[_ Old Earth _] The eyes have it

[sheseala]

"Researchers in the laboratories of Detlev Arendt and Jochen Wittbrodt have discovered that the light-sensitive cells of our eyes, the rods and cones, are of unexpected evolutionary origin -- they come from an ancient population of light-sensitive cells that were initially located in the brain.

I guess that blows the Richard Dawkins theory.

The theory went:
1)Some guy had a mutation that caused a dimple on his eyeless face. The dimple made the suntan response directional.

2)Then the guy had another mutation that causes a clear bit of skin to cover the dimple.

3)Then another mutatation caused the suntan response to do the three primary colors.

Three mutations and you have a working eye, all wired to the brain and everty. But, now that we know the light senstive cells started in the brain, we need a new theory. OK. One day a mutation causes a guy's brain to stick through his skull. Now follow the three steps. The theory works if you're too stupid to have any concept of the complexity of the eye.

You are assuming that the skull came before the eye.

 

[jwu]

Because it disallows evolution. Without intelligence manipulating the

negative entropy of other matter, complexity is never increased.

Please define "complexity".

And by the way...where does the 2LoT state an exception for the involvement of intelligence?
If that was so, then it should be possible to decrease the entropy in an isolated system, to make heat in it flow from a cold body to a hot one.
How would you do that?

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

Please define "complexity".

And by the way...where does the 2LoT state an exception for the involvement of
intelligence?
If that was so, then it should be possible to decrease the entropy in an isolated system, to make heat in it flow from a cold body to a hot one.
How would you do that?

Here's a definition off the cuff:

The extent to which an organism or mechanism converts negative entropy

into useful work, delaying it's own entropy and beyond.

There is no exception to The 2LoT contained within this universe.

Intelligence, however, is necessary to delay the process and get

some work done while at it. The programming is necessary to capture the

negative entropy, and put it to work, thus delaying positive entropy.

...What is the characteristic feature of life? When is a piece of matter said to be alive? When it goes on 'doing something', moving, exchanging material with its environment, and so forth, and that for a much longer period than we would expect an inanimate piece of matter to 'keep going' under similar circumstances. When a system that is not alive is isolated or placed in a uniform environment, all motion usually comes to a standstill very soon as a result of various kinds of friction; differences of electric or chemical potential are equalized, substances which tend to form a chemical compound do so, temperature becomes uniform by heat conduction. After that the whole system fades away into a dead, inert lump of matter. A permanent state is reached, in which no observable events occur. The physicist calls this the state of thermodynamical equilibrium, or of 'maximum entropy'...



... Every process, event, happening - call it what you will; in a word, everything that is going on in Nature means an increase of the entropy of the part of the world where it is going on. Thus a living organism continually increases its entropy - or, as you may say, produces positive entropy - and thus tends to approach the dangerous state of maximum entropy, which is death. It can only keep aloof from it, i.e. alive, by continually drawing from its environment negative entropy - which is something very positive as we shall immediately see. What an organism feeds upon is negative entropy. Or, to put it less paradoxically, the essential thing in metabolism is that the organism succeeds in freeing itself from all the entropy it cannot help producing while alive...

WHAT IS LIFE?
Erwin Shrödinger
http://dieoff.org/page150.htm

 

[jwu]

Here's a definition off the cuff:

The extent to which an organism or mechanism converts negative entropy

into useful work, delaying it's own entropy and beyond.

That begs the question.

You're saying that complexity is the rate at which something "makes use" of negative entropy outside to delay the increase of entropy in itself.

First off, with "useful work" you beg the question and presuppose intelligence, as there can be no "usefulness" without purpose. Furthermore, i see no correlation between that definition and any common meaning of the word "complexity" - complexity typically being the complicatedness of a system or structure, not a thermodynamical thing.

Do you have any sources for that definition?

If one removes the begging of the question and just reduces it to the delay of approach of thermodynamical equilibrium, then any planet with life or without is highly complex, as it draws energy from its sun to avoid that state. Not consciously of course - the mere presence of that source of energy is sufficient, one does not need any intelligence to direct it.

