg

There is no physical difference between the disks, unless you count the different magnetic properties. But we all know that electromagnetics aren't physical, they're magic. Haven't you seen "The Prestige"?

Let's play with words: If we keep argument as the same and just change the word "information" in word "shape". (Why we can not do that?)

What's the difference in mass between these two bits of clay, which have different shape as a result of the difference in shape content that they posses?

And of course the answer is zero - none. There is no difference as a result of the shape. And that's because shape is a massless quantity. Now if shape is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation explain its origin? How can any material cause explain its origin. And, this is the real fundamental problem that the presence of shape has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic scenario because shape is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce.

Come one, two April fools jokes in one day? This "proof" is so dumb, it has to be an April fools joke. Don't overdo it, guys.

Since information is the recognizable patterns of dots, lines, base pairs, etc., then the swirling cloud patterns on a radar screen is information to a meteorologist that says *I am a hurricane". Stephen Meyer must be right, because The Designer makes hurricanes to punish the sinful.)

The question is not where the information for the software came from. It came from whoever wrote the software.

The question is more what is information?
There are many definitions of the word information depending on context and field. One source I looked at stated that information per se is an abstraction that has no existence by itself. It only makes sense when referring to transmission, storage, receiving, content, etc.

Several other posters have pointed out that abstractions such as shape are massless. Didn't Plato come up with some sort of theory like this?

To borrow the analogy. You have two identical jello statues in weight and shape from the same mold. One is dropped on the floor, thereby changing its shape. This proves the existence of a supernatural realm?

It is a shame that nobody has realised that by stating a scenario, Meyer has boxed in your thoughts. Information is not weightless. The difference in the two disks in the organisation of the material in it. This is caused by an investment of energy - a reduction of entropy. The so-called information is merely rearranged matter.

Secondly, is Meyer suggesting that the transition from an empty disk to a full disk did not come from some materialistic cause - the investment of energy from a computer program organising the material on the disks?

Is this a simple answer that he has provided - yes. And it is just as wrong as the suggestion that we don't fall off the planet because the earth is flat.

Is my brain getting heavier as I read this? :)

Is my brain getting heavier as I read this? :)

Secondly, is Meyer suggesting that the transition from an empty disk to a full disk did not come from some materialistic cause - the investment of energy from a computer program organising the material on the disks?

I'm picturing a partly cloudy April 1 where a sundial gains and loses information/mass as the clouds pass over.

Secondly, is Meyer suggesting that the transition from an empty disk to a full disk did not come from some materialistic cause - the investment of energy from a computer program organising the material on the disks?

And this guy calls himself a philosopher of science? He's a sophist, that's what he is. He wants to make his students believe that materialism only admits the existence of matter, of stuff with a definite weight. So, "if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation explain its origin?"

Well, it's utter BS.

What about replacing "information" with one among the infinity of weightless, matterless things that materialistic science know and uses everyday?
Time.
Distance.
Change.
Quantity.
and so on...

For a philosopher, Mr Meyer doesn't seem to be very fluent in philosophy. I suggest he reads a bit.

Meyer makes a subtle shift in the fourth paragraph quoted above, between the third and fourth sentences:
"And that's because information is a massless quantity. Now if information is not a material entity...."

I don't think those two sentences are equivalent.

If information is a massless quantity, then ask Meyer if he can point to an organism which grows without the mass of DNA in its cells.

In fact, ask him to take his disk that has the information on it and to totally trash the material of which the disk is made. Then ask him to make use of the information the disk contains.

Ian

Re "Thus whenever you get too close to the spinning DI Disk of Doom you will be partially deprogrammed (or sliced) due to the inverse elector-magic field and lose intelligence...... cause and affect, more rock solid Machiavellian flibbity gibbity with earnest suburban arm waving with one hand on hip."

The who whatting how with huh?

----

Re "Either that or he confused his students [...]"

That does appear to be a likely result of the described "lesson". :D

----

Re "Meyer makes a subtle shift in the fourth paragraph quoted above, between the third and fourth sentences:
"And that's because information is a massless quantity. Now if information is not a material entity....""

Another thought here- photons are referred to as "massless". Does that mean the light from your computer screen isn't a material entity (whatever that means)?

----

Henry

Silly him! Information is created by people, who are material. Information, language, ideas, habits, ... are all immaterial items, but they all derive from material "creators".

Mass is one of the 7 base units of measurement. There's also time, length, electrical current, thermodynamic temperature, amount, and luminous intensity.

So if Meyer believes that massless = non-material, anytime you measure something in one of those other 6 measures, or their derivitives, you are measuring something non-material, for which there is no material cause?

So Meyer looks at his computer when there is a non-zero currnet running through it, causing it to be on, and another identical computer with 0 current.

And the difference between them is supernatural?

Or, as others mentioned, he stretches his silly putty a little, and now it's changed in some non-material way that has no natural explanation?

