No Progress on Young Earthism's Biggest Problem: Starlight. Part 3

This is the third part of a series where I have been following young earthist attempts at solving their star light problem. Part 3 is well over due: I  published part 1 in July 2017 and part 2 in July 2018. I have to confess that I feel that refuting these clowns clever people wastes so much time and therefore my motivation is not high given that I could be doing stuff that's more interesting and constructive.

I've been using the Answers in Genesis Star Light page to follow their (lack of) progress. See the following link  for  the AiG  Star Light page.

https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/starlight/

I had intended in this part to look at John Hartnett's star light "solution" which tries to build on Jason Lisle's sequential creation model of ever decreasing concentric creation circles with the Earth at the centre of this concentric sequence*. However, I've recently come across an AiG article by Danny Faulkner, Ken Ham's very tame astronomer. This article charts the (lack of) progress by young earthists on the star light question and lists the very disparate salient "solutions" to date....so I thought I had better take a look at this stock taking exercise. From Faulkner's list of "solutions" it appears that his own proposal is still among the latest and AiG favoured answers (see part 2) and it has picked up the name "Dasha".  See here: 

https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/starlight/what-about-distant-starlight-models/

Faulkner tries to put the best possible complexion on the catalogue of disparate and desperate failed endeavours: Viz: Young earthists have lots of irons in the fire with more to come so perhaps one day someone will come up trumps. In his own words Faulkner concludes:

When all is said and done, this alleged problem of distant starlight does not seem as problematic for the biblical creationist. Researchers have several options that can solve this problem, so it is not a problem for a young universe. Furthermore, we want to encourage researchers currently working on these projects.

But from a big-picture standpoint, no one outside of God completely understands all the aspects of light (or time for that matter). It acts as a particle and in other instances acts as a wave, but we simply cannot test both at the same time. This dual behavior is still an underlying mystery in science that is simply accepted in practice. The more light is studied, the more questions we have, rather than answers.

Such things are similar in the theological world with the deity of Christ (fully man and fully God). Even the Trinity is a unique yet accepted mystery (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; one God but three persons). And in science, there is the “triple point” of water, where at one temperature and pressure, water is solid, liquid, and gas at the same time.

Light is truly unique in its makeup and properties, and with further study perhaps we can be “enlightened” to understand this issue in more detail. Regarding the distant starlight issue, there are plenty of models that have some promising elements to solve this alleged problem, and we would leave open future models that have not been developed yet (and we would also leave open the miraculous).

But as we consider the light-travel-time problem, we frequently overlook the immensity of the creation itself. The sudden appearance of space, time, matter, and energy is a remarkable and truly miraculous event. This is something that we humans cannot comprehend at all. Compared to creation, the light-travel-time problem is not very big at all.

This is basically the kind of distracting bafflegab which seems to be effective on Faulkner's science challenged audience, an audience who are by and large so dependent on AiG's gurus. In essence Faulkner's conclusion amounts to this: We don't understand God and the Trinity and we don't understand light and light is so mysterious anyway. But never mind your young earthist science gurus have the matter in hand and have got plenty of promising (but mutually contradictory!) irons in the fire and there may be many more irons to come. And in the last resort we can scrub all that and fall back on the miraculous. Star light is not really a very big problem at all. So just keep hanging on in there! As I have remarked in part 2 I have not been very impressed by Faulkner's work. See part 2 for my reasons. His best work seems to be that of disproving flat earth theory.**

Faulkner, like other young earthists, uses the technique of distraction to redirect attention away from these failed models by claiming that young earthism's star light problem is on a par with Big Bang's horizon problem: 

The Secularists Have the Same Sort of Problem. The opposition rarely realizes that they have a starlight problem, too. In the big-bang model, there is the “Horizon Problem,” a variant of the light-travel-time problem.4 This is based on the exchange of starlight/electromagnetic radiation to make the universe a constant temperature. In the supposed big bang, the light could not have been exchanged and the universe was expected to have many variations of temperature, but this was not the case when measured. Such problems cause many to struggle with the bigbang model, and rightly so.

But Christian old earthists don't have to subscribe to Big Bang and inflationary theories which attempt to solve the horizon question: Just as an example: It is possible for an old Cosmos Christian creationist to simply postulate that the background microwave uniformity we see in the heavens is simply a consequence of a God ordained boundary condition on creation i.e. an initial dense quasi-uniformity - a consequence if the cosmos is initially randomly but densely distributed. The horizon problem doesn't exist in an old-cosmos-random-boundary-condition model and of course in this old cosmos model star light arrival isn't a problem. But for the young earthist the star light issue remains serious and as I have remarked before it is a very basic problem, one that even a naive naked eye astronomer becomes aware of when (s)he looks up and sees the Andromeda galaxy. Big bang problems apart, the young earthist star light conundrum remains outstanding even for the local universe let alone for more distant parts: How did the light from Andromeda traverse 2 million light years of space? The young earthist star light problem exists for local objects as close as Andromeda where the horizon question isn't an issue. One doesn't have to have any views on the exact nature of the "t ~ 0" creation to understand the young eathist's headache. In drawing attention to the difficulties with inflationary theory Faulkner seems to forget the old adage that two wrongs don't make a right.

