I need some help from the YEC's on this board

Something that has been puzzling and disturbing me for some time now. I am typing away on the computer, but while I am looking at the keyboard, a message has popped up on the screen. So the last sentence I have type hasn't gone into the message box. But I have typed it out - where has the information gone?

I am not just talking about the conservation of information here, this is metaphysical angst

rcorlew wrote:

Perhaps I am not able to explain this the way it was presented to me,

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rcorlew, may I ask who or what school or whatever presented it to you?

After watching this thread through post after post, it seems to me that rcorlew's conservation of information is based on, and an extension of, simple determinism. As such, even if determinism were real, this kind of "conservation" of information isn't relevant to anything. And that's giving determinism a free pass from the implications of quantum mechanics.

Papias.

shernren said:

Are there any papers, textbooks, or academic resources that I can look up this "conservation of information" in? Such a thing, if it was true, would have a tremendous effect in physics at least.

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I will give a good look through my college's materials to come up with something good for you.

Assyrian said:

Something that has been puzzling and disturbing me for some time now. I am typing away on the computer, but while I am looking at the keyboard, a message has popped up on the screen. So the last sentence I have type hasn't gone into the message box. But I have typed it out - where has the information gone?

I am not just talking about the conservation of information here, this is metaphysical angst

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Technically speaking, what we type goes into the hardware buffer built into our motherboards (old style of keyboard) or into the system memory designated by our IRQ (new USB style), either way, what we type actually ends up in the system memory and usually dumped somewhere on the hard drive, but that depends on the hardware/software environment on how that happens.

[quote-Papias]

rcorlew, may I ask who or what school or whatever presented it to you?

After watching this thread through post after post, it seems to me that rcorlew's conservation of information is based on, and an extension of, simple determinism. As such, even if determinism were real, this kind of "conservation" of information isn't relevant to anything. And that's giving determinism a free pass from the implications of quantum mechanics.

Papias.
[/quote]

Well, I am currently attending Liberty University, and transferred there from DeVry University. The textbooks we used were Starr, Biology Today and Tomorrow, 3rd ed (2010), topics related to the conservation of information contained in biology are: atomic theory, energy distributions through food webs, and gene mutations.

It is part of the first law of thermodynamics, if you can answer a question about any object then that object contains information, if all matter consists of energy and energy cannot be created or destroyed than neither can information.

rcorlew wrote:

It is part of the first law of thermodynamics, if you can answer a question about any object then that object contains information, if all matter consists of energy and energy cannot be created or destroyed than neither can information.

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Um, that's like saying that because books are made of matter, which is made of energy, and energy cannot be created or destroyed than neither can books be created or destroyed.

Is this the textbook you guys were working from?

Biology: Today and Tomorrow With ... - Google Books

shernren said:

Is this the textbook you guys were working from?

Biology: Today and Tomorrow With ... - Google Books

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Yes, along with other materials

Papias said:

rcorlew wrote:


Um, that's like saying that because books are made of matter, which is made of energy, and energy cannot be created or destroyed than neither can books be created or destroyed.

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No, quite the opposite, it is exactly saying that the existence of the books must be explainable; the paper came from somewhere, the ink came from somewhere, the energy (the energy people used to compile the books in reference to food and water) came from somewhere. It takes exactly the same amount of energy to destroy as it does to create if you were to only exactly destroy the item. In a book for instance, if you were to say burn it, the amount of energy given off would exactly represent the input energy derived from all sources (plant fibers, inks, glues, human energy) minus any remaining energy left in the ashes; therefore, information being described as an answerable question would describe the information contained in the book as being translated into heat energy, ashes and a few various gases. Burning the book does not create these new substances just as printing the book does not create the substrates upon which it has been created from.

OK, just so you do not think that I am making this up, here is a quote from Leonard Susskind, Theoretical Physics Professor at Stanford:

It violates one of the fundamental principles of physics, which says nothing is ever lost completely. You may say, "How can you say information isn't lost? I can erase information on my computer." But every time a bit of information is erased, we know it doesn't disappear. It goes out into the environment. It may be horribly scrambled and confused, but it never really gets lost. It's just converted into a different form.

Black holes and scientific standoffs - Los Angeles Times

For more information on Leonard Susskind:

An interview with Leonard Susskind » American Scientist
Leonard Susskind - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For a list of lectures given at Stanford
Leonard Susskind Lectures list

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rcorlew wrote:

It is part of the first law of thermodynamics, if you can answer a question about any object then that object contains information, if all matter consists of energy and energy cannot be created or destroyed than neither can information.

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You know, I think I'm just splitting hairs. Rcorlew, we agree on most of the, and certainly the most important, points.


We appear to agree that:

• If determinism were true, then information would be conserved in the non-practical way you describe.

• The above point is not relevant to biology.

• That point is also not a way that the creationist CSI conservation of information can be made valid, and that the creationist approach is simply a word game.

We only seem to disagree on whether or not determinism itself is true (as affected by quantum considerations), which to me is an irrelevant discussion of philosophy, and I'm sure your biology book doesn't claim a conservation of information. On that, I'm quite happy to agree to leave it at that. I should point out that with the creationist conservation of information out there, it is possible that other people who you explain that point to will mistake you for a creationist who has bought Dembski's argument.


Have a good day-

Papias

Papias said:

rcorlew wrote:



You know, I think I'm just splitting hairs. Rcorlew, we agree on most of the, and certainly the most important, points.


We appear to agree that:

• If determinism were true, then information would be conserved in the non-practical way you describe.

• The above point is not relevant to biology.

• That point is also not a way that the creationist CSI conservation of information can be made valid, and that the creationist approach is simply a word game.

We only seem to disagree on whether or not determinism itself is true (as affected by quantum considerations), which to me is an irrelevant discussion of philosophy, and I'm sure your biology book doesn't claim a conservation of information. On that, I'm quite happy to agree to leave it at that. I should point out that with the creationist conservation of information out there, it is possible that other people who you explain that point to will mistake you for a creationist who has bought Dembski's argument.


Have a good day-

Papias

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Yes, we are in agreement. This is a very very small part of the explanatory ideas which are validations of biological concepts (you eat a steak you get energy from a cow who got energy from grass which got energy from the sun). The problems with concepts such as these which are profound is that people make irrational extrapolations from them and then base their logic on these irrational ideas. Dembski used a closed system model, his logic only works in this closed system model, the problem is that we know all systems are free to intermingle with each other (an X-Ray burst from a super nova in a galaxy 2 billion light years away can hit the earth).

I suppose that the only sound scientific argument for God is the one I have theorized about for about a year and may well write a paper on but I am still tidying up loose ends. No this is not a Creation/Evolution work but rather a full continuation of Einstein's Theory using empirical evidence, historical accounts, physics, science and foremost Scriptures in their correct context. I will have it reviewed by the Math (physics) department to see if this work should be submitted, that will be interesting!