William has taken exception to the current state of science and its ‘overreach’.
He claims, “IMO, all that is left of materialism/physicalism/naturalism is really nothing more than a hidden (even subconscious) anti-theistic agenda.”
This is a thread for William to guide us in a detailed exploration of the alternatives, their mechanisms, how we might test them and how we might benefit from them.
Oh, this is not a new conversation and Shannon has come up many times. In fact I’d say that FSCO/I is a reaction to Shannon in some ways.
What’s new here is that William has staked his position out that FSCO/I is “easily” calculated yet cannot show that two strings of equal length can ever have a different value of FSCO/I, in which case FSCO/I is literally a more complicated say of saying “length”.
William at UD says:
William,
You have not demonstrated that brains are capable of producing FSCI (or FSCO/I) in any way at all.
Here is an example. I put a random string generator in a box. Inside another box I put a human being who writes comments, much like the comments at UD.
How can I tell which box is generating FSCI/FSCO/I?
What test can I apply that will take a dataset from each box and tell me the amount of FSCI/FSCO/I present in each output?
You claim that brains product FSCI. I challenge you to demonstrate that you can tell the difference between random strings and FSCI (or whatever variant you want to use) by calculating the FSCI for each.
I say it can’t be done. You say the brain outputs unlimited amounts of FSCI. I say that you cant’ actually measure or even detect it, so you don’t know if it’s producing any at all in the first place!
All you can do is look at each output from each box and say “the FSCI is equal for these strings of equal length” which is absurd if one is random and one is as these comments are. FSCI cannot be calculated, it cannot be used as a metric to determine if something is intelligent designed or not.
All it can do is scale with the length of a string.
The Intelligent Design Creationists tend to shy away from Shannon Information, first because it has an objective definition that they can’t easily squirm out from under and second because Thomas Schneider demonstrated that it can be generated via known evolutionary mechanisms.
He also embarrassed Dembski pretty thoroughly on the topic.
Alrighty. Well, then perhaps William should try his hand at Kolmogorov complexity. Or has that been dealt with as well?
Jeff Shallit and Wes Elsberry shredded Dembski’s math, with reference to Kolmogorov complexity, in “Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism” as well as other papers. It’s a good read.
William J. Murray,
Who said:
?
As you see, Gralgrathor, there is little new under the sun.
Nice. Well, I think the folks at DI are as good at perusing Computational Sciences textbooks as I am, so anything that I can come up with will no doubt have been dealt with long ago. And in all likelihood, if they think of something new, it’ll be far beyond my meagre intellect. Too bad though; I’d’ve liked to immerse myself in some interesting new insight, even if it turned out to be wrong later.
Indeed. I’m trying to help William come to a conclusion regarding if the formula is valid for finding FSCO/I, or even that FSCO/I is a valid means of concluding if an object is the product of ID or not .
But it seems even if I demonstrate, as I believe I have, that the “value” for FSCO/I does not vary between two strings of identical length it does not cause William to decide that FSCO/I is not a useful metric. It seems that I am unable to alter the position that has been taken by William even when I demonstrate to him the consequences/absurdities that that position entails.
Just a reminder of what started this:
William @ UD:
Yet two trivial strings apparent have defeated William’s ability to “calculate it handily”.
One is functional. The other is not. You are not determining **if** a string is functional; you are determining how functionally specified and complex the organizational structure of the information in the string is (in terms of a chi value).
Two functioning alphanumeric strings of the same necessary length that draw from the same potential pool of variables have the same FSCO/I. regardless of the different meanings they might convey.
And kairosfocus is still blithely rattling on at UD about 500 bits as some sort of magic threshold. What the heck taking the log of a simple certain number of AAs is supposed to show other than it’s a chain of AAs of a certain number of units… words fail me.
They (Axe, Durston, Abel) would impress me if they could predict a priori whether a novel sequence of AAs were functional or not. Of course they can’t though.
I have calculated it handily in this very thread (at least to my understanding of what it is and how to calculate it).
The problem you face is that in order for you to assert that I have not, you must not only know what FSCO/I is (conflicting with your claim that’s it is not a real thing and is not properly defined), you must know how to calculate it properly (conflicting with your position that it cannot be calculated).