There is no exception to The 2LoT contained within this universe.

Don't you contradict what you said earlier there?

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

Here's a definition off the cuff:

The extent to which an organism or mechanism converts negative entropy

into useful work, delaying it's own entropy and beyond.

That begs the question.

You're saying that complexity is the rate at which something "makes use" of negative entropy outside to delay the increase of entropy in itself.

First off, with "useful work" you beg the question and presuppose intelligence, as there can be no "usefulness" without purpose. Furthermore, i see no correlation between that definition and any common meaning of the word "complexity" - complexity typically being the complicatedness of a system or structure, not a thermodynamical thing.

Do you have any sources for that definition?

If one removes the begging of the question and just reduces it to the delay of approach of thermodynamical equilibrium, then any planet with life or without is highly complex, as it draws energy from its sun to avoid that state. Not consciously of course - the mere presence of that source of energy is sufficient, one does not need any intelligence to direct it.

[quote:efbba]There is no exception to The 2LoT contained within this universe.

Don't you contradict what you said earlier there?[/quote:efbba]

The defintion begs intelligence, because I've never seen an example of

matter, in itself, harnessing negative entropy to decrease it's own positive

entropy.

The definition is mine...just kind of thought it through.

Seems like your definition is a bit circular. Can you express your definition

without using a form of complexity as part of the definition?

As to an inanimate object (without the aid of intelligence) harnessing

negative entropy to offset it's positive entropy, I've yet to come across a

real world example.

No contridiction concerning 2LoT. Everything still tends toward maximum

entropy in the long haul.

 

[jwu]

The defintion begs intelligence, because I've never seen an example of

matter, in itself, harnessing negative entropy to decrease it's own positive

entropy.

And how do you justify this step? It's an argument from ignorance in its purest form.

Planets receiving energy from the sun do exactly that.
An ice desert can be turned into an ocean with a complicated system of currents; very clearly a local decrease of entropy and without any intelligent involvement.

Seems like your definition is a bit circular. Can you express your definition

without using a form of complexity as part of the definition?

I'd define the complexity of a system as proportional to the kolmogorov chaitin information which is required to specify the system.

No contridiction concerning 2LoT. Everything still tends toward maximum

entropy in the long haul.

I must have misread this statement then:

Without intelligence manipulating the
negative entropy of other matter, complexity is never increased.

It seemed to imply that intelligence can overcome the 2ndLoT.

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

And how do you justify this step? It's an argument from ignorance in its purest form.

Planets receiving energy from the sun do exactly that.
An ice desert can be turned into an ocean with a complicated system of currents; very clearly a local decrease of entropy and without any intelligent involvement.

It's based on observation and repeatability. How is that arguing from

ignorance. And my bad on using the term 2LoT...what I meant was The

Second Law in general, not just as it applies to thermodynamic systems.

Just because something warms up, doesn't mean you've decreased it's

informational entropy, which to me is the marker of complexity.

A hot rock is no more complex than a cold one in and of itself.

I'd define the complexity of a system as proportional to the kolmogorov

chaitin information which is required to specify the system.

And information isn't tied to intelligence? Where is this information derived?

To me your strongly correlating intelligence and complexity.

Without the information, you have no measure of complexity.

Isn't the Kolmogorov-Chaitin theory the one used by computer

programmers?

It seemed to imply that intelligence can overcome the 2ndLoT.

Nope (none contained in this universe). And again, my bad... I'm referring

to the Second Law in general, not just as it pertains to thermodynamical

systems.

 

[jwu]

It's based on observation and repeatability. How is that arguing from

ignorance.

Strange...i had tried to edit that part out of it, but somehow that edit seems not to have made it through. You're right, argument from ignorance isn't the correct term.

Just because something warms up, doesn't mean you've decreased it's

informational entropy, which to me is the marker of complexity.

A hot rock is no more complex than a cold one in and of itself.