Hilarious.

I believe that Meyer is not claiming that information is "supernatural", but "naturalistic prosesses can not explain it".

The way how he do the argument is just not good becouse many things that are physically explained ~ "naturalistically explained" do the exaktly same thing that his "information" (which is actually what?) in his argument. (like shape, which is attribute of matter)

And yes, like someone sayd it earlier: I thing that Meyer is just renaming the old "Plato's ideaworld" -stuff.

Stephen Meyer, explaining why biological information cannot originate through a materialistic process, said: One of the things I do in my classes to get this idea across to students is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software the other one is blank. And I ask "What's the difference in mass between these two computer disks as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses?" And of course the answer is zero - none. There is no difference as a result of the information. And that's because information is a massless quantity. Now if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation explain its origin? How can any material cause explain its origin. And, this is the real fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. uhm  In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities of science: matter and energy. At the beginning of the 21st century we now recognize that there is a third fundamental entity, and it's information. It doesn't - it's not reducible to matter, it's not reducible to energy, but it is still a very important thing that is real, we buy it we sell it, we send it down wires. Now what do we make of the fact that information is present at the very root of all biological function? [picture of DNA] That in biology we have matter we have energy but we also have this third, very important entity, information? The biology of the information age I think poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.

Let me see if I can figure out this logic.

1. Organizing bits of information on a computer disk does not change the mass of the disk.
2. DNA carries information.
3. Therefore a DNA molecule has no mass.

(Anyone else remember the Red Dwarf where Lister asked for ketchup on his lobster and Kryten's head exploded?)

As Glen Davison rightly points out:

"That's the way it is with these ignorant types, they don't know the difference between information and meaningful information, thus they think that information cannot arise."

GD is being quite generous here because it's actually much worse than this. See Meyers article "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories" where he says "Thus, to constrain a set of possible material states is to generate information in Shannon's sense."

Smell test anyone? This is maximally ignorant because maximum constraint occurs when there is zero bits not generated bits.

In the same article he also says, "The more improbable (or complex) the arrangement, the more Shannon information". Meyers continuing with his duplicitous style, damages his cause again when he equates complexity with more Shannon information. Naturally the complete opposite is true as has been pointed out by Mark P and even an IDcreo website somewhere.

Actually, in the information-theoretic sense there is likely to be more information on the blank disk. (Well, it depends on how it was manufactured, I suppose.) Information, in so far as it has a precise definition, means more or less the opposite of what Meyer, Dembski, et. al. think it does. It is, informally, the absence of pattern. That is, a random string has much more information that a string with a concisely described pattern.

— pescadero

Re "and if every transmitted signal is a blank, then there is no more information sent than would be sent by a single blank."

Unless the number of symbols is being used to convey a numeric value. ;)

Re "In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities of science: matter and energy."

As swbarnes2 pointed out, there's also a bunch of other fundamental measurements. Wait, he said "entities" when he meant "units of measurement"? I'd think "fundamental entity" would mean a particle that isn't composed of other particles (e.g., neutrino, electron, quark).

(On a side note, in Q.M. (iirc), time and energy are in a sense inversely related, and so might need only one fundamental unit. (Distance and momentum are inversely related as well, but that doesn't affect the number of fundamental units.))

Henry

Groan! There are so many problems with Meyers' philosophical mind games that it is hard to even begin.

Would a squid agree that there is information on one or other of the disks? Would we agree with (or even recognize) what a squid thinks is information? How does Meyers conclude that it is he or an ID/Creationist who decides what is information?

He offers no justification for what he thinks is information. Couldn't any creature responding to patterns that are important to its survival be said to be responding to "information?" Humans may seem work with what they perceive as complex abstract patterns, but how does Meyers know that other creatures don't work with some kinds of abstractions? Do patterns represent information just because humans attribute significance to them? Evidently he seems to believe this.

What are suns and planets doing when they respond to gravitational forces to form regular patterns such as galaxies and solar systems? What about the complexities in Jupiter's atmosphere or in Saturn's rings? What about the complexities that form in all sorts of other non-living systems, to say nothing of living systems?

Photons have no mass. Does that make them supernatural? Hardly. They can convert into matter (e.g., electron-positron pairs).

Why does he even think he can set the parameters of the discussion about information? That is such a classic ploy of the ID/Creationists; throwing out a bunch of crap and expecting everyone to debate on their terms. This is probably a trial balloon to determine what kinds of responses they will get.

Why am I even wasting time to respond to his silliness? It is meaningless "information", not worth the effort. I wonder what a squid would think?

Re Comment #167875, posted by David B. Benson on April 1, 2007 6:49 PM (e)
"The story goes that Claude Shannon was told by John von Neumann to call his information measure entropy because nobody knew what that meant. So Shannon did..."