Anyway I'll leave it at that for moment. In the meantime to make up for the deficiencies in young earthist thinking Ken Ham will no doubt persist with his religious bullying and continue to intimidate, misrepresent and smear all those Christians and people he disagrees with. See here, here, and here, He will also continue to convey a distorted view of  young earthist history. See here.

Postscript

There is one aspect of the young earthist's efforts that I can applaud and this is the whole rationale behind their strenuous attempts to solve their star light problem; that is, most them accept that positing an in-transit-creation of light messages transgresses creative integrity. Danny Faulkner puts it like this:

The reason many do not accept the light in transit idea is that starlight contains a tremendous amount of detailed information about stars. For instance, stars have been known to blow up into supernovas like SN 1987a. Had this merely been starlight in transit, then what we saw would not have represented a star or a supernova, but instead merely light arriving at our eye to appear as a star and then a supernova. In other words, the star that was observed before the supernova could not have come from the actual star. If the light in transit idea is correct, then the light was encoded on the way to earth to make it look like an actual star. In that case, the supernova itself did not really happen but amounted to an illusion, sort of like a movie.

Many have suggested that if this were the case, then most stars are not stars. The implication is that God would be deceptively leading us to believe they were stars, when in fact they are illusions of stars. The idea of light in transit was widely popular among creationists for some time, but now many reject this idea because it seems far too deceptive.

Footnotes:
* Hartnett's work here is somewhat of a departure: Usually young earthists clear the ground and start over again with a new solution that branches out into a completely different direction.
** But see here where Faulkner comes out on the side of establishment science regarding the distribution of quasars and the expanding universe. 

Mind vs Matter IDualists

How to brick yourself into a corner!

This post on the de facto Intelligent Design website Uncommon Descent is further evidence of the IDist's struggle with mind vs. matter dualism.  Their implicit dualism mirrors their natural forces vs intelligent agent dichotomy. For the de facto IDists mind and intelligence are necessarily eminently mysterious;  they prefer to withdraw from the question of the nature of mind and believe their terms of reference only require the identification of the presence of intelligent action and otherwise leave it as an undefined. This approach tends to draw them toward a dualist paradigm of mind and matter.

Mind in the form of our techno-scientific culture has explicated much of the mystery of the cosmos in terms of the relationships within dynamic configurations; but the sentiment I'm seeing with the de facto IDists is that we are treading too sacred a ground if our minds attempt to understand themselves in terms of dynamic configurationalism. For them configurationalism is a non starter paradigm in the understanding of mind; mind is too holy for such a cold intellectual incursion!

Let's consider this quote from the UD post: 

In his continuing discussion with Robert J. Marks, Michael Egnor argues that emergence of the mind from the brain is not possible because no properties of the mind have any overlap with the properties of brain. Thought and matter are not similar in any way. Matter has extension in space and mass; thoughts have no extension in space and no mass.

Michael Egnor: The thing is, with the philosophy of mind, if the mind is an emergent property of the brain, it is ontologically completely different. That is, there are no properties of the mind that have any overlap with the properties of brain. Thought and matter are not similar in any way. Matter has extension in space and mass; thoughts have no extension in space and no mass. Thoughts have emotional states; matter doesn’t have emotional states, just matter. So it’s not clear that you can get an emergent property when there is no connection whatsoever between that property and the thing it supposedly emerges from.

Notice the dichotomy being emphasised here: Viz, the first person perspective of mind versus the configuratonalist paradigm of "matter". But there is an obvious reason for this apparent mind vs configuration distinction; it is a perspective effect: Viz: The third person is bound to observe the first person as a dynamic configuration; for whilst we are dealing with two separate conscious perspectives the third person perspective can't see the first person as anything other than a dynamic configuration; the anti-thesis of this is some kind of "mind-meld" which blends two conscious perspectives into a less fragmented perspective. But in the absence of that the conscious cognition of the first person  doesn't have any overlap with the conscious cognition of the third person. 

But of course the third person also has a first person conscious perspective themselves and the perceived configurational reduction of the first person only exists in the world of that third person's conscious cognition.  That is, the configurational reduction of mind that we identify as "matter" is necessarily the third person's perspective on the first person and therefore is itself bound up with conscious perception. Ergo, it is impossible to dichotomise conscious cognition and the dynamic configurations of matter; it's like trying to separate a centre from its periphery; centre and periphery are logically conjoined - one can't exist without the other.  

So basically my difference with the de facto IDaulists is that:

a) Configurationalism is a meaningless idea unless there are conscious minds capable of  constructing it. The up shot is that  I find my self slanting toward Berkeley's idealism.

b) For the Christian, God is the Creator of matter and therefore it is no surprise if there are ways of using matter which give rise to the miraculous complexities of conscious cognition. After all, as I have said in my Melencolia  I and Thinknet projects our modern concept of matter is looking suspiciously like the stuff of mind seen from a third person perspective.  In contrast IDists still conceive matter (whose configurational behaviour can be rendered computationally) as a reality distinct from mind and hold to the traditional quasi-gnostic view of matter as dead and inferior in contrast to mind's ethereal character. 

