A Seemingly Definitive Refutation of the "No new information" canard

Radagast

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Do you have a definition of information?

There are a number of different definitions, e.g. Entropy (information theory) - Wikipedia and Kolmogorov complexity - Wikipedia

Can information be objectively measured?

Yes.

If so, what unit do you use?

Bits.

Because in any definition I've seen, changing the content of a message changes the message and provides different, and thus new, information.

True, although for some applications we might want to exclude meaningless random bits from the count of information.
 
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Radagast

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FrumiousBandersnatch

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Ok. I was more curious than anything else, as to your explanation of point mutation.
Me too - where did I explain point mutation?

What is it you don't understand about point mutation?

Can you please show me what post debunks this concept I shared? Thanks!
#1, #4, #6, #9, #12.
 
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Shemjaza

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Radagast

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All fine... it doesn't support the posters assertions that mutations can't increase information in a genome.

Indeed, mutations can increase information in a genome.
 
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Job 33:6

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Isnt it true that the human genome is larger and more complex than that of a flatworm? Wouldnt the genome have gotten larger through allele duplication via mutation?

Yes
 
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Philip Bruce Heywood

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The claim: No genetic mutation may increase information.

Get a long enough straw, and if some people can suck as well as they can blow, we'll have the Loch Ness, monster and all, over here in no time. (Scotsman overseas somewhere, discussing the size of a blowhard's swimming pool.)

reductio ad absurdum, did someone say? A long winded bore was carrying on at length under a grass thatched shelter here in Australia and to save the listeners from ongoing embarrassment, someone set fire to the roof. Thankfully.

Einstein. Energy = MCsq'd. Matter is in a real sense energy.
Planck. Energy = h(a constant) V(in this case frequency). Energy is in a real sense frequency.
Therefore matter is in a real sense frequency -- and frequency is in a real sense information. Remember light? Waveform, having frequency, 'quanta', the superlative information carrier -- and light is absorbed by matter and radiated by matter under various conditions. Matter is information based. "Upholding the universe by the word (information) of his power (putting information into effect).

First Law. Matter can be neither created nor destroyed. Therefore, information can be neither created nor destroyed.

As Donald exclaimed when Gyro donned a mortarboard hat, rang a bell, and a school of fish jumped aboard: "I'll be a brine encrusted, brine pickled, brine something or othered something or other: the man IS catching fish."

So the universe is an information based hologram. If that information is not untouchable and sacrosanct so to speak but can fret away or be added, the hologram falls in a heap.

Every time you type something into your computer, do you create information? What is DNA, genes, etc., but a computational system?

So someone designs an information processing system and suddenly the fact that it can process certain categories of information means that information is new?

 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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Einstein. Energy = MCsq'd. Matter is in a real sense energy.
Planck. Energy = h(a constant) V(in this case frequency). Energy is in a real sense frequency.
Therefore matter is in a real sense frequency -- and frequency is in a real sense information.
Not really.

First Law. Matter can be neither created nor destroyed.
Not exactly.

... information can be neither created nor destroyed.
Yes; conservation of information is thought to be fundamental.
 
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SelfSim

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... But "conservation of information" isn't actually a thing.
Its a fundamental law of Physics (both Classical and Quantum).

Rejecting fundamental physical laws by claiming they aren't 'actual things', implies a very peculiar concept of reality ..
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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But "conservation of information" isn't actually a thing.
The experts in the field think it is. it's a conclusion from both classical statistical and quantum mechanics, from the deterministic & time-reversible nature of classical mechanics and of the Schrodinger equation.
 
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Radagast

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Its a fundamental law of Physics (both Classical and Quantum).

It's not a "fundamental law of Physics." It only holds if wavefunctions never collapse.

I realise that you are trying hard to prove that evolution is impossible, but this is not one of the sensible arguments. Over long timescales, interactions between molecules on Earth mean that wavefunctions always do collapse.

The experts in the field think it is.

Well, no, they don't. Or, at least, only under very specific conditions.

Information gets created by any random process. Here, have some: ANU Quantum Random Number Server

Information gets erased by a number of irreversible physical processes. This is both known theoretically and experimentally observed (see this paper in Nature: https://www.physik.uni-kl.de/eggert/papers/raoul.pdf).
 
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SelfSim

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It's not a "fundamental law of Physics." It only holds if wavefunctions never collapse.
.. which is part of the law.

So what's your point?
Radagast said:
I realise that you are trying hard to prove that evolution is impossible,
Huh? Where did that come from? Are you addressing me? (Cause I never made such a claim).
Radagast said:
Information gets created by any random process.
In physics, information is understood to come in the form of matter (eg: atoms, photons, neutrinos, gravitons ..)
Radagast said:
Information gets erased by a number of irreversible physical processes.
No .. we just lose track of it. Information is conserved.
 
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Radagast

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.. which is part of the law.

No; information is only "conserved" if you ignore wavefunction collapse.

In reality, irreversible physical processes exist.

No .. we just lose track of it. Information is conserved.

No, it really isn't. Did you read the linked paper?
 
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Philip Bruce Heywood

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Perhaps we should define information more clearly?

It is self evident that for scientific experiments to work, we can't have quantum category information -- things such as electron orbital characteristics, for instance, flitting in and out of existence. Likewise, since genetics is real and reliable, we don't have subatomic information coming and going so as to arbitrarily turn that reliability into bedlam. There are things we can stand on in this world. Such as this world being here for us to jolly about on and smell the daisies --- up until the Revelation angel proclaims, Time shall be no more. That's space - time.

This NATURAL world.

But people can experience things that are brand new, experience each other (for better or worse!) and have what might be called religious experience which is outside physical analysis. We can encounter new things outside the purely physical. This is new information of a sort? It has an influence on physical outcomes? This is somewhat deep. But no, Einstein never thought up anything new regarding Physics. How could he? If it's Physics, it always existed in space-time. The man was prone to forgetting at which station he was supposed to get off the train, but that may not be relevant?
 
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Philip Bruce Heywood

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Chess player, was he? This Kolmogorov? Gives me a headache. But yes, we might suppose, the sort of complexity implicated in genetics and therefore this unfolding field of Evolution the real story of how information systems of the biosphere pulled it off -- way out there. Database of four. DNA. Quantum entanglement. Teleportation of atoms as information. Ouch. My head.
 
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SelfSim

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No; information is only "conserved" if you ignore wavefunction collapse.
.. only when you're fixated on the specifics of the term 'wavefunction information'.
Information is never lost by total erasure in physics.
Radagast said:
In reality, irreversible physical processes exist.
.. A claim which thus far, merely relies solely on your unexplained peculiar concept of reality.
Radagast said:
No, it really isn't. Did you read the linked paper?
I see nothing in that paper which which causes any particular concerns for the evidence and theoretical basis for the conservation of information.
 
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