But an ocean with a system of currents is more complex than a glacier, isn't it?

Another thing are cellular automata.

And information isn't tied to intelligence? Where is this information derived?

Intelligence merely interpretes information. A book floating around in space somewhere outside of our galaxy still contains information, if one reads it or not.

Where is this information derived?

It can potentially pop out of nothing, there is no law of conservation or decay about this type of information - and it's clearly the one that is the most suitable to describe complexity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity

Isn't the Kolmogorov-Chaitin theory the one used by computer
programmers?

For compression algorithms, yes. Basically its tenet is that the harder it is to compress to some string of characters into a shorter form, the more information does it contain.

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

But an ocean with a system of currents is more complex than a

glacier, isn't it?

Another thing are cellular automata.

Well, an ocean with currents has less thermodynamic entropy.

From my definition of complexity it isn't more complex, it's just changed

thermodynamic states.

From your definition, does it appear to be more complex?

I'm not sure which would require the longer string to describe each system.

It would be interesting to know. Your the math wiz my man...think you can

cruch a crude comparison between the two?

Do you have a good link for cellular automata. I'm not familiar with them.

Always learning something new...that's what I like about debating with an

intelligent counter-part. I may not agree with everything you say, but I learn

alot from the ideas you have that are different than mine. It' good to learn

different takes on issues.

Intelligence merely interpretes information. A book floating around in space somewhere outside of our galaxy still contains information, if one reads it or not.

My argument is that the book was created by intelligence to begin with.

Or, are you saying that it's possible over eons of time for a book to

assemble itself randomly? Just clarifying what your conveying.

It can potentially pop out of nothing, there is no law of conservation or decay about this type of information - and it's clearly the one that is the most suitable to describe complexity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity

The First and Second Laws of Information are highly contraversial, but

appear to be gaining more acceptance in the general community.

The Second Law, with it's concepts of entropy, is already generally accepted

(i.e.- Shannons Theory). Other respected scientists admit the First and

Second Laws can be applied to Information Theory, and at a very deep level

FLoT and SLoT/ FLoI and SLoI are higly interelated.

 

[jwu]

Well, an ocean with currents has less thermodynamic entropy.

From my definition of complexity it isn't more complex, it's just changed

thermodynamic states.

From your definition, does it appear to be more complex?

I'm not sure which would require the longer string to describe each system.

It would be interesting to know. Your the math wiz my man...think you can

cruch a crude comparison between the two?

The regular structures of ice crystals are rather efficient to describe in a recursive manner. Torrents require hydrodynamics, quite a complex subject. Moreover, it's a static system in contrast to a dynamic one.

Do you have a good link for cellular automata. I'm not familiar with them.

Always learning something new...that's what I like about debating with an

intelligent counter-part. I may not agree with everything you say, but I learn

alot from the ideas you have that are different than mine. It' good to learn

different takes on issues.

Wikipedia has a good primer on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automata

Basically they are simple rules which result in complex patterns if several instances of these rules interact with each other. The article gives one nice example. the patterns on a shell.

In some way one could see an ant colony as a cellular automaton too.

My argument is that the book was created by intelligence to begin with.

Or, are you saying that it's possible over eons of time for a book to

assemble itself randomly? Just clarifying what your conveying.

Perhaps my example was unsuitable, as it only works one way - the point i was trying to make is that information may exist without someone interpreting it. Authoring it is not necessary either though. (This whole subject is rather secondary to the debate though; a bit like "if a tree falls and no one is there, does it make a sound?)

What is your take on this question:
Does a ray of light contain information about its source? E.g. about its chemical composition, after all spectrography is used to determine the composition of stars.

The First and Second Laws of Information are highly contraversial, but

appear to be gaining more acceptance in the general community.

The Second Law, with it's concepts of entropy, is already generally accepted

(i.e.- Shannons Theory). Other respected scientists admit the First and

Second Laws can be applied to Information Theory, and at a very deep level

FLoT and SLoT/ FLoI and SLoI are higly interelated.