Explicating mind in terms of configurationalism is taboo among IDists because it means we are "reducing" mind to a computable object; that is, we could run computer simulations of mind if we had sufficient computing power (which we probably don't have at the moment). This is a "no-no" for many de facto IDists because it smacks of swinging things in favour of that much dreaded "secular" category and IDist's worst  nightmare, "materialism". But if matter is God's creation it's no competitor to his sovereign will. 

Perhaps illustrative of the difference between my own position and that of the IDists who attribute an almost untouchable holiness to mind, may be found in my derivation of equation 7.0 in my last post. This equation quantified the IDist concept of Algorithmic Specified Complexity (ASC) Viz: For a configuration L its ASC can be evaluated with: 

ASC(L, C) = I(L)  − K(L)  + K(C)

Where:
The function  I is the Shannon information associated with L.
The function K is the length of the shortest algorithms needed to define L and C
...and where C consists of the mysterious "contextual resources" from which L derives its meaning; this may include that strange thing we call "intelligence".

However, the IDists are very likely to look askance at the last term on the right-hand side of my equation, namely K(C). My derivation of this equation depended on the assumption that the quantity K(C) is mathematically definable;  but this assumption is only true if one assumes that C can be rendered in dynamical configurational terms. That is, it is a computable configuration in so far as it can be defined in data and algorithmic terms: I doubt the de facto IDists would buy that idea!

Breaking Through the Information Barrier in Natural History Part 3

(See here for part 1 and here for part 2)

The Limitations of Shannon Information.

In this series I am looking at the claim by de facto Intelligent Design proponents that information is conserved; or more specifically that something called "Algorithmic Specified Information" is conserved. 

If we use Shannon's definition of information, I =  −log₂(p(x)) where x = a configuration such as a string of characters, then we saw in part 1 that a conservation of information does arise in situations where computational resources are conserved; that is, when parallel processing power is fixed.

The conservation of information under fixed parallel processing becomes apparent when we deal with conditional probabilities, such as the probability of life, q, given the context of a physical regime which favours life. We assume that this physical regime favours the generation of life to such an extent that q is relatively large thus implying life has a relatively low Shannon information value. But it turns out that in order to return this low information value, we find that the probability of the physical regime must be very low, implying that a low information value for life is purchased at the cost of a high information physical regime. In part 2 I found at least three issues with this beguiling simple argument about the conservation of information. Viz:

1. The Shannon information function is a poor measure of complex configurational information; a simple outcome like say the information associated with the probability of finding a hydrogen atom at a point in the high vacuum of space is large and yet the simplicity of this event belies its large information value. Hence, Shannon Information is not a good measure of the information if we want to reflects object complexity.

2. Shannon information is a measure of subjective information; hence once an outcome is known, however complex it may be, it loses all its Shannon information and is therefore not conserved.

3. The Shannon information varies with number of parallel trials; that is, it varies with the availability of parallel processing resources and therefore on this second count Shannon Information is not conserved. This fact is exploited by multiverse enthusiasts who attempt to bring down the surprisal value of life by positing a multiverse of such great size that an outcome like life is no longer a surprise. (Although they might remain surprised that there is such an extravagant entity as the multiverse in the first place!)

Algorithmic Specified Information

In part 2 I introduced the concept of  "Algorithmic Specified Information" (ASC)  which is defined by the IDists Nemati and Holloway as (N&H):

ASC(x, C, p) := I(x) − K(x|C). 

1.0

Where: 

1. x is a bit string generated by some stochastic process, 

2. I(x) is the Shannon surprisal of x, also known as the complexity of x, and 

3. K(x|C) is the conditional algorithmic information of x, also known as the specification

And where: 
 I (x) = −log₂(p(x) ), where p is the probability of string x.

As we shall see ASC has failings of its own and shares with Shannon information a dependence on computational resources. As we saw in part 2 definition 1.0 is proposed by N&H in a attempt to provide a definition of information that quantifies meaningful information. For example, a random sequence of coin tosses contains a lot of Shannon information but it is meaningless. As we saw N&H try to get round this by introducing the second term on the right-hand side of 1.0, a conditional algorithmic information term; the "meaning" behind x is supposed to lie in the library C, a library which effectively provides the esoteric context and conditions needed for K(x|C) to work and give "meaning" to x. "Esoteric" is the operative word here: De facto ID has a tendency to consecrate "intelligence" by consigning it to a sacred realm almost beyond analysis. But they've missed a trick: As us operators of intelligence well know meaning is to be found in purpose, that is in teleology. As we shall see, once again de facto ID has missed the obvious; in this case by failing to incorporate teleology into their understanding of intelligence and instead vaguely referring it to some "context" C where they feel they needn't investigate it further.

Ostensibly, as we saw, the definition of ASC appears to work at first: Viz: Bland highly ordered configurations have little ASC and neither do random sequences. But as we will see this definition also fails because we can invent high ASC situations that are meaningless. 

The limitations of ASC

As we saw in  part 2 ASC does give us the desired result for meaningful information; but it also throws up some counter intuitive outcomes along and some false positives. As we will see it is not a very robust measure of meaningful information. Below I've listed some of the situations where the definition of ASC fails to deliver sensible results although in this post my chief aim is to get a handle on the conservation question. 

1. ASC doesn't always register information complexity
A simple single binary yes/no event may be highly improbable and therefore will return a high Shannon complexity. That is, the first term on the right hand side of 1.0 will be high.  Because x is a single bit string it is going to have very low conditional algorithmic complexity; therefore the second term on the right hand side of 1.0 will be low. Ergo 1.0 will return a high value of ASC in spite of the simplicity of the object  in question.  This is basically a repeat of the complexity issue with plain Shannon information 

I suppose it is possible to overcome this problem by insisting that ASC is really only defined for large configurations.

2. ASC doesn't always register meaningfulness 
Imagine a case where the contents of a book of random numbers are read out to an uninitiated observer in the sequence the numbers appear in the book. For this uninitiated observer who subjectively sees a probabilistic output the number string x will return a high value of I(x). But we now imagine that C in K(x|C) contains in its library a second book of random numbers and that K measures measures the length of an algorithm which carries out a simple encryption of this second book into a superficially different form, a form which in fact comprises the first book of random numbers as read out to the observer. In this case K would be relatively small and therefore 1.0 will then return a high value of ASC in spite of the fact that the string x is derived from something that is random and meaningless. 

We can symbolise this situation as follows:

ASC(x_n, x_n+1, p) := I(x_n) − K(x_n|x_n+1). 

2.0

Here the library consists of the second book of random numbers and is represented by x_n+1 .  This second book is used to derive the first book of random numbers, x_n, via a simple encryption algorithm. Hence K(x_n|x_n+1) will be relatively small. Because from the point of view of the observer concerned I(x_n) is very high then it follows that an otherwise meaningless string has a high ASC. 

3. ASC isn't conserved under changing subjective conditions

In 1.0 I(x), as I've already remarked, is sensitive to the knowledge of the observer; conceivably then it could go from a high value to zero once the observer knows the string.

This particular issue raises a question: That is, should I and K be mixed as they are in 1.0? They are both expressed as bit counts but they actually measure very different things. K(x|C) measures an unambiguous and objective configurational property of the string x whereas I measures a property of a string which is dependent on changeable observer information. 

4. Unexpected high order returns high ASC.
Take the case where we have a random source and just by chance it generates a long uniform string (e.g. a long sequence of heads). This string would clearly have very high surprisal value (that is a high I) and yet such a highly ordered sequence has the potential for a very low value of conditional algorithmic complexity thus resulting in a high value of ASC. However, this wouldn't happen often because of the rarity of simple order being generated by a random source. To be fair N&H acknowledge the possibility of this situation arising (rarely) and cover it by saying that ASC can only be assigned probabilistically. Fair comment!

5. ASC is only conserved under conserved computational resources 
We will briefly look at this issue after the following analysis, an analysis which sketches out the reasons why under the right conditions ASC is conserved.

The "Conservation" of ASC

In spite of the inadequacies of ASC as a measure of meaningful (purposeful) information ASC, like Shannon information, is conserved; but only under the right subset of conditions. Below is a sketchy analysis of how I myself would express this limited conservation.

We start with the definition of ASC  for a living configuration L. Equation 1.0 becomes:

ASC(L, C) := I(L) − K(L|C)

3.0

If we take a living organism then it is clear that the absolute probability of this configuration (that is, the probability of it arising as a single chance) will be very low. Therefore I(L) will be high. But for L to register with a high ASC the conditional algorithmic complexity term on the right hand side of 3.0 must be low. This can only happen if the algorithmic complexity of life is largely embedded in C; conceivably C could be a library, perhaps even some kind of DNA code and the algorithm whose complexity is quantified by K(L|C) is the shortest algorithm needed to define living configurations from this library. Thus the high ASC value of life depends on the existence of C. But C in turn will have an algorithmic complexity whose smallest value is limited by:

K(L) < K(L|C) + K(C)

4.0

...where K(L) is the absolute algorithmic complexity of life, K(L|C) is the conditional algorithmic complexity of life and K(C) is the absolute algorithmic complexity of the library C. This inequality relationship follows because the opposite would mean that K(L) is not the shortest possible algorithm for L. Notice in 4.0 I'm allowing C to be expressed in algorithmic terms; but I have to allow that as de facto IDists prefer to hallow the concept of intelligence and place it beyond intellectual reach they might actually object to this manoeuvre!

The library C could contain redundant information. But if we take out the redundancy and only include all that is needed for a living configuration then we expect 4.0 to become, at best, an equality:

K(L) = K(L|C) + K(C)

5.0

Equation 5.0 tells us that the absolute algorithmic complexity of L is equal the sum of the conditional algorithmic complexity of L and the absolute algorithmic complexity of the minimal library C. Therefore since K(L) is high, and K(L|C) is low then it follows that K(C) is high. From 5.0 it is apparent that the low conditional algorithmic complexity of life is bought at the price of the high absolute algorithmic complexity of C. The high absolute algorithmic complexity of L is a constant, and this constant value is spread over the sum on the right hand side of 5.0.  The more "heavy lifting" done by the library C the greater the ASC value and hence, according to N&H, the more meaningful the configuration.  

Relationship 5.0 is analogous to the equivalent Shannon relationship, 4.0, in part 1 where we had:

I(p) = I(q) + I(r)

5.1

In this equation the very small absolute probability of life, p, means that its information value I(p) is high. Hence, if the relative conditional probability of life q is low it can only be bought at the price of a very improbable r, the absolute probability of the physical regime. Hence if I(q) is relatively low then I(r) will be high.

Relationship 5.0 is the nearest thing I can find to an ASC "conservation law". Rearranging 5.0 gives:

K(L|C) = K(L) − K(C)

6.0

Therefore 3.0 becomes:

ASC(L, C) = I(L)  − K(L)  + K(C)

7.0

From this expression we see that ASC increases as we put more algorithmic complexity into C. That is, it becomes more meaningful according to N&H. ASC is maximised when C holds all the algorithmic complexity of L. Under these conditions −K(L) + K(C) cancels to zero. Realistic organic configurations are certainly complex and yet at the same time far from maximum disorder. Therefore we expect K(L) will be a lot less than I(L). Because life is neither random disorder nor crystalline order K(L) will have a value intermediate between the maximum algorithmic complexity of a highly disordered random configuration and the algorithmic simplicity of simple crystal structures. In order to safeguard C from simply being a complex but meaningless random sequence  - which as we have seen is one way of foiling the definition of ASC - we could insist that for meaningful living configurations we must have:

 K(L) ~ K(C)

8.0

...which when combined with 6.0 it follows that K(L|C) in 5.0 is relatively small; that is K(L|C) returns a relatively small bit length and represents a relatively simple algorithm. This looks a little bit like the role of the cell in its interpretation of the genetic code: Most of the information for building an organism is contained in its genetics and this code uses the highly organised regime of a cell to generate a life form. Therefore from 7.0 it follows that the bulk of the ASC is embodied in the conserved value of I(L) (But let's keep in mind that I(L) is conserved only under a subset of circumstances). 

***

For a random configuration, R,  equation 1.0 becomes:

ASC(R, C) := I(R) − K(R|C)

9.0

For R the equivalent of relationship 4.0 is:

 K(R) < K(R|C) + K(C)

10.0

If C holds the minimum information needed for generating R  then:

 K(R) = K(R|C) + K(C)

11.0

Therefore:

  K(R|C) = K(R) − K(C)

12.0

Therefore substituting 12.0 into 9.0 gives

ASC(R) = I(R) − K(R) + K(C)

10.0

Since a random configuration is not considered meaningful then the minimal library C must be empty and hence  K(C) = 0.   Therefore 10.0 becomes:

ASC(R) = I(R) − K(R)

11.0

Now, for the overwhelming majority of configurations generated by a random source the value K(R) is at a  maximum and equal to the length of R unless by a remote chance R just happens to be ordered - which is a possible albeit a highly improbable outcome for a random source. Since for the overwhelming number of randomly sourced configurations I(R) = K(R) then ASC(R) will very probably be close to zero. Hence configurations sourced randomly will likely produce an ASC of zero and will likely stay conserved at this value. 

Conclusion: Information can be created

The value of the function K(x) is a mathematically defined configurational property that is an unambiguous constant given a particular configuration; it also obeys the conservation law for minimised libraries. Viz:

K(x) = K(x|C) + K(C)

12.0

...here the algorithmic complexity of K(x) is shared between K(x|C) and K(C), although not necessarily equally of course. A similar conservation law (See 4.0 above) also holds for I(x) but as we saw in part 2 this conservation depends on the computational resources available; if there is parallelism in these resources the extent of parallelism will change the probability of x. The forgoing analysis of ASC very much depended on the assumption that I(x) and its implicit reference to the absolute probability of a configuration is a fixed quantity, an assumption that may not be true. So although K(x) is a fixed value for a given configuration this is not generally true of I(x). But, the trouble is, as we saw in part 1 the introduction of massively parallel computational resources raises the ugly spectre of the multiverse. As I hope will become clear, the multiverse is a consequence of the current intellectual discomfort with teleology given a contemporary world view which is unlikely to interpret expanding parallelism as an aspect of a cosmos where a purposeful declarative computational paradigm is a better fit than a procedural one; a declarative computation creates fields of "candidates", or if you like a temporary "multiverse" of tentative trials, but in due course clears away what ever is outside the purpose of the computation; it thereby creates information. In a straight multiverse paradigm nothing ever gets cleared away. 

Using ASC as an attempt to detect an intelligent designer is, it seems, far from robust. If used carefully with an eye on its fragility ASC can be used to detect the region between the high order of monotony and the high disorder of randomness; this is the region of  complex organisation which  admittedly is often associated with intelligent action. But really N&H are missing a trick: intelligence is overwhelmingly associated with purposeful goal seeking behaviour; in fact this a necessary condition of intelligence and needs to be incorporated into our "intelligence detection" methodology. 