I'm actually reading about this at the moment, in a book called The Dream Machine: JCR Licklider & the revolution that made computing personal, by M Mitchel Waldrop. Here's the relevant bit, which puts David Benson's quote into a bit of context:

'Another of Shannon's confidants was John von Neumann. It was that word information, Shannon explained to the great mathematician at one point: he had never liked it. The technical distinction between information and meaning was too much a violation of common usage, he felt, and would just end up confusing people. Could von Neumann suggest anything better?
'Von Neumann's answer was immediate, as Shannon later recounted the story: "You should call it entropy for two reasons." First, von Neumann told the younger man, his formula for the information content of a message was methematically identical to the physicists' formula for entropy, a mathematical variable related to the flow of heat. (Shannon was astounded to learn this; he had derived his formulation totally on his own.) But second, and much more important, said von Neumann, "most people don't know what entropy really is, and you use the word entropy in an argument, you will win every time!" '
[In the end Shannon decided to stick with information, since engineers had been using the word since Hartley's dayand weren't about to abandon it.]

There are many definitions of the word information depending on context and field.

"First, von Neumann told the younger man, his formula for the information content of a message was mathematically identical to the physicists' formula for entropy..."

The relevant formulae are:

Information content is proportional to the negative of the logarithm to base 2 of the product of probabilities (alternatively, the sum of the logs to base 2 of each probability).

One should probably clarify that negative sign is introduced because the probabilities are relevant numbers between 0 and 1, so their product is a number between 0 and 1, hence the logarithm of this product is negative.

In many systems, entropy is Boltzmann's constant times the natural logarithm of the number of available states of the system. Often the probability of the states being populated is not stated, but in principle, could be. It is usually not necessary.

The only problem in making these equivalent is how one decides what probabilities are relevant and what their values are. If you know enough about the details of the system under study, you could, in principle, enumerate all available states and assign a probability to their being populated. Then the two ways of calculating would produce results that differ by a multiplicative constant, provided you allow for not only the number of states, but their probability of being populated.

In dynamic, open systems, states that normally would not be reached in a closed system can become accessible. Hence, a system can be driven "uphill" into a less probable configuration, and if the system is "pumped", some such states could be such that they remain occupied after the system is "relaxed", i.e., they could be metastable states or stable states that are reached indirectly given sufficient "drive" to the system. The entropy has thus been decreased, or alternatively, the information content has been increased.

I think that is as simple as I can make it without being too inaccurate.

So there's no material explanation for shuffling cards? Oh, but that involved intelligent humans ... well, suppose a strong wind blows them all over ... I guess that's God's breath, not a materialistic explanation, cuz their mass didn't change.

"it's not reducible to matter, it's not reducible to energy"

It's reducible to processes that are implemented via matter and energy, and thus is reducible to matter and energy.

The real challenge to materialism is how someone as stupid as Stephen Meyer can survive from day to day.

They got me on the Egnor thing, but I'm not falling for this one. It has to be a self parody - it just has to be.

If the disk is formatted with all X, whatever X is, then there is no information on the disk. The intuitive version of information from Shannon's theory is that it is a measure of the inability to predict the next symbol.

This may have been mentioned before, but Pete's question, intentionally or not, was a trick one. Meyer's rant is at the same time the silliest thing yet and pure genius.

Apparently Meyer is serious in that the particular article doesn't deviate from the standard ID line. Nor has he confessed to it being a parody. But does that mean that he believes a word of it? No. While I keep saying that it's impossible to know what one truly believes in private, there are many indications that Meyer and most leading IDers know that they are peddling nonsense, and that evolution, if not their caricature of "Darwinism," is correct. IOW, ID has been a joke all along.

The only thing that I think they have ever been sincere about is that the "masses" need to believe fairy tales in order to behave properly.. If they truly believed that the evidence supported one of those fairy tales (e.g. YEC, OEC), they would have no problem promoting its evidence on its own merits, and leave out the legally risky design-speak, the long-refuted misrepresentations of evolution, and the constant bait-and-switch of the two.

Furthermore, if they truly believed that they detected design, they would have no need to misrepresent evolution, but just admit --- as most major religions do - that design implementation occurs by common descent with modification over ~4 billion years, and add that the process in not "unguided" as some "evolutionists" insist. Indeed, some IDers started to admit that in the early days, before it became apparent that they needed rank-and-file YECs and OECs for political support. Even in this "don't ask, don't tell" era, no IDer is ever foolish enough to day that ID specifically rejects common descent or an old earth.

What frustrates me after a decade of following the "debate" is that most critics are still only interested in exposing the "common ancestry" of ID and classic creationism (e.g. YEC, OEC), while mostly ignoring the strategic differences, and why they became necessary. Which is not so much the legal failure of classic creationism but the scientific failure. Downplaying the differences (e.g with a well-intentioned but misleading "ID 'is' creationism") can only help ID activists. Even if we give promoters of classic creationism the benefit of the doubt that they honestly believe what they promote, a hard look at ID should leave no doubt that it's pure scam.