What is the first law of information? How was it derived? I cannot imagine it being analogous to the 1stLoT, as that'd have absurde consequences.

The entropy business, 2ndLoT, does apply to Shannon information theory but not K/C. In K/C an increase of information is explicitly allowed, in Shannon's its forbidden by definition.
However, evolution does not require an increase of shannon information. In fact evolution depends on a loss thereof, without it there could be no evolution. But we've gone through that before.

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

The regular structures of ice crystals are rather efficient to describe in a recursive manner. Torrents require hydrodynamics, quite a complex subject. Moreover, it's a static system in contrast to a dynamic one.

Again, I agree about the change in thermodynamic state, and the resulting implications
leading to changes in hydrodynamics, but is it offsetting the entropy the process is
creating within itself, or is the process creating additional entropy? Another way of
putting it is: Do you think churning water or ice has potential create more
complexity, or will both tend towards total randomness?

Wikipedia has a good primer on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automata

Basically they are simple rules which result in complex patterns if several instances of these rules interact with each other. The article gives one nice example. the patterns on a shell.

In some way one could see an ant colony as a cellular automaton too.

I’ve only read the primer, but at first glance the cellular automata seem to implicitly
imply design:
“...At the same time, John von Neumann, Ulam's colleague at Los Alamos, was working on the problem of self-replicating systems. Von Neumann's initial design was founded upon the notion of one robot building another robot. This design is known as the kinematic model. As he developed this design, von Neumann came to realize the great difficulty of building a self-replicating robot, and of the great cost in providing the robot with a "sea of parts" from which to build its replicant...
...Some living things use naturally occurring cellular automata in their functioning.Patterns of some seashells, like the ones in Conus and Cymbiola genus, are generated by natural CA. The pigment cells reside in a narrow band along the shell's lip. Each cell secretes pigments according to the activating and inhibiting activity of its neighbour pigment cells, obeying a natural version of a mathematical rule. The cell band leaves the colored pattern on the shell as it grows slowly. For example, the widespread species Conus textile bears a pattern resembling the Rule 30 CA described above.
Plants regulate their intake and loss of gases via a CA mechanism. Each stoma on the leaf acts as a cell...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automata
.â€Â
These notions are highly abstract mathmatical models portrayed to us in vivid color by...
random forces? Well, that’s not a fair statement because you do believe an intelligent
source kicked the whole process into gear. Very fine line, ey?

What is your take on this question:
Does a ray of light contain information about its source? E.g. about its chemical composition, after all spectrography is used to determine the composition of stars.

I think a ray of light contains data concerning it’s source, but in and of itself, no
information.

· a message received and understood
· data: a collection of facts from which conclusions may be drawn; "statistical data"
· knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction
·... (communication theory) a numerical measure of the uncertainty of an outcome; "the signal contained thousands of bits of information" ...

wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

What is the first law of information? How was it derived? I cannot imagine it being analogous to the 1stLoT, as that'd have absurde consequences.

The entropy business, 2ndLoT, does apply to Shannon information theory but not K/C. In K/C an increase of information is explicitly allowed, in Shannon's its forbidden by definition.
However, evolution does not require an increase of shannon information. In fact evolution depends on a loss thereof, without it there could be no evolution. But we've gone through that before.

...There are close parallels between the mathematical expressions for the thermodynamic entropy, usually denoted by S, of a physical system in the statistical thermodynamics established by Ludwig Boltzmann and J. Willard Gibbs in the 1870s; and the information-theoretic entropy, usually expressed as H, of Claude Shannon and Ralph Hartley developed in the 1940s.
This article explores what links there are between the two concepts, and how far they can be regarded as connected...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_in ... ion_theory

 

[jwu]

Again, I agree about the change in thermodynamic state, and the resulting implications
leading to changes in hydrodynamics, but is it offsetting the entropy the process is
creating within itself, or is the process creating additional entropy?