Intelligence classifies as a complex adaptive system, a system which is selectively seeking and settling on a wide class of very general goals and is also rejecting outcomes that don't fulfill those goals. For me the notion of "specification" only makes sense in this teleological context and that's why, I suggest, the IDists have failed to make much sense of "specification"; in their efforts to define "specification" they are endeavouring to keep within the current "procedural" tradition of science by not acknowledging the role of a "declarative" teleology in intelligent action, in spite of the fact that it is clear that "intelligence" is all about selective seeking. To be fair, perhaps this is a consequence of de facto ID's general policy of restricting their terms of reference to that of intelligence detection and keeping away from exploring the nature of intelligence itself. When IDists do comment on the nature of intelligence they have a taste for highfalutin notions like incomputability and this only has the effect of making the subject of "intelligence" seem even more intractable and esoteric; but perhaps that is exactly their intention!

It is irony that atheist Joe Felsenstein, with his emphasis on population breeding and selection, is to my mind closer to the truth than many an IDist. The standard view of evolution, however, is that it is a biological trial and error breeding system: The information associated with failures will by and large get cleared from the system, a system which is working toward the goals defined by the spongeam (if it exists!),  an object which in turn is thought to be a product of procedural physics. In one sense the spongeam fulfills a similar role to the library C in the definition of relative algorithmic complexity.

The IDists are wrong; information can be created; This becomes clear in human thinking, computers and standard evolution: However, the stickler with the latter is that as it stands it is required to start from the ground up and probably (in my view) simply isn't powerful enough a system for generating life.....unless one accepts the existence of the huge burden of up-front information implicit in the spongeam. (whose existence I actually doubt). An alternative solution is to employ massive parallelism in order to solve the probability problem. But then the subject of the multiverse rears its ugly head....unless, like evolution, the system clears its huge field of failed trials and selects according to  some teleological  criterion thus collapsing the field of trials in favour of a small set of successful results. This is exactly what intelligent systems do and at the high level there is no real mystery here: Intelligent systems work by trial and error as they seek to move toward goals.

All this is very much a departure from the current computational paradigm which directs science: This sees the processes of physics as procedural non-halting algorithms that continue purposelessly forever. In such a goalless context "specification" is either meaningless or difficult to define. Without some a prior notion of purpose  "specification" is a very elusive idea.

I hope to continue to develop these themes in further posts and in particular develop the notion of "specification" that I started to define toward the end of the paper I've linked to in part 4 of my Thinknet project (See section 11). I also hope to be looking at the two blog posts by Joe Felsenstein on this subject (See here and here) which flatly contradict the ID contention that you can't create information without the presence of some esoteric object called "intelligence". And it looks as though he's probably right. 

Note:
Much of the conceptual background for this post has its foundations in my book on Disorder and Randomness

5 way Mexican Standoff: Dawkins vs Weinstein vs Myers vs Nelson vs.....

I was fascinated by the complex mix of irreconcilable intellectual positions alluded to in this post on Pharyngula, the blog of evangelical atheist PZ Myers. He tells of a debate between uncompromising evolutionary aficionados (and atheists) Dick Dawkins and Bret Weinstein. The big event was convened by Travis Pangburn, himself  a conceited  egotist - at least according to PZ Myers. Myers is also no fan of Dawkins and even less so of Weinstein who is part of the "Dark Web" (or "Dork Web" as Myers calls it). The Dark Web (which includes Jordan Peterson) is a loosely affiliated group of intellectuals who are pressing forward with their evolutionary logic, particularly in evolutionary psychology, and drawing highly politically incorrect and nihilistic conclusions. This nihilism has even led to a figure like Peterson commenting positively on the social advantages of Christian theism, although this falls well short of outright belief.

Myers tells us that Intelligent Design guru Paul Nelson reviewed the debate here. Nelson's take on the event is that Weinstein "out Darwined" Dawkins in as much as Dawkins baulked at following Weinstein in working out the socio-biological 'ethics' of the ruthless adaptionist logic of evolution.  In fact Weinstein suggests that World War II can be explained in adaptionist and selectionist terms. Dawkins was loathe to be lead by Weinstein into this territory because, according to Nelson, that would go against the grain of today's milieu which is sensitive to anything which smacks of the nihilism of political incorrectness. That's ironic because Dawkins himself has clashed with this prevailing milieu. 

Not that I know much about the ramifications of adpationist selectionism, but within the constraints it imposes it is likely that it envelopes a vast range of apparent random/chaotic outcomes which have no rationale in terms of adaptation and selection: To me WWI and WWII look to be of that meaningless ilk. This chaotic meaninglessness gives plenty of room for atheists like Dawkins and Myers to back off from Weinstein's conclusions and claim that something like WWII has nothing to do with evolution but are epiphenomenal to human nature, foibles permitted, but not necessarily promoted, within a Darwinian envelope. This is the permissive 'will' of evolution at work and it is therefore not 'responsible'!

However, among these protagonists I would probably agree with the general drift of Nelson's thoughts: Whether it's down to adaptionist logic or plain randomness and/or chaos, a purely secular picture of the cosmos conjures up a world of utter ruthless indifference to human affairs and one that has no necessary reason to favour morality of any kind no matter how strenuously espoused by atheists with moral sensibilities such as Dawkins and Myers. Weinstein, in pushing through with secularist selectionist logic and drawing very politically incorrect conclusions (even if his adaptionist "rationale" is fallacious), is nevertheless being guided by atheism's dangerous assignation with the nihilist abyss: Evolution, at least in the long term, is not a custodian with human interests at heart as H G Wells book "The Time Machine" makes clear. This is an uncomfortable conclusion for secular humanism: As PZ Myers himself once said, nature doesn't care about us, or for political correctness!

Breaking Through the Information Barrier in Natural History Part 2

(See here for part 1)

In this post on Panda's Thumb mathematical evolutionist Joe Felsenstein discusses the latest attempts by the de facto Intelligent Design community to cast doubt on standard evolution and to bolster their belief that "Intelligence" is the mysterious and "unnatural" a priori ingredient needed to bring about organic configurations. In this second part I will introduce the subject of "Algorithmic Specified Complexity" (ASC). The definition of this ID concept can be found in an ID paper linked to in Joe's post.  Joe's point is that whatever the merits or demerits of ASC it is irrelevant to evolution. That may be the case, but more about that in part 3. In this part I want to get to grips with the concept of ASC.

The definition of "Algorithmic Complexity" (i.e. without the "specified") is fairly clear; it is the length of the shortest program which will define an indefinitely long sequential configuration. For example if we have an indefinitely repeating sequence like 101010101... it is clear that very a short program will define it. e..g. For(Ever) { print 0, print 1}.  We can see that there are obviously relatively few short programs because a short program string admits relatively few permutations of the available character tokens. On the other hand there is obviously an enormous number of indefinitely long output strings and so it follows that the supply of short programs that can be written and mapped to indefinitely long strings soon runs out. Therefore the only way to accommodate all the possible strings is to allow the program length to also increase indefinitely. It turns out that if programs are to define all the possible output strings available then the program strings must be allowed to grow to the length of the output string.  Output strings which require a program of the same string length to define them are categorised as the class of random strings and of maximum algorithmic complexity. In my paper on Disorder and Randomness I explain why these random strings are of maximum disorder. However, some output strings can be defined with a program string that is shorter than the output string. When this is the case the output string is said to be randomly deficient and of less than maximum algorithmic complexity.

So far so good. But it is when we add that vague term "specified" between 'Algorithmic' and 'Complexity' that the sparks start to fly. What does 'specified' mean here? Joe Felsenstein says this of "Algorithmic Specified Complexity" (ASC):

Algorithmic Specified Complexity (ASC) is a use of Kolmogorov/Chaitin/Solomonoff (KCS) Complexity, a measure of how short a computer program can compute a binary string (a binary number). By a simple counting argument, those authors were able to show that binary strings that could be computed by short computer programs were rare, and that binary strings that had no such simple description were common. They argued that that it was those, the binary strings that could not be described by short computer programs, that could be regarded as "random".

ASC reflects shortness of the computer program. In simple cases, the ASC of a binary string is its "randomness deficiency", its length, n, less the length of the shortest program that gives it as its output. That means that to get a genome (or binary string) that has a large amount of ASC, it needs long string that is computed by a short program. To get a moderate amount of ASC, one could have a long string computed by medium-length program, or a medium-length string computed by a short program. Randomness deficiency was invented by information theory researcher Leonid Levin and is discussed by him in a 1984 paper (here). Definitions and explanations of ASC will be found in the papers by Ewert, Marks, and Dembski (2013), and Ewert, Dembski and Marks (2014). Nemati and Holloway have recently published a scientific paper at the Discovery Institute's house journal BIO-Complexity, presenting a proof of conservation of ASC. There has been discussion at The Skeptical Zone of the technical issues with ASC -- is it conserved or is it not? In particular, Tom English (here and here) has presented detailed mathematical argument at The Skeptical Zone showing simple cases which are counterexamples to the claims by Nemati and Holloway, and has identified errors in their proof. See also the comments by English in the discussion on those posts.

As far as my understanding goes Felsenstein has given us a definition of "Algorithmic Complexity"  and not "Algorithmic Specified Complexity", a notion which seems to be proprietary to de facto ID. So, in doubt I reluctantly turned to the scientific paper by Nemati and Holloway (N&H).  They define ASC as:

ASC(x, C, p) := I(x) − K(x|C). 

1.0

Where: 
1. x is a bit string generated by some stochastic process, 
2. I(x) is the Shannon surprisal of x, also known as the complexity of x, and 
3. K(x|C) is the conditional algorithmic information of x, also known as the specification

Note: I (x) = −log₂(p(x) ) where p is the probability of string x.

This definition is somewhat more involved than basic Algorithmic Complexity. In 1.0 ASC has been defined as the sum of I and −K. Moreover, with ordinary algorithmic complexity K(x) represents the shortest program that will generate and define string x, but N&H have used the quantity K(x|C) which is the shortest program possible given access to a library of programming resources C. These resources could include data and other programs This library effectively increases the length of the program string and therefore an output string which are otherwise inaccessible to programs of a given length may then become accessible. But although a program using a library string can define output strings  unreachable to similar length programs without a library, the number of possible strings that can be mapped to is still limited by length of the program string,

The motives behind N&H's definition of ASC, and in particular the motive for using conditional algorithmic information, they put like this (my emphases):

We will see that neither Shannon surprisal nor algorithmic information can measure meaningful information. Instead, we need a hybrid of the two, known as a randomness deficiency, that is measured in reference to an external context.....