Hey:

1) I took a slab of granite and weighed it. Then I took a chisel and hammer and carved "2 + 2 = 4" into the surface and weighed it again. It weighed less! Information has NEGATIVE mass!

2) Then I took a piece of blank paper and weighed it. I put letter-stickers on it spelling out "Dizzy was here" and weighed it again. It weighed more! Information has POSITIVE mass!

3) Then I took a piece of parchment paper and weighed it. I took a paintbrush, dipped it in clean water, and wrote "Stephen Meyer is a sh*t-flinging baboon" on it, let it dry, and weighed it again. It weighed the same!

Conclusion: God decides how much mass information has, whether positive, negative, or none. There's no other explanation, certainly not a materialistic one!

I quite agree with Frank J that the IDiots have developed a deliberate shtick to bamboozle naive minds and anger scientists. But the Creationists did the same thing. I used to watch Duane Gish and Henry Morris and their antics. No reasonably intelligent person could believe they seriously believed what they were saying. Their comments and illustrations were so laughable. They were doing it to incite their followers and pique scientists. It got them the publicity they wanted, and helped create the illusion of a controversy. It was a political strategy.

All the evidence brought out at the trial in Dover shows the morph of Creationism into ID. Their flagship textbook, "Of Pandas and People", was one of the striking demonstrations of this. Also, the links they have to common sources of money are evidences that they are part of the same political movement, despite their apparent "theological" differences.

So I think it is proper to refer to them as ID/Creationists to keep reminding people of the connections, and to point out that their tactics over the last 40 years strongly indicate that they know they are making things up. Gish reveled in this, and I suspect that the IDiots at the Discovery Institute get the same pleasure in making scientists mad. It reinforces the images planted in the minds of people attending churches that rule by fear. Historically, many politicians exploited these tactics, and evidently still do.

Stephen Meyer, explaining why biological information cannot originate through a materialistic process, said: One of the things I do in my classes to get this idea across to students is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software the other one is blank. And I ask...

Popper's Ghost --- Nope. If the dick contains all the same symbol and you know that then reading the disk provides no information, in Shannon's sense.

True, if you didn't know that, then reading the disk provides some information, that the disk contained all the same symbol. Not sure how to measure how many bits of information that provides...

The loaded disk itself has no more mass than the blank one. But energy was expended loading the disk with information. In a sense, the information has mass, though now dissipated, because of the mass of energy (and other resources) used to load it. Simple 2nd law of thermodynamics, right? Now, this leaves open the question of where the mass/energy came from that went into the human work/brainpower that produced the information in the first place. But that just puts us back to the debate we've had all along--what is the original source of matter/energy in the universe, and can purely natural processes explain it? Stevie may eventually produce a challenging answer to that question--but his parable about the disks is fit only for 9-year old Christian home-schoolers.

Er, disk. Blush.

I seem to be hitting the 'c' key instead of some other key too much lately. Source entropy? :-)

David B Benson writes... True, if you didn't know that, then reading the disk provides some information, that the disk contained all the same symbol. Not sure how to measure how many bits of information that provides...

I quite agree with Frank J that the IDiots have developed a deliberate shtick to bamboozle naive minds and anger scientists. But the Creationists did the same thing.

— Mike Elzinga

So I think it is proper to refer to them as ID/Creationists to keep reminding people of the connections, and to point out that their tactics over the last 40 years strongly indicate that they know they are making things up.

— Mike Elzinga

Popper's Ghost --- Nope. If the dick contains all the same symbol and you know that then reading the disk provides no information, in Shannon's sense.

I suppose the number of characters could be considered information

If the dick contains all the same symbol and you know that then reading the disk provides no information, in Shannon's sense.

Hey Popper, couldn't you just say "I think there is/is not information is a given instance, here's my reasoning ....", without adding personal remarks? Please?

I like to tell the truth, and what I said of Benson's comment is true.

BTW, my comment isn't much different from "The Silliest Thing Yet", so stow your hypocrisy. I'm truly tired of this moronic cliquishness that treats people perceived to "our side" with a different standard than people on "their side". The number of idiots posting here who were told to their face that they were being SUCKERED (and on PZ's site THIS IS A JOKE in giant red) on April 1st but paid no attention to the evidence should put an end to that.

The claim that there is no information on the disk is stupid and ignorant.

The breathtaking stupidity of this statement is actually so deep that it's difficult to fathom.

but simply because we risk dulling our sharpest and most finely-honed weapons when we deploy them indicriminately against those who are, arguably, only in error, rather than reserving them for those who are both wrong and mendaciously so...

Popper's Ghost --- You have just demonstrated that you have no comprehension of Shannon's Theory of the Transmission of Information.

A source which always produces the same symbol encodes no information.

Go read some Shannon Theory before you spout off...

Popper's Ghost --- And I know that because I just finished writing the disk.