Additional entropy in the sun accounts for this local decrease on earth.

Another way of
putting it is: Do you think churning water or ice has potential create more
complexity, or will both tend towards total randomness?

More complexity. You still have the virtually random brownian motion, but stable torrents in addition to that are clearly a more complex system than the water at rest, with nothing but brownian motion.

These notions are highly abstract mathmatical models portrayed to us in vivid color by...
random forces?

Yes. Random forces which were acted upon by not so random selection. However, my overall point was that the result is more complex than the cause; that simple rules create a very complex pattern.

I think a ray of light contains data concerning it’s source, but in and of itself, no
information.

Then you need to establish that DNA does contain information and not just data first.

The Wiki article which you quoted and linked does not answer the question. Most notably it does not make any connection between the 1st LoT and what i guess you brought up as the 1st LoI.

So what is the 1st LoI? I cannot imagine it to be "information cannot be created or destroyed"; that wouldn't make any sense - especially considering your previous statements.

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

Additional entropy in the sun accounts for this local decrease on earth.

Not fully. The process in itself creates entropy in addition to the sun’s entropy.

More complexity. You still have the virtually random brownian motion, but stable torrents in addition to that are clearly a more complex system than the water at rest, with nothing but brownian motion.

According do your definition, yes, the system has become more complex in terms of
description,. According to my definition, no. Now intelligence could intervene and utilize
the negative entropy being given off by the melting process, i.e.- large impellers placed in
the currents to generate electricity for later useful work. But again, intelligence is
involved.

Yes. Random forces which were acted upon by not so random selection. However, my overall point was that the result is more complex than the cause; that simple rules create a very complex pattern.
[quote:d7f8b]
Yeah, but the rules were designed by intelligence.

[quote:d7f8b]
Then you need to establish that DNA does contain information and not just data first.

The Wiki article which you quoted and linked does not answer the question. Most notably it does not make any connection between the 1st LoT and what i guess you brought up as the 1st LoI.[quote:d7f8b]

So what is the 1st LoI? I cannot imagine it to be "information cannot be created or destroyed"; that wouldn't make any sense - especially considering your previous statements.




1. Information implies a receiver.
2. Information implies a sender
3. Information implies a code understood by both, directly or by translation


DNA meets these requirements. A rock, no. An ant colony, yes. Ice, no...


In a macro sense, the “1st LoI†posits the original pool of information , kicking the whole

information process into motion, can’t be added to...only distorted and

garbled. In other words, there will never be more information than there was in the

beginning. Alternately, informational entropy continually increases.

In a micro sense, the original information transmitted to a receiver can’t be added to, it

will only stay the same or become distorted.

As to the inability of information being completely destroyed, Hawkings has some

interesting, and confusing ( lol) new research out positing the inability to destroy

information:

[quote:d7f8b]


What was Hawking's black hole theory?
In 1975, Hawking calculated that once a black hole forms, it radiates energy and starts losing mass by giving off so-called "Hawking radiation".
Scientists were astounded because this work established a connection between gravity and entropy, which is a measure of how energy changes from one form to another.
Entropy has a lot to do with the information in a system. For example, a pile of bricks has more entropy than when they have been made into a house. It takes bricks and information to turn them into a house.

What exactly has he changed his mind about?
Hawking now believes that black holes may allow information to leak out.
For several years many scientists had been unhappy with the idea that a black hole could just disappear, because it represented a loss of information from the Universe.
This ran contrary to the laws of quantum physics, which are the rules to describe the behaviour of the Universe at the smallest scales.
These laws say that information can never be totally lost.
Whether information is or is not lost has important practical and philosophical consequences.

The relation between information entropy and thermodynamic entropy has become common currency in physics. Thus Stephen Hawking often speaks of the thermodynamic entropy of black holes in terms of their information content; and it is not surprising that computers must obey the same physical laws that steam engines do, even though they are radically different devices.

Information is physical: (2) Landauer's principle

[/quote:d7f8b][/quote:d7f8b][/quote:d7f8b][/quote:d7f8b]

 

[jwu]

Not fully. The process in itself creates entropy in addition to the sun’s entropy.

And this is different to what we see in biology?

According do your definition, yes, the system has become more complex in terms of
description,. According to my definition, no. Now intelligence could intervene and utilize
the negative entropy being given off by the melting process, i.e.- large impellers placed in
the currents to generate electricity for later useful work. But again, intelligence is
involved.

Don't you see that you are begging the question there?

By the way...how about endothermal chemical reactions? Don't they do pretty much exactly that and are quite a natural thing?

Yeah, but the rules were designed by intelligence.

You can configure a cellular automaton by throwing dice if you want.

1. Information implies a receiver.
2. Information implies a sender
3. Information implies a code understood by both, directly or by translation


DNA meets these requirements. A rock, no. An ant colony, yes. Ice, no...

Ah, Gitt again...

Identify the receiver. Identify the sender.

In a macro sense, the “1st LoI†posits the original pool of information , kicking the whole
information process into motion, can’t be added to...only distorted and
garbled. In other words, there will never be more information than there was in the
beginning.

How does this fit to your previous statement that a ray of light merely contains data about its source, and only becomes information if some intelligence interpretes it? How does this fit with Gitt's definitions? The black hole quite clearly doesn't (or would i say "don't" here because it's not a person? English isn't my first language) "understand the code".

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

charlie:

Not fully. The process in itself creates entropy in addition to the sun’s

entropy.

jwu:

And this is different to what we see in biology?

Yup. Because the information contained in biological systems allows the

system to to manipulate relatively high entropy sources to produce a system

of relative low entropy. Without information, this doesn’t occur.

jwu:

By the way...how about endothermal chemical reactions? Don't they do

pretty much exactly that and are quite a natural thing?

Endothermic reactions entail absorbing heat versus giving off heat, which

is a thermodynamic state of change. This decrease in thermodynamic

entropy is offset by the matter becoming more disordered, as evidenced by

the increased volume. Also, endothermic reactions cannot occur

spontaneously. Work must be done in order to get these reactions to occur.

In other words, Activation energy:

The activation energy in chemistry and biology is the threshold energy, or the energy that must be overcome in order for a chemical reaction to occur. Activation energy may otherwise be denoted as the minimum energy necessary for a specific chemical reaction to occur. The activation energy of a reaction is usually denoted by Ea.

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

You can configure a cellular automaton by throwing dice if you want.

Intelligence is still involved.

Ah, Gitt again...

Identify the receiver. Identify the sender

In a macro sense, the whole organism is the receiver of the information

from the parents, at conception. The organism in turn passes it’s

information along to it’s offspring.

How does this fit to your previous statement that a ray of light merely contains data about its source, and only becomes information if some intelligence interpretes it? How does this fit with Gitt's definitions? The black hole quite clearly doesn't (or would i say "don't" here because it's not a person? English isn't my first language) "understand the code".

The information to which Hawkings refers is reflected in very low entropy

systems:

...Entropy has a lot to do with the information in a system. For example, a pile of bricks has more entropy than when they have been made into a house. It takes bricks and information to turn them into a house...â€Â

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3914165.stm

Applying this to our example, the light ray has higher entropy than a plant,

the plant containing information (DNA) that enables it to utilize the light ray

and matter to create a very low entropy system. The light, in and of itself,

contains no information.

 

[jwu]

Yup. Because the information contained in biological systems allows the

system to to manipulate relatively high entropy sources to produce a system

of relative low entropy. Without information, this doesn’t occur.

Again, where in an official definition of the 2ndLoT is this exception for intelligence mentioned?

A beam of light has low entropy by the way.

Endothermic reactions entail absorbing heat versus giving off heat, which
is a thermodynamic state of change. This decrease in thermodynamic
entropy is offset by the matter becoming more disordered, as evidenced by
the increased volume.

Umm...e.g. ice is clearly more ordered than normal water, but it has an increased volume too.

And do you have sources for the claim that all endothermic reactions result in an increase of volume?

Also, endothermic reactions cannot occur

spontaneously. Work must be done in order to get these reactions to occur.

In other words, Activation energy:

Completely irrelevant.

Intelligence is still involved.

Where?

In a macro sense, the whole organism is the receiver of the information

from the parents, at conception. The organism in turn passes it’s

information along to it’s offspring.

And in what way is the "code" understood, specifically by the sender?
The sender just copies his own DNA, puts it into a sperm cell and sends it, he doesn't understand anything of it.

Applying this to our example, the light ray has higher entropy than a plant,

the plant containing information (DNA) that enables it to utilize the light ray

and matter to create a very low entropy system. The light, in and of itself,

contains no information.

You are contradicting Hawkings there, your own source - he said that it does contain information.

And in what way does a ray of light contain higher entropy than a plant? You don't get much closer to the maximum of workable energy than that! The plant makes use of that, and "waters it down" to chemical energy at quite some excess (photosynthesis is far from 100% efficiency) and ultimately to nothing but heat, brownian motion.

 

[Charlie Hatchett]

Again, where in an official definition of the 2ndLoT is this exception for intelligence mentioned?

Remember when we discussed that the Second Law is not confined to thermodynamics? It also applies to information, as does the First Law.
You need to demonstrate that information can be derived from something other than intelligence. Hawking himself has himself stated that information and very low entropy systems are very highly correlated, if not causal. Hawking's observations have tied together the First and Second Laws of: Thermodynamics (Hawking's Radiation), Information and gravitational theories (energy state changes). I think your confusion may be due to viewing the Second Law in one dimension.

Umm...e.g. ice is clearly more ordered than normal water, but it has an increased volume too.

And do you have sources for the claim that all endothermic reactions result in an increase of volume?

The increase in thermodynamic entropy is offset by the matter becoming more ordered.

As to the increase in volume in this case: Ice is one of the rare instances where order increases and volume increases. This is due to an actual molecular change when the thermodynamic state changes:

Molecular basis for the Volume Increase of Ice:

The normal pattern for most compounds is that as the temperature of the liquid increases, the density decreases as the molecules spread out from each other. As the temperature decreases, the density increases as the molecules become more closely packed. This pattern does not hold true for ice as the exact opposite occurs.

In liquid water each molecule is hydrogen bonded to approximately 3.4 other water molecules. In ice each each molecule is hydrogen bonded to 4 other molecules.

http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/ ... tyice.html

99.9% of the time, the entropy, order and volume relationship exists.

Your arguement appears to be a Straw Man.

Where?

Who or what is throwing the dice, and then tabulating the data?

And in what way is the "code" understood, specifically by the sender?
The sender just copies his own DNA, puts it into a sperm cell and sends it, he doesn't understand anything of it.

When you have sex, you have babies. With 5 kids, 4 of them being teenagers, I often wonder if I really understood :-? Maybe your right :P ??

You are contradicting Hawkings there, your own source - he said that it does contain information.

And in what way does a ray of light contain higher entropy than a plant? You don't get much closer to the maximum of workable energy than that! The plant makes use of that, and "waters it down" to chemical energy at quite some excess (photosynthesis is far from 100% efficiency) and ultimately to nothing but heat, brownian motion.

Where does Hawking say that a ray of light contains information?
As to light having higher entropy than a plant, I'll refer back to the quote in
Hawking's article:

...For example, a pile of bricks has more entropy than when they have been made into a house. It takes bricks and information to turn them into a house...

In this example, substitute light for the bricks and a plant for the house.

Information is required to convert the light into useful work.

Again, I think some of your confusion may be the result of restricting the First and Second Laws to only thermodynamics. The Brownian Motion bit leads me to believe this....

 

[jwu]

Remember when we discussed that the Second Law is not confined to thermodynamics? It also applies to information, as does the First Law.

