Reality Cheque

Is Dr. Dembski's Work "Written in Jell-o?"

2008-02-26T09:06:00.000-08:00

From here.CA: interviewerWD: Dr. DembskiCA: Your critics (such as Wein, Perakh, Shallit, Elsberry, Wolpert and others) seem unsatisfied with your work. They charge your work as being somewhat esoteric and lacking intellectual rigor. What do you say to that charge?WD: Most of these critics are responding to my book No Free Lunch. As I explained in the preface of that book, its aim was to provide

Published Method of Measuring Specificity (Function)

2008-02-23T09:53:00.000-08:00

It looks like a PNAS article has finally caught up with and refined some of the work of Dr. Dembski. Here is the PNAS article that discusses measuring for functional information, and upon first read through seems to measure functional information in an extremely similar manner as Dr. Dembski measures for specificity as it relates to function in "Specification: the Pattern that Signifies

Thoughts on God (Part 1)

2008-02-20T12:32:00.000-08:00

As a Christian, Naturalistic Intelligent Design Advocate , and Panentheist (the most logical conclusion of course, IMO) I see God as perfectly personal, even though He "merely" engineered the universe to such fine tuned precision that it unfolded according to his plan. It seems rather obvious to me, that God operates through the creation of laws -- both spiritual and natural. Those laws, once

What Does a Specification Tell Us?

2008-02-20T11:36:00.000-08:00

A specification technically only measures what chance and law on its own will not do. The reason that we *infer* intelligence, is for 4 reasons (in fact some are very similar to how past evolution is inferred):1. Intelligence is another causal factor aside from chance and law because intelligence can control law and chance to produce a future target, however law and chance are blind.2.

New Moderation Policy

2008-02-12T10:33:00.000-08:00

This is just a heads up to let anyone with a comment know that I have removed comment moderation from this blog.I kindly request that you first read through my Case for a Naturalistic Hypothesis of Intelligent Design (at the top of the left sidebar) before posting any comments, constructive or negative. It's just that I don't have all the time in the world to be responding to comments which I

Design Detection before Method Detection

2008-02-11T14:40:00.000-08:00

Blipey (a contributor to this debate on JoeG's blog):"If they find something that they can't explain using the lexicon of known methods of design, they don't assume that it was designed."You are partially on to something here, blipey. However, Stonehenge was known to be designed long before it was even remotely discovered how it might have possibly been designed. First the design detection, then

Sum It All Up

2008-02-11T00:50:00.000-08:00

To sum up, in light of my case for naturalistic Intelligent Design, there are three options from which we can chose an overall hypothesis (overarching paradigm) for the cause of life in our universe: 1. It is the result of an infinite regress of problem specific information. This suffers from philosophical

NFL Theorems (Part III) ... So, What's the Point?

2008-02-11T00:41:00.000-08:00

Now, apply all that to an evolutionary optimization program operating on a chemical information processing system [within life -- as explained and published by Hubert Yockey] searching a space within a quantum computer system [of our universe -- as hypothesized by Seth Lloyd]. Here [link: http://www.aics-research.com/research/notes.html] also, are some published notes [from IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON

NFL Theorems (Part II)

2008-02-11T00:36:00.000-08:00

Now, I will show what Dr. Dembski and Marks state. If you don’t agree with what they write, you’ll have to show me that their conclusions are inconsistent with and/or not built upon the NFL Theorems. Here’s what they say in a nutshell: “active information ... measures the contribution of problem-specific information for successfully finding a target. This paper develops a

No Free Lunch Theorems (Part I)

2008-02-11T00:21:00.000-08:00

When discussing the NFL Theorems I do not have the expertise to evaluate the math and its actual relevance to the real world. At the moment, I must take for granted that the authors of the NFL Theorem know what they are talking about. So, taking the NFL Theorems and the authors description of them as granted, I am merely re-stating what the authors already stated about the NFLT.The quotes from

Specifications (Part II) ... Problems with CSI

2008-02-11T00:19:00.000-08:00

Now, I would like to address some critical remarks pertaining to CSI. Some people have suggested that the calculation doesn’t really work for the following reasons:Let’s say that you have a door that opens and closes with random gusts of wind. The open door is marked “state 1" and the closed door is marked “state 0.” After a very long while of marking these states down, you realize that you

Specifications (Part I) ... What Exactly are They?