Jeez, since you can't get a life, being just a ghost, at least think things through before you post...

The choice of a logarithmic base corresponds to the choice of a unit for measuring information. If the base 2 is used the resulting units may be called binary digits, or more briefly bits, a word suggested by J. W. Tukey. A device with two stable positions, such as a relay or a flip-flop circuit, can store one bit of information. N such devices can store N bits... From: Wikipedia's site "Information"

There are different ways of looking at information, like what information is encoded in a noisy system, vs. the number of bits of information recorded on a disk or in (clean) energy waves.

Glen Davidson --- In which you also demonstrate you do not understand the Shannon Theory of the Transmission of Information.

You ought to actually study the theory before commenting on it...

Glen Davidson --- In which you also demonstrate you do not understand the Shannon Theory of the Transmission of Information. You ought to actually study the theory before commenting on it...

In which you also demonstrate you do not understand the Shannon Theory of the Transmission of Information.

The claim that there is no information on the disk is stupid and ignorant.

Glen Davidson --- I appears that I have assumed too much knowledge on your part and that of Popper's Ghost.

A storage device must be read, yes?

Reading a storage device provides a stream of bits, yes?

A stream of bits is a Shannon source, yes?

The capability of the device is such that all states are possible. That does not mean all states are equiprobable.

Suppose it is the case that all the bits are zeros and furthermore I know they are. I use the word know in the precise sense of believing a truth. That is, I cannot be said to know something unless it is true.

Ok, I know, in just this sense, that all the bits are zeros. Then, reading the source to produce this long string of zeros provides no information. I have learned nothing that I did not already know. Hence I have gained exactly zero Shannon bits of information. Got it?

For another example, suppose I know that the probability of the next bit from a source (a different one) being one is 0.75, (3/4). Then if I guess that the next bit is a one, I have better than even chance of being right. Therefore, upon seeing a one, I have gained less than one Shannon bit of information.

And I haven't the slightest idea what you meant by 'context'. Shannon theory goes far to eliminate that to replace with precise concepts...

Glen Davidson --- More ignorant name-calling while I was composing a decent reply, I see.

Looks like you are the troll here now...

Suppose it is the case that all the bits are zeros and furthermore I know they are.

I use the word know in the precise sense of believing a truth. That is, I cannot be said to know something unless it is true.

Ok, I know, in just this sense, that all the bits are zeros.

Then, reading the source to produce this long string of zeros provides no information.

I have learned nothing that I did not already know. Hence I have gained exactly zero Shannon bits of information. Got it?

Glen Davidson --- More ignorant name-calling

while I was composing a decent reply, I see.

Looks like you are the troll here now...

Glen Davidson --- The information on the disk is a meaningless phrase unless you first define what you mean by information. I hold you can obtain nothing from the disk without its being transmitted to you, somehow. Hence we are precisely in the situation that Shannon considered, in which he choose to use the term information, but others persist in calling entropy.

So the usual information technology use of the word bits, as stored on the disk, is different than the meaning of Shannon bits, as I have previously illustrated.

As for what you and Popper's Ghost have been hopping all over me for, it is because you fail to understand the fundamentals involved. I have been attempting to straighten you out, but you keep changing the goal posts and resorting to name-calling.

Now, just which definition of information do you care to use, in the context of the original point of this thread? Where the IDiot Meyer didn't bother to define information either...

Glen Davidson --- Not only repeating things sorta known to many, indeed fairly obvious, but doing so in a way that demonstrates you know little about modern information storage and transmission. Ignoramus.

I'll try again. A Shannon source which appears to be random, half the time delivering a one and half the time a zero, provides the maximum rate of one Shannon bit per IT bit. The goal of the engineering of modern digital communication devices is to approach this rate, despite the possibility of the transmission device introducing noise. (Let us agree to ignore noise.)

The goal in the design of storage devices is to obtain one IT bit per magnetic domain, despite read/write errors. Here again Shannon theory is put to use.

An ideal disk contains one IT bit per magnetic domain. It is what has been discussed here.

Since a device reading an arbitrary disk has no prior knowledge of the state of the disk, it is forced to read the entire disk to determine the contents. This fairly obvious fact you have repeated several times, in different ways. What is more interesting is the case of having some prior knowledge of the state, such as a probability that the next IT bit is a zero. Indeed, various applications make use of this, using Shannon bits as the measure. That is interesting, but probably not relevant if the discourse is to remain close to whatever the IDiot Meyer might have been attempting to lie about...

Perhaps I should try to explain a bit further what PG and I understand, more for other people out there than for Benson, who seems fixed upon the little he learned about "Shannon information".

A (sensibly) dimensionless bit of information need not be repeated in a transmission, for that datum was already transferred the first time it was sent.