Could you then please post the official definitions of the first and second law of information theory? I think i already have asked for this repeatedly.

I did google for them, got a pathetic 28 hits for the first one, compared to 300,000+ for the 1stLoT this doesn't strike me as a very accepted "law". It's even worse for the second one, 33 hits versus 600,000+ for the 2ndLoT.

However, they still don't include any exceptions for intelligence. Oh, and please define intelligence. To me it appears to be hardly more than a catalyst.

You need to demonstrate that information can be derived from something other than intelligence.

Then give me a workable definition of information and how one can quantify it

I think your confusion may be due to viewing the Second Law in one dimension.

I merely don't read things into it which aren't there.

99.9% of the time, the entropy, order and volume relationship exists.

Your arguement appears to be a Straw Man.

Again, please read up on the definition of "straw man". You keep misusing that term. Or explain how my argument was aimed against a misrepresentation of your position.

However, even if it's just 0.01%, that's sufficient to make your cardhouse collapse.

Who or what is throwing the dice, and then tabulating the data?

That's a mechanical process which follows simple rules and does not require intelligence any more than a transistor is intelligent.

When you have sex, you have babies. With 5 kids, 4 of them being teenagers, I often wonder if I really understood Maybe your right ??

Please remain serious. This is a key point without which we don't even need to continue the discussion, as without it being addressed DNA does not contain any information according to your own requirements in first instance.

Where does Hawking say that a ray of light contains information?

There:

Hawking now believes that black holes may allow information to leak out.

That's by means of hawking radiation.

In this example, substitute light for the bricks and a plant for the house.

Information is required to convert the light into useful work.

However, it also takes information to convert that house back into the original pile of bricks. I'd even say more than to build the house, as it's not as efficient to describe.

In case of the plant a ton of energy is wasted to heat to catalyze a little bit of sugar

Again, I think some of your confusion may be the result of restricting the First and Second Laws to only thermodynamics. The Brownian Motion bit leads me to believe this....

Could you explain this?

 

[Biblereader]

Evolutionary processes occur over long periods of time to the point that we cannot usually observe them. We observe the effects of Evolution. We cannot directly observe plate tectonics but we can see the effects of it, do you also not believe in this theory?


A theory is just that, a theory. Darwin was against Christianity. Darwin was FOR creating a master race, and his cronies were, too. He only associated wtih people who had the same dislike towards certain races of people, as he did. Darwin was a bible hater. Therefore, his assumptions would naturally (ha ha get it?) tend to go towards any explanation that left Jesus out, entirely.
Plate tectonics is a theory, but, based on their instrument's readings, they can GUESS what's going to happen, they just don't know when the next earthquake is gonna happen. P.T. describes what happens, stuff that happens underground, you can't witness firsthand. You can't breathe after the first couple of inches. ha ha ha!
They can't go there, because going there would affect what's going on, it will be a theory as long as people can't pass thru material like ghosts.

Darwinism, on the other hand, is actually based on eugenics, the same man made garbage that the Nazi's used to excuse killing millions of people.
Research the beginnings of Darwinism, read the book:
War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race (Hardcover)
by Edwin Black

 

[jwu]

A theory is just that, a theory.

A "scientific theory" is not the same as the common language term "theory".

Darwin was against Christianity. Darwin was FOR creating a master race, and his cronies were, too. He only associated wtih people who had the same dislike towards certain races of people, as he did. Darwin was a bible hater. Therefore, his assumptions would naturally (ha ha get it?) tend to go towards any explanation that left Jesus out, entirely.

Nothing but ad hominem.

Plate tectonics is a theory, but, based on their instrument's readings, they can GUESS what's going to happen, they just don't know when the next earthquake is gonna happen.

Because that's not as easy to predict as you may think. They however can explain why some regions are more prone to earthquakes than others. Do you have a better explaination?

Darwinism, on the other hand, is actually based on eugenics, the same man made garbage that the Nazi's used to excuse killing millions of people.

Social darwinism =/= theory of evolution.