As I have said, it’s often quite amusing here.
Indeed, however the point I’ve made that you apparently have missed is that determination depends on your ability to recognise that functionality.
To one person a string might be nonsense, but not to another
What do you make of that?
Thanks. That’s all I wanted to hear you say.
Indeed. But don’t you see that all you’ve done is calculate the length of a string? What use is that?
It’s not a real thing, as all you’ve demonstrated it is is the length of a string.
Indeed! The ID community can now measure the length of strings!
Congratulations!
The issue has always been whether any of the various versions of (let’s stick with Dembski’s original) CSI can tell us anything. The answer is plain. It’s useless.
Not quite! We can use it to measure the length of strings!
OMagain,
LOL
OMagain asks:
No, what’s been calculated is how necessarily specific (in terms of variability potential) and complex (in terms of length/variation/organization of nodes) an arrangement of nodes must be in order for a configuration of nodes drawn and arranged from that pool of potential to generate that particular function.
The value it has is in determining whether or not it would be useful, in any practical scientific sense, to conduct research based on the concept that such a configuration was produced without deliberate intent.
OMagain
Even if that was all I had demonstrated in the calculation, “the length of a string” is a real thing.
“the length of a string” is a real thing.
Great title for a song! Though it doesn’t quite scan. 🙁
ETA bonus points to William for using “real” in a sentence!
As I said, the calculation is not to determine **IF** a thing has function, but rather determines the functionally organized complexity and specificity of a thing already known to be functional. If you do not know what function a thing serves, you can’t possibly determine what the functional nodes are or how specifically they must be arranged in order to acquire that function.
So it’s sort of:
“See, I told you it was functional!”
I agree that one must first have a thing known to be functional before they can attempt to figure out how specified and complex the organization of pertinent nodes must be in order to carry out that function. In loose terms, to measure a thing’s functional complexity and specificity, you have to first start out with a thing known to be functional.
You seem to think this is some deal-breaking point. From my perspective, for example, you’re requiring that the formula for measuring the volume of a sphere not only measure the volume of a sphere, but also determine that a thing is a sphere in the first place.
That some strings of letters & numbers are known to be functional is a trivial point. That some strings of amino acids (proteins) are known to be functional is a trivial point. We know of at least some strings that are functional. I don’t see why anyone here would belabor that point.
It is the “needle-in-the-haystack” argument that gets advanced from time to time. Large search space? Agreed. Known functional proteins? Not many in comparison to the theoretical total. The fact is nobody knows how rich the unknown space is in functional proteins. It’s crucial to the argument of CSI. If you don’t know how many needles there are there to find, you can’t conclude anything.
ETA See here
Not bad for someone who claimed to be “not qualified to scientifically or mathematically vet that kind of an argument”.
Of course, you also need to be able to calculate how many other strings in the target space would also generate that particular function, or an equivalent one.
And your calculation method assumes that the nodes are independent of each other, which is obviously rubbish.
Not a good line of argument for ID. We know from the fact that there are zillions of living variants in every species that populations routinely produce nearly equivalent mutations all the time. This was explicitly demonstrated in the Lensky experiment.
Other experiments demonstrate that the many, if not most single point mutations do not break primary functionality.
We know from actual experiment that a significant percentage of random sequences code for something.
So if we are going to use Dembski’s method, we need to know how many changes are typically involved in progressing from a parent sequence having no function or a different function, to the current sequence. Let’s posit, for example, evolving from a duplicated sequence to one having a new function.
That might be a useful measure.
Alan said:
But nobody belabors the point that there are proteins known to be functional. Calculating the FSCO/I of a protein says nothing about, and is not dependent upon, “how rich the unknown space is”. All that is required to compute the FSCO/I is (1) the pool of individual node variation (different amino acids available), (2) the most efficient configuration of nodes to acquire the target function, and (3) the approximate number of potential variants that could acquire the same function, at least in terms of whether or not the existence of such functional equivalents might significantly impact the results of the formula.
For example, substituting the number “4” in a sentence for every use of the word “for” or letters “fore”, and “8” for the letters “ate”, might produce a greater number of strings that would produce the same function – but, with those few additional functional equivalents really affect the outcome of the formula significantly? Not really.
The formula also doesn’t have anything to say about the capacity of the pool of node variants and configurations to produce any functions at all, but is rather only a formula for finding the chi value of that specific functional thing. Whether or not the chi value reflects on the ability of the variant pool to acquire any kind of function whatsoever is an entirely different question. The FSCO/I computation says nothing in itself about how likely it is for letters or amino acids to form any functional string, but rather only assesses the functional value for a particular functional string.
Let’s remember what we are discussing the claim **I** made, that for some things, the basic or raw FSCO/I computation is rather simple and straightforward, while figuring out the necessary or net FSCO/I would be require some more considerations, like potential functional equivalents.
Is that “all”?
Please.
If it’s so trivial do it already!
I also missed where you computed the number of potential variants that could acquire the same function when you calculated the FSCO/I for me earlier.
Could you show your working?
Steve,
What you and William both fail to recognize is that the truth does matter to William, despite his claims to the contrary.
He may not care about about ontological truth, but he certainly cares about pragmatic truth.
For example, suppose William books a plane ticket to Mazatlan. It matters whether the plane will truly leave from the correct airport at the correct time. It matters whether the plane will truly fly to Mazatlan, as opposed to Dubuque. The truth matters, even to William.
And notice that William will accept this information second-hand from the travel agent or from the computer. He’ll show up at the airport, trusting that the plane will go to its assigned destination, because just like us, he accepts truths second hand. His claims about his “high standards” of only accepting first hand knowledge just aren’t credible.
No, we’re actually discussing something else.
What **I** think we’re discussing is how the provenance and/or implications of an idea can sometimes bind us into positions that we will defend, sometimes to absurd lengths.
For example, your qualifiers regarding “raw FSCO/I” (should we add this to the list as rFSCO/I out of interest, as it presumably is something different to FSCO/I) were not present in the original text at UD I quoted earlier. No such disclaimers were made back then, when it could be “handily” calculated.
More variants?
nFSCO/I too?
If you are so invested in FSCO/I then perhaps you could pick a protein (a small one I would suggest!) and just start to pick apart how you would go about finding potential functional equivalents?
I’d suggest you start an OP, as I’d like to track your progress on this closely. Or, if you are not up for it, suggest it at UD as a project that can kickstart FSCO/I. Unless of course you can point me to where this work has already been done? Which would be interesting, because if the work has not been done and these things calculated, on what basis do you suppose KF, Gpuccio et al are making claims regarding the origin of proteins etc? If they’ve never done any of the things you say in your comment that need to be done to calculate it for proteins then on what basis are they making those claims? Perhaps you should ask them for their notes?
Sounds simple! Now, please apply to molecules.
You’re giving me flashbacks.
No intelligent design creationist, at UD or elsewhere, has ever calculated CSI, or any of the alphabet soup of variants eructated periodically by the regulars there, for any real world biological artifact. The only person who even tried was Vincent Torley, and he quickly recanted his heresy of getting the wrong answer.
The usual sequence of events when this topic arises is for the IDCists to:
1) Claim to be able to calculate their metric
2) Bloviate copiously for several days without providing a calculation
3) Claim to have calculated it but refuse to provide a cite to the actual calculation
It’s almost as though that whole “don’t bear false witness” commandment is optional in their religion.
Patrick,
Against the heathens, it’s perfectly acceptable. Jesus approves. They’re sure of it.
Well this may not be true. Its is an explanation, and you don’t believe right/wrong, true/not true, verifiable/non-verifiable is a necessary condition for it. But I’m understanding why some folks think “bible!” and “jesus” are explanations. They’re just not *good* explanations.
keiths said:
I’ve already said that introspective and communicative truth, in the sense of honesty, matters very much to me.
I care about apparent, pragmatic success in terms of my personal goals. I’m not sure how that translates to “truth”.
No, it doesn’t. None of those things matter to me at all. Whether or not I enjoy the experience as a good man is all that matters to me. My enjoyment of an experience doesn’t depend at all on how the particulars of how a situation unfolds around me and whether or not it unfolds as planned or imagined, but rather on how I experience what actually occurs. Many of my best experiences are unexpected, unplanned or happen in spite of my best laid plans otherwise.
As I have pointed out, one can enjoy the benefit of reliable models without investing in them as truths. As I have said many, many times before, for me “belief” means “acting as if something is true, but not being invested in the thing as literally or existentially true.
I certainly don’t invest in expected future events such as how a planned trip should progress as “truths”, and I doubt many reasonable people would, either. For most reasonable people, they are just expectations built upon models of experience.
Richardthughes said:
That depends on what the explanation is supposed to accomplish.
OMagain said:
I’m not invested in it at all. I’m not the one that keeps bringing it up. Whether or not FSCO/I is a valid “thing”, and whether or not it can be computed, and if so can be computed into some meaningful value is entirely irrelevant to my views.
From my perspective, the entire FSCO/I – CSI – Explanation Filter – Irreducible Complexity genre of attempting to more-or-less formally characterize a rigorous/semi-rigorous means of distinguishing between artifice and nature is useless in an argument with anti-IDers. I think the main usefulness of such arguments will be considered, from some future perspective, as part of a process of reconceptualizing how we think of ourselves and reality around us. I think it is part of an ongoing development of a lexicon and of concepts that move us beyond what is still, IMO, a victorian conceptualization of existence both on the theistic and the naturalist/physicalist/materialist sides.
William,
If you want to go to Mazatlan, it truly matters where the plane takes you. If you want your marriage to be healthy, it truly matters whether your wife is happy and whether she feels understood and appreciated. If you want your arguments to be persuasive to intelligent folks, it truly matters whether they are logical or not. And so on.
The truth matters to you just as it does to the rest of us.
keiths:
William:
Sure they do. If they didn’t, then you would have just booked a flight to a random place, or hopped in a taxi and told the driver to cruise around randomly. And then you wouldn’t have bothered to show up at the airport at the correct time — or even to look up the correct time — because it wouldn’t matter whether you caught your plane or not.
That’s all bogus, of course. You chose Mazatlan because the destination matters to you. You had reasons for picking it over Dubuque And you would actually make an effort to show up at the airport on time, because catching your plane would matter to you.
That doesn’t mean that you’d be heartbroken if you missed your plane, but you would still prefer to catch it, which means that the truth of what time it was and when the plane was leaving would matter to you.
How you experience what actually occurs depends on what actually occurs. If you find yourself upside down and injured, unable to exit a plane that has crashed into the ocean on the way to Mazatlan, then you are not as happy (to say the least) as if you had arrived successfully and were now sunning yourself on the beach. The truth of your situation matters greatly to you, just as it does to the rest of us.
I think that’s pretty obvious, don’t you?
Sure, mine too. But that doesn't mean that all unexpected events are good, obviously. Chances are that the airplane crash will not be one of the best experiences of your (now greatly shortened) life.
keiths:
William:
Sure, but the pragmatic truth also matters. Whether the plane is really going to Mazatlan in the deepest ontological sense may not matter to you, but it still matters whether you have the experience of sunning on the beach or dying in the ocean in a submerged plane. Just as it would for all of us.
Most people are philosophical realists. They think that the plane and the air and Mazatlan are ontologically real, and that the plane truly flies to Mazatlan in the ontological sense.
They do care about truths, because truths can affect their lives. For example, if they discovered the unfortunate truth that a particular airline had an abysmal safety record or that most of its trips ended up at the wrong destination, they would avoid that airline. The truth about airline safety or reliability matters to them, just as it does to you and me.
keiths,
Well, if you insist that that is what my life is like, who am I to say otherwise?
If you look into your heart of hearts, William, I think you’ll find that you do prefer sunning on the beach to dying in a plane crash; that you do prefer for your wife to be happy and fulfilled, rather than miserable; that you do prefer to catch planes rather than missing them: and so on.
I think you’ll find that the truth of these matters is important to you, as is the truth of how best to achieve your goals — just as those truths are important to the rest of us.