It's when you're describing a disk or a picture that you simply must repeat (at some point, though not in transmission) each bit of the data in order to replicate it. A magnetic disk with a 100,000 1s in sequence has that informational state imprinted into its magnetic domains. It doesn't simply have a "1" in one of its domains, it has 100,000 1s in a row, and it doesn't matter whether you know that or not, that is what is the case for 100,000 sequential magnetic domains.

Benson wants to think that the entire sequense is just a "1". The reason that it is not is that the disk is designed so that each domain (or particle---I doubt that a bit is really contained by simply one domain, actually, but it's convenient to think so) is a separate system with an independent informational state (the disk is dimensional, and the points in "its space" have to be ascertained). To replicate the disk, you have to replicate each bit. Conveniently, one may send the "one" and tell the machinery at the other end to replicate that "one" 100,000 times in the proper space, but that's telling you to cause there to be a 100,000 1s in sequence on the picture screen or other device at the other end.

Each bit of information is exactly that, a bit of information. If it repeats the same thing over and over it is not very interesting, but each bit of information is necessary to know and to replicate in order to replicate the disk. This is because each "domain" is physically a separate system for our purposes, just as we record each pixel in a scene because each of these pixels is independent from the rest of the scene (not always, but the camera has to treat it as if it were). Each pixel is not merely a replica of the other, even if the "same datum" is recorded in each pixel, for each pixel describes an independent (for our purposes of replication) information system, the pixel.

So we scan each bit in a disk in order to know the informational state of the disk, because the disk is comprised of millions of separate systems which have to be queried (a blank disk would similarly have to be queried, unless it had been put in a certain known informational state and we knew it hadn't been changed). In transmission we don't have to repeat each "1" in order to transmit it, but we would have to repeat each one if we instantly transmitted the data instead of storing it in order to compress the data stream. To repeat, this is because the "1" in one bit-device tells you nothing about the "1" in the next device.

Benson wants to make something of the fact that repetition of the "1" can be stored and instructions for replication of this "1" are all that need to be sent (and he has a point with respect to Shannon transmission, not to what we're talking about). What he doesn't seem to know is that instantaneous (so to speak) transmission with no storage can only mean that each bit has to be transmitted separately, because each bit is all that relates the informational state of each bit-device on the disk.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/35s39o

Glen Davidson --- The information on the disk is a meaningless phrase unless you first define what you mean by information.

I hold you can obtain nothing from the disk without its being transmitted to you, somehow. Hence we are precisely in the situation that Shannon considered, in which he choose to use the term information, but others persist in calling entropy.

So the usual information technology use of the word bits, as stored on the disk, is different than the meaning of Shannon bits, as I have previously illustrated.

As for what you and Popper's Ghost have been hopping all over me for, it is because you fail to understand the fundamentals involved. I have been attempting to straighten you out, but you keep changing the goal posts and resorting to name-calling.

Now, just which definition of information do you care to use, in the context of the original point of this thread? Where the IDiot Meyer didn't bother to define information either...

Glen Davidson --- From simply ignorant to hopelessly wrong.

First, you didn't bother to explain you definition of information. This just confuses everyone, including you. There are at least four standardly used definitions, all slightly different.

You appear to be using what I call the IT bit definition. An inference on my part, to be sure. See the previous paragraph.

Then you go on to confuse everybody, including yourself, about not having to transmit repetitions. This is wrong! What repetitions have to be transmitted depend upon several factors, one of the subjects of what is called Information Theory, but would better be called "Shannon Information Theory".

I have come to the conclusion that you are just making stuff up, hoping that it sounds good to somebody or other. Now who else to we accuse of doing that?

Glen Davidson --- Not only repeating things sorta known to many, indeed fairly obvious, but doing so in a way that demonstrates you know little about modern information storage and transmission. Ignoramus.

I'll try again. A Shannon source which appears to be random, half the time delivering a one and half the time a zero, provides the maximum rate of one Shannon bit per IT bit. The goal of the engineering of modern digital communication devices is to approach this rate, despite the possibility of the transmission device introducing noise. (Let us agree to ignore noise.)

The goal in the design of storage devices is to obtain one IT bit per magnetic domain, despite read/write errors. Here again Shannon theory is put to use.

An ideal disk contains one IT bit per magnetic domain. It is what has been discussed here. Since a device reading an arbitrary disk has no prior knowledge of the state of the disk, it is forced to read the entire disk to determine the contents. This fairly obvious fact you have repeated several times, in different ways. What is more interesting is the case of having some prior knowledge of the state, such as a probability that the next IT bit is a zero. Indeed, various applications make use of this, using Shannon bits as the measure. That is interesting, but probably not relevant if the discourse is to remain close to whatever the IDiot Meyer might have been attempting to lie about...

Sorry, Shannon has the same concept of the bit as the computer industry does.

Glen Davidson --- From simply ignorant to hopelessly wrong.

First, you didn't bother to explain you definition of information. This just confuses everyone, including you. There are at least four standardly used definitions, all slightly different.

You appear to be using what I call the IT bit definition. An inference on my part, to be sure. See the previous paragraph.

Then you go on to confuse everybody, including yourself, about not having to transmit repetitions. This is wrong!

What repetitions have to be transmitted depend upon several factors, one of the subjects of what is called Information Theory, but would better be called "Shannon Information Theory".

I have come to the conclusion that you are just making stuff up, hoping that it sounds good to somebody or other.

Now who else to we accuse of doing that?

And I'm going to quit this thread for some time now. Arguing with someone who has to ask what is being discussed at every turn is fruitless. I have things to do, and will take this up again later, if ever.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/35s39o

Glen Davidson --- Well, recently you've been writing about what can be stored on a disk. With many misconceptions, I fear...

While the utility gzip AKA zip uses the clever Lempel-Ziv adaptive coding algorithm to obtain high compression for files being stored on disk, many decades ago, when disk space was expensive and before Lempel and Ziv worked out their algorithm, we noticed that most program files contained a high proportion of blanks, i.e., the ascii code for blank. Thus it was obvious that we were not getting anywhere near one Shannon bit per IT bit. So we devised the following very simple compression algorithm. After an ascii coded for blank byte, treat the following byte as a number. This number was to be interpreted as the number of blanks in a row when decompressing the program file. This scheme saved around 10% of the bytes required to store the file on magnetic tape.

I do hope you can understand the point of my relating this just now...

Glen Davidson --- "essentially digital information'. Well, perhaps that is the problem. I've been discussing actually digital information. As is done in the subject called Information Theory with important ideas such as the Shannon Coding Theorem. A theorem about digital encoding of digital data. Oh well, never mind, since you have once again displayed your ignorance of anything having to do with information...

Now all of this started because I pointed out an important misconception having to do with prior knowledge. This idea plays an important role in the storage and transmission of information. I attempted to explain it as simply as possible. Unfortunately, Glen Davidson did not understand and things went downhill from there.

Shannon had the same concept of the bit as the computer industry does.

Oddly, I suspect that at this point in our little discussion on this one little page we have probably put more on the table about information, and how you go about defining, quantifying and measuring it, than all the published work from the entire "information argument" wing of the ID party.

I'm actually not exaggerating, since we've had maybe 4 or 5 good, researchable, definitions in play while the ID camp has to date provided exactly - wait for it - none.

Glen Davidson --- Well, recently you've been writing about what can be stored on a disk. With many misconceptions, I fear...

While the utility gzip AKA zip uses the clever Lempel-Ziv adaptive coding algorithm to obtain high compression for files being stored on disk, many decades ago, when disk space was expensive and before Lempel and Ziv worked out their algorithm, we noticed that most program files contained a high proportion of blanks, i.e., the ascii code for blank. Thus it was obvious that we were not getting anywhere near one Shannon bit per IT bit. So we devised the following very simple compression algorithm. After an ascii coded for blank byte, treat the following byte as a number. This number was to be interpreted as the number of blanks in a row when decompressing the program file. This scheme saved around 10% of the bytes required to store the file on magnetic tape. I do hope you can understand the point of my relating this just now...

(perhaps PG could have disagreed with you, but asked why you brought up "Shannon information" when we're talking about the information on a disk, not what is generally called "Shannon information").

Glen Davidson --- "essentially digital information'. Well, perhaps that is the problem. I've been discussing actually digital information.

As is done in the subject called Information Theory with important ideas such as the Shannon Coding Theorem. A theorem about digital encoding of digital data.

Oh well, never mind, since you have once again displayed your ignorance of anything having to do with information...

Now all of this started because I pointed out an important misconception having to do with prior knowledge.

This idea plays an important role in the storage and transmission of information. I attempted to explain it as simply as possible.

Unfortunately, Glen Davidson did not understand and things went downhill from there.

Shannon had the same concept of the bit as the computer industry does.

Many view information as a logical sequence of bits of some meaning as oppose [sic] to a thermal state, which is a state of randomness. The known scientific knowledge does not support this mystic idea. Shannon has shown that the higher the randomness of the bits in a file, the higher the amount of information in it. The Landauer and Bennet school suggests that the randomness of the bits in a file is related to Kolmogorov complexity. This claim may give an impression that the Shannon information is a meaningful subjective quantity. However, according to the Shannon theory a compressed file, containing meaningful information, has similar amount [sic] of information as an identical file, with one flipped bit that cannot be decompressed and therefore, for us the receivers, it is just a noise. [Reference numbers left out, and bolding added. Mistakes in number by the author probably are due to his being a non-native English speaker.]

So yeah, unsurprisingly I don't enjoy the pretense that I don't know these things, nor the confusion of what was meant in this discussion vs. the largely irrelevant (to the discussion) Shannon Information theory.

Glen Davidson --- I fear you are simply wrong regarding the relevance of Shannon theory to the storage of 'information'. As I have previously posted, the 'information' on a disk, say, is there to be transmitted via a 'reader'. Thus it is a Shannon source.

Therefore prior knowledge of the state of the disk is relevant to any discussion of the Shannon information content of the disk.

So far, all you have done is say that the above is false. Cite any competent authority. Start, for example, with a paper in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. :-)

Glen Davidson --- Please stop making stuff up. I never posted anything which stated you did not know something about Shannon theory. Also, while I am sure I have many failings, telling lies is not one of them.

Further, notice I have posted nothing whatsoever regarding an 'unformated' disk. The reason is simple. Some drives require formatted disk in order to properly read the contents. I have no idea at all what the reader would transmit from an unformated disk.

Glen Davidson --- I fear you are simply wrong regarding the relevance of Shannon theory to the storage of 'information'. As I have previously posted, the 'information' on a disk, say, is there to be transmitted via a 'reader'. Thus it is a Shannon source.

Therefore prior knowledge of the state of the disk is relevant to any discussion of the Shannon information content of the disk.

So far, all you have done is say that the above is false.

Cite any competent authority. Start, for example, with a paper in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. :-)

Glen Davidson --- Please stop making stuff up. I never posted anything which stated you did not know something about Shannon theory.

Glen Davidson --- In which you also demonstrate you do not understand the Shannon Theory of the Transmission of Information. You ought to actually study the theory before commenting on it...

So yeah, unsurprisingly I don't enjoy the pretense that I don't know these things, nor the confusion of what was meant in this discussion vs. the largely irrelevant Shannon Information theory.

Also, while I am sure I have many failings, telling lies is not one of them.

Further, notice I have posted nothing whatsoever regarding an 'unformated' disk.

The reason is simple. Some drives require formatted disk in order to properly read the contents. I have no idea at all what the reader would transmit from an unformated disk.

Glen Davidson --- I never claimed that you had written anything regarding unformatted disks. Quit making stuff up!

You continually fail to address the point that Shannon theory is relevant to the storage of 'bits', other than to simply claim that it is largely irrelevant.

The basic problem is that the word information has more than one meaning, even in this limited context. Earlier you agreed, I believe, that reading a disk entirely written to zeros and you know that it is provides no information. That is, zero Shannon bits of information. Thus the fact that the disk has a storage capacity of, say, one billion bits does not mean that it contains one billion bits of information. It is only that it has the capacity to do so.

Most often one makes the most pessimistic assumption that all the possible states of the device are equiprobable. In this case one has no prior knowledge of the state of the device and so the device can be said, correctly, to contain one billion bits of Shannon information.

But sloppy use of language leads to sloppy reasoning...

My apologies for my spelling mistake, surely another demonstration of one of my failings. However, I am certain that I understand information storage and transmission the better of the two of us. I am also certain that you are the better at name calling, moving the goal posts, and otherwise attempting to appear correct even when you are wrong...

Glen Davidson --- Apologies, I didn't see your post #168321 before responding to your post #168323.

I don't know what you mean by a "blank" disk (more or less)". Further, all this is not completely specified until the nature of the reading device is given. Once given, then Shannon theory will indeed provide the answer to the bits of Shannon information contained on the "blank" disk, provided the reading device is capable of actually transmitting any bits at all from a "blank" disk.

But if one assumes that a "blank" disk is always readable by a reader which always delivers up a zero or a one for each position and that the magnetization on the "blank" disk is random, then the "blank" disk is a one Shannon bit per IT bit device.

Sorry, but you are wrong about the role of Shannon theory.

I just happened to meet a sysadmin guy who explained what happens when one attempts to mount an unformatted floppy disk: the mount program always delivers the same error code, the one for no fs.

Therefore a "blank" floppy, which is known to be "blank", contains zero Shannon bits of information. In this sense, it contain no information.

OK, I think I've got it:

Suppose I've got a pound of lead and a pound of gold, both at room temperature:

1 - They contain the same amount of matter, and the same amount of energy.
2 - Therefore the difference between them can't be explained in materialistic terms.
3 - Therefore the difference between them is spiritual in nature.
4 - Therefore I can change lead to gold by praying over it.
5 - Profit!!!

Imagine a 50 pound ball of lead and a 50 pound ball of plutonium.

The lead is happy with it's lot in life. It's not glamorous, but it's content with it's place in the world, and knows it should be happy with the way the metallic creator made it. It will be rewarded with eternal life, probably as fishing weights.

The plutonium is restless, uncomfortable with the way the metallic creator made it. It wants excitement. It craves change, it understands science, dabbles with alchemy, with things that no atom should try to know. Poof!

The moral of the story is clear. Science is dangerous, and Periodic-Tableism is just plain evil.

Re "Periodic-Tableism"

Webelements

:p

Henry

Webelements

ununquadinuim - it's elementary! Oh, and also periodic!

Henry

information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce.