What is meant by the word "information" in ID?

[essentialsaltes]

For example, what is Claude Shannon information?

Loosely, Shannon information is how many 'bits' it takes to describe a 'message' or sequence. There is some neat correspondence in the mathematical formulation to the physical idea of entropy.

Another way to look at it is how hard is it to predict the next letter in the sequence. Or the amount of 'surprise' in each new piece of 'information'.

If you were making a 'message' of random coin flips, well, if they are really random, there is no way to predict the next letter of the sequence, so the string has maximum information. There is no way to 'condense' the message.

You know that for image files, they are often compressed to make the files smaller. An image with a lot of information is hard to compress (at least without losing information).

A looser analogy... if we know the message is in English, and we had the string

Bob looked out the window and saw a q

We would be relatively unsurprised by a 'u' showing up next. An 'a' might send us into qabbalist on rare occasions. And there even a slight chance of a qwerty typewriter or a q*bert console being outside Bob's window. But 99%+ of the time it'll be a 'u'.

Whereas...

Bob looked out the window and saw a m

there are a lot more viable options for the next choice. There's no way we'd bet the farm on 'u' like we would for the q case. This could be formalized for an entire message using known letter frequencies in English to determine the overall information content of a string in English.

Creationists typically don't like to talk about Shannon information (despite its utility and strict mathematical definition) because any analogical application to genetics shows that evolution increases Shannon information. Every mutation in a gene pool is a little surprise.

So instead your question tends to get either hand-waving or silence.

 

[Job 33:6]

Loosely, Shannon information is how many 'bits' it takes to describe a 'message' or sequence. There is some neat correspondence in the mathematical formulation to the physical idea of entropy.

Another way to look at it is how hard is it to predict the next letter in the sequence. Or the amount of 'surprise' in each new piece of 'information'.

If you were making a 'message' of random coin flips, well, if they are really random, there is no way to predict the next letter of the sequence, so the string has maximum information. There is no way to 'condense' the message.

You know that for image files, they are often compressed to make the files smaller. An image with a lot of information is hard to compress (at least without losing information).

A looser analogy... if we know the message is in English, and we had the string

Bob looked out the window and saw a q

We would be relatively unsurprised by a 'u' showing up next. An 'a' might send us into qabbalist on rare occasions. And there even a slight chance of a qwerty typewriter or a q*bert console being outside Bob's window. But 99%+ of the time it'll be a 'u'.

Whereas...

Bob looked out the window and saw a m

there are a lot more viable options for the next choice. There's no way we'd bet the farm on 'u' like we would for the q case. This could be formalized for an entire message using known letter frequencies in English to determine the overall information content of a string in English.

Creationists typically don't like to talk about Shannon information (despite its utility and strict mathematical definition) because any analogical application to genetics shows that evolution increases Shannon information. Every mutation in a gene pool is a little surprise.

So instead your question tends to get either hand-waving or silence.

That makes sense. Especially if the mutation is something like a duplications. It would increase the complexity of the message and would lower our ability to predict it, thereby increasing in information. Hm

 

[Job 33:6]

So, if IDers won't accept Shannon information, then what other form of information might they argue in favor for?

 

[Bungle_Bear]

So, if IDers won't accept Shannon information, then what other form of information might they argue in favor for?

Typically it is the "what is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement or sequence of things" [OED definition], though that will be discarded in favour of a misrepresentation of Shannon information when convenient.

For information theory, OED defines information as "a mathematical quantity expressing the probability of occurrence of a particular sequence of symbols, impulses, etc., as against that of alternative sequences." [Bold mine]

IDers take the probability part out of context and use it as a supposed measure of "specified complexity", which is another poorly defined pseudoscientific term.

 

[SLP]

Sarchasm online is hard to pull off.

Yes, I bet it is.

 

[SLP]

Ask an ID proponent to define information and they will avoid the challenge. It's all smoke and mirrors.

Or you will get one 'definition' in one scenario, and a different one in another.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

That's what I was explaining.

So you ought to see why that's not a scientifically useful definition of information.

Not that your Chinese people would ever read anything scientifically useful, I guess.

Wait, what - my Chinese people?

And was that casual racism, plain ignorance, or both?

 

[pitabread]

So, if IDers won't accept Shannon information, then what other form of information might they argue in favor for?

Dembski tried making up his own.

 

[Job 33:6]

Typically it is the "what is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement or sequence of things" [OED definition], though that will be discarded in favour of a misrepresentation of Shannon information when convenient.

For information theory, OED defines information as "a mathematical quantity expressing the probability of occurrence of a particular sequence of symbols, impulses, etc., as against that of alternative sequences." [Bold mine]

IDers take the probability part out of context and use it as a supposed measure of "specified complexity", which is another poorly defined pseudoscientific term.