ASC is capable of measuring meaning by positing a context C to specify an event x. The more concisely the context describes the event, the more meaningful it is. The event must also be unlikely, that is, having high complexity I(x). The complexity is calculated with regard to the chance hypothesis distribution p, which represents the hypothesis that x was generated by a random process described by p, implying any similarity to the meaningful context C is by luck. ASC has been illustrated by its application to measure meaningful information in images and cellular automata .

The use of context distinguishes ASC from Levin’s generalized form of randomness deficiency in (8) and Milosavljevi´c algorithmic compression approach. The fundamental advantage is that the use of an independent external context allows ASC to measure whether an event refers to something beyond itself, i.e. is meaningful. Without the context, the other randomness deficiencies perhaps can tell us that an event is meaningful, but cannot identify what the meaning is.

Thus, ASC’s use of an independent context enables novel contextual specifications to be derived from problem domain knowledge, and then applied to identify meaningful patterns,such as identifying non-trivial functional patterns in the game of life

We can perhaps better understand N&H's motives for ASC if we consider the examples they give.  Take a process which generates a highly computable sequence like:

 AAAAAAAAAAAA...etc

2.0

Presumably this highly ordered sequence reflects a process where the probability of generating an "A" at each 'throw' is 1. Although human beings often like to create such neat sequences so do the mindless processes of crystallisation; but for N&H crystallisation is hardly mysterious enough to classify as an intelligent agent.  N&H would therefore like to eliminate this one from the inquiry. Hence in equation 1 it is clear that for a sequence like 2.0 −log₂(p(x)) = 0 and therefore although the program needed to print 2.0 is very short we will have K(x|C) > 0 and it follows by substitution into 1.0 that the ASC value associated with 2.0 is negative. i.e. low!

Now let's try the following disordered sequence which presumably is generated by a fully random process:

HNKRCYDO_BIIIEDWPBURW_OIMIBT......etc

3.0

Here   −log₂(p(x)) will be very high; on this count alone 3.0  contains a lot of information. But then the value of K(x|C) will also be high because for a truly random sequence even the limited resources C will be insufficient to successfully track a truly random source.  We therefore expect the algorithm needed to generate this kind of randomness to be at least as long as 3.0. Since  −log₂(p(x))  will return a bit length of similar size to  K(x|C) then ASC ~ 0.

It follows then that  both 2.0 and 3.0 return low values of ASC as expected.

Let us now turn to that character string immortalised by those literary giants Bill Shakespeare and Dick Dawkins. Viz:

METHINKS_IT_IS_LIKE_A_WEASEL

4.0

It is very unlikely, of course, that such a configuration as this is generated by a random process. For a start using my configurational concept of disorder texts by Shakespeare and Dawkins will not return a disordered profile. However, the probability of 4.0 appearing by chance alone is very small. Hence  −log₂(p(x)) will be large. But K(x|C) will be small because it taps into a large library of mental processing and data resources. Therefore the net result is that equation 1.0 is then the sum of a large positive and a small negative and so voila! it returns is a high value of ASC, which is what we want; or shall I say it is what N&H want!

***

So having assumed they have arrived at a suitable definition of ASC N&H then go on to show that ASC is conserved.  But according to Joe Felsentsein:

There has been discussion at The Skeptical Zone of the technical issues with ASC -- is it conserved or is it not? In particular, Tom English (here and here) has presented detailed mathematical argument at The Skeptical Zone showing simple cases which are counterexamples to the claims by Nemati and Holloway, and has identified errors in their proof. See also the comments by English in the discussion on those posts.

I suspect however that in spite of the errors N&H have muddled through to the right mathematical conclusion.  But in any case Joe Felsenstein thinks the question is probably irrelevant because: 

...the real question is not whether the randomness deficiency is conserved, or whether the shortness of the program is conserved, but whether that implies that an evolutionary process in a population of genomes is thereby somehow constrained. Do the theorems about ASC somehow show us that ordinary evolutionary processes cannot achieve high levels of adaptation?

As a rule the de facto IDists have two motives: Firstly they want to stop evolution in its tracks because it is classified by them as a banal "natural" process and secondly they want to place the origins of complex adaptive organisms in the mysteries of mind which I suspect they believe to be a mysterious incomputable process. In a sense they seek a return to the mystique of vitalism.

But like Joe Felsenstein I find the question of the conservation of ASC, although for different reasons, irrelevant: At the moment it's looking to me as though ASC is both trivial and irrelevant for my purposes and simply leaves us with the same old questions. In the final analysis we find that information is not absolutely conserved because the so called "conservation of information" is not logically obliged but is a probabilistic result brought about by assuming a parallel processing paradigm; more about that in part 3. Yes, there's clearly a lot of good will and expertise in the de facto ID movement and they are a lot better in their attitudes than the didactarian Genesis literalists. But although I'm a Christian there's no chance of me joining de facto ID's Christian following. Many Christians will be wowed by their work and become followers, but count me well and truly out of anything like that! The church needs independent minds, not followers.