@ Keith
Your linked comment break site rules. Please stop telling William that he means something different from what the writes. In a phrase such as:
You are not assuming he is posting in good faith.
That’s better.
William,
It might be irrelevant to your views but what does that have to do with your specific claim that it can be computed?
So when you make a claim that it can be computed “handily” then it’s up to me to realize that you are not actually making that claim at all. Understood.
This is pure misdirection. Did I say that distinguishing between artifice and nature is impossible? Or that distinguishing between artifice and nature is something that should not be tried?
No, I’ve not said any of those things. What I’m saying is that FSCO/I as a tool for distinguishing between artifice and nature does not work. You have shown this to be the case in this thread!
I’ve noted that you’ve completely ignored the fact that claims made by KF regarding FSCO/I don’t compute the values that you yourself claim need to be computed, but you are fine with that it seems. Understood.
For the purposes of this “discussion” I’m neither anti nor pro ID. It’s simply about FSCO/I and it’s calculation. Distract all you wish however by making it about anti-ID or “distinguishing between artifice and nature”. If FSCO/I was a real thing it would be used by pro and anti-IDers regardless of it’s source. If it could be used to “distinguishing between artifice and nature” it would be applied in many ways regardless of the theological leanings of the user. It would work regardless.
Try to concentrate. It’s not about distinguishing between artifice and nature, it’s about can FSCO/I do that for you.
But don’t you see? I’m trying to make you understand that you have been lied to!
I’m all for a process that formally characterizes a rigorous/semi-rigorous means of distinguishing between artifice and nature but I’m trying to make you understand that FSCO/I is not it!
Does not the fact that I have made you express the requirements for calculating FSCO/I (you detailed those, not I) and you’ve never seen those requirements calculated in claims of “it must be design as it has 500+ FSCO/I bits” tell you something?
If you want to reconceptualize how we think of ourselves and reality around us based on a deliberate lie designed solely to make ID look like it has “science” bits then please, go ahead!
Great, I’m all for progress. But FSCO/I is simply a vehicle to fool the more credulous IDers into thinking that “design detection” is based on science, rather then a misapplication of mathematics! You have demonstrated this in this thread!
What I find simply amazing is that you will defend an idea like FSCO/I regardless of the fact that you have yourself shown it to be a lie by listing the requirements to calculate it, and those requirements have never been shown to be calculated yet claims that could only be made if those requirements were calculated are made at UD all the time.
I am willing to change my mind when a claim I’ve made has shown to be wrong. Are you?
Do you think that by not addressing the point that claims are made that, by your own definitions, cannot possibly be made regarding FSCO/I at UD you come out of this looking better then if you were to address those claims?
Quite. I insist that your claims about FSCO/I are wrong as you yourself have shown them to be wrong, but hey, who am I to say otherwise if you say you are right eh? Oh, but yeah, being right or not is irrelevant to you, and boy, does it ever show.
Invested enough to make claims about it but not invested enough to accept your own conclusions regarding it when shown the consequences of your claim?
Fine, whatever.
So to ask a specific question, do you think that claims made regarding the FSCO/I of proteins are unsupported without this work being done?
If it only matters what “works” for you William and not what is right, in what sense does FSCO/I “work” for you?
keiths said:
I cannot force anyone to understand the major conceptual difference between caring about what I experience and caring about what is true or real. You are, of course, entirely incorrect about my mental framework, process and how I live my life.
You are as wrong about what I know in my “heart of hearts” as any religious zealot who insists that in my “heart of hearts” I know Jesus is Lord and that I should confess or repent my “sins”.
OMagain asks:
I find it interesting conceptually and, in some cases, amusing as a subject of conversation/debate.
OMagain said:
At the time I think I was correcting someone – perhaps you – that said it couldn’t be computed or something to that effect. I didn’t bring it up.
From my perspective, I demonstrated exactly what I said I could do – calculated the raw FSCO/I (as I explained it) using a specific example, and explained how it was done and what each aspect of the calculation meant.
Of course, I never for a second thought you or anyone else here would see it that way, regardless of how exhaustively I did so.