Could you give an example of oed information?

A diamond has a specific arrangement of molecules. Would it contain oed information?

 

[Speedwell]

Could you give an example of oed information?

A diamond has a specific arrangement of molecules. Would it contain oed information?

Yes, but not very much, as the crystal pattern is so regular.

 

[Bungle_Bear]

Could you give an example of oed information?

A diamond has a specific arrangement of molecules. Would it contain oed information?

OED = Oxford English Dictionary

Example uses from the online definition:

• ‘Nearly half are sensory which convey information to the brain; the rest are motor which transmit orders from the brain.’
• ‘Topic Maps are useful because they convey more information we can use.’
• ‘The bandwidth constraints of the internet force us to find more concise ways to represent information.’
• ‘The choice of axioms in a logical system can represent content specific information.’
• ‘Nine times out of ten these calls convey information that no one needs to know.’
• ‘The price information was then conveyed back to Europe or other relevant locations.’
• ‘The forms in which information was conveyed were often not transparent or intuitive.’
• ‘The central characteristic of the genre is accuracy in conveying information about cities and ancient buildings.’
• ‘Money is supposed to convey information about the economic value of a product or service.’
• ‘Even so, we may still be forced to contemplate changes in the way information is conveyed.’
• ‘I love maps, especially maps that convey information about our world in a novel way.’
• ‘Then the scientists measured how much information the songs could convey.’
• ‘In general, information about sport was conveyed by newspapers or by word-of-mouth.’
• ‘Another official at the agency said its staff tried to convey relevant information quickly this time.’
• ‘It must sit on something, it must be able to convey its information to somewhere; it must be able to be reset.’
• ‘They convey useful information about the perceived scarcity of the resource.’
• ‘We need to look outside of the ‘normal channels’ used to convey security information.’
• ‘The practitioner, in turn, may consciously or unconsciously convey this information to the patient.’
• ‘He doesn't ever answer why the system's price conveys the correct global information.’
• ‘They are physically expressive and convey emotional information through touch.’

 

[Jimmy D]

Another ID thread where none of the self proclaimed ID'ers turn up to defend it because they are clueless as to what it means or how it's supposed to work.

Quelle surprise!

 

[Ophiolite]

Another ID thread where none of the self proclaimed ID'ers turn up to defend it because they are clueless as to what it means or how it's supposed to work.

Quelle surprise!

Perhaps us nasty Evolutionists should take it in turns to make the case for ID. It would give them a more convincing voice.

 

[Jimmy D]

Perhaps us nasty Evolutionists should take it in turns to make the case for ID. It would give them a more convincing voice.

"Convincing"? Unlikely.

 

[Ophiolite]

"Convincing"? Unlikely.

But, Jimmy, you overlooked two things:
1. My use of the qualifier "more". More convincing does not equal convincing. It just means less mind-numbingly dumb.
2. My extreme (though quite unwarranted) confidence in my own debating skills.

 

[loveofourlord]

All information is not valuable. It must be in an intelligent and useful format.

but it's still information whether it's useful or not. when creationist ask for examples of new information, they like to imply it's non information becoming useful information. Where as with evolution, it's always useful information becoming more useful information, or garbage information taking that next step to becoming useful information.

alcohlic becoming alcoholic with the addition of one letter is garbage becoming useful information, or hoppy becoming happy is useful information becoming useful information, yes they are different in their meaning, which is how brand new information in DNA comes from, many genes in our DNA are just copies of already made DNA that got changed. Platypus venom is like this, along with other different methods.

 

[loveofourlord]

So, if IDers won't accept Shannon information, then what other form of information might they argue in favor for?

they don't really seem to have a good definition, or even understanding of it. It's simular to the, "Evolution can't form new features." though in that case my question would be for them, to show anything between monkey's and humans that requires new features, most if not all of it is just changes to existing features, and information. We didn't grow new arms or hands, just the information/features of hands we had changed. We lost tails, but that's not new information/features in the broadest sense.

 

[SLP]

What did you have in mind, without any illustrations?

So, no, you cannot define it, and requite links and copy-pastes. Which tells me that you do not understand it.

 

[SLP]

All information is not valuable. It must be in an intelligent and useful format.

Ok - here is the format:

Now tell us about its information.

 

[SkyWriting]

Ok - here is the format:
Now tell us about its information.

That might be useful...it might be a coffee stain.
It's not in a format that I can decipher.
And if it was deciphered, it might not be useful to me yet.

The majority of DNA is not understood as to why it exists.
But thanks for the picture.