2008-02-11T00:02:00.000-08:00

There seems to be much confusion as to what is a specification -- that is, what constitutes CSI? I am no expert on the subject, however, I would like to add my two “sense” based on my understanding of the math and concepts involved. I have started discussing complex specified information here [link]. This is merely an extended discussion, clarification, and a bit deeper of a probe.First, we

Intelligence Law and Chance Working Together

2008-02-10T23:55:00.000-08:00

This post is part II of the Philosophical Foundation for ID Theory.Someone posed the following questions to me:“"Dembski’s characterization of design as a third mode of explanation apart from chance and/or law is one of the most fundamental problems with his approach. How do you formally (i.e. mathematically) describe chance and law such that their disjunction doesn’t characterize all

Science Deals with Evidence

2008-02-10T23:50:00.000-08:00

I’ve heard some people make the outrageous claim that there isn’t any evidence of intelligent cause for life. Let’s examine this, and see if these people are merely being selective hyper- sceptics or if they really do have a point that there is no evidence of intelligent cause within life.First let’s briefly look at intelligence. What is intelligence? There are many ways to discuss

Philosophical Foundations of ID to Conservation of Information

2008-02-10T23:11:00.001-08:00

My understanding of the foundation of ID Theory. This could also be looked at as the philosophy of ID (upon which the SCIENCE OF ID [link] is founded). Disclaimer: This post is not philosophical in its entirety, as it does borrow from information theorems and scientific experiments with information and programming (evolutionary algorithms). However, this post and Part II [link] do

Quick Intro to the Science of Intelligent Design Theory

2008-02-10T22:40:00.000-08:00

First, Id like to include a comment from another blog, Telic Thoughts, to help somewhat clear the fog regarding ID misconceptions.The comment that I am replying to is centered and colored blue: I thought that ID ended with the inference that a particular biological structure was designed.MY understanding of the issue (how I view ID) is that ID is interested in discovering how to define the

Zachriel's EA and Dembski's quote

2007-11-20T16:08:00.000-08:00

Continuation from hereHello again Zachriel,Dr.s Dembski and Marks:“Such assumptions, however, are useless when searching to find a sequence of say, 7 letters from a 26-letter alphabet to form a word that will pass successfully through a spell checker, or choosing a sequence of commands from 26 available commands in an Avida type program to generate a logic operation such as XNOR [16]. With no

My understanding of the Universal Probability Bound

2007-09-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

RE: the Universal Probability Bound:-given the sequence of prime numbers: “12357 ..."According to probability theory, the first digit has a one in ten chance of matching up with the sequence of prime numbers, however the second digit has a one in 100 chance, and the third a one in 1000 chance, etc. So, how far up the pattern of prime numbers will chance take us before making a mistake? The

Where is the CSI necessary for evolution to occur?

2007-09-24T16:36:00.000-07:00

First, read through this extremely informative article and the abstracts to these three articles:herehereherethen continue ...According to Dr. Marks work with evolutionary algorithms and computing and intelligent systems, evolving functional information is always guided by previous functional information toward a solution within a search space to solve a previously known problem. [endogenous

Complex Specified Information ... Simplified with filter included

2007-09-24T16:25:00.001-07:00

The 6 levels for determining Complex Specified Information. Before I begin, the reason why CSI points to previous intelligence is because intelligence has been observed creating this type of information, and based on its pseudo-random properties CSI can not be described by law and is not reasonably attributed, nor has it been observed to have arisen, by random chance. CSI is primarily based on

Concept of CSI (part 2)

2007-09-15T10:45:00.000-07:00

Continuation from here.Zachriel:“You keep talking about CSI and complexity, but the only issue at this point is the definition of “specificity”. Your meandering answer is evidence of this extreme overloading of even basic terminology.”My example of defining “complexity” was to show that even in information theory, some concepts can and must be defined and quantified in different ways.... and I

Concept of Complex Specified Information

2007-08-29T11:56:00.000-07:00

Hello Zachriel,welcome back!Unfortunately, I do have much to say and am unversed in brevity. Moreover, because I do believe that there are some important issues which you brought up as a response to my last blog post, I have decided to create my response as another blog post -- this one.First, I will kick this off by letting you know that, while I do not understand all of the math that is

ID THEORY vs. PLANETARY ORBITS, CRYSTAL SPHERES, ANGELS, DEMONS, AND IGNORANCE?

2007-08-23T18:16:00.000-07:00

This is the beginning and continuation of a discussion I was having with Zachriel at Telic Thoughts in this huge thread on July 7, 2007 at 11:21 am.Hello Zachriel (if you do indeed decide to visit me here), welcome to my humble blog.My apologies that this is so long, however, I felt that I needed considerable room to describe coded information and what is meant by specificity, as well as

On prediction and testability

2007-06-17T10:40:00.000-07:00

It has been brought to my attention by smokey in the “5 point summary” thread, that my predictions regarding ID (in the thread "Science of ID") are nothing but restated hypothesis. While it is true that the first stated prediction does contain the hypothesis restated, it also contains more specifics as to which information system (life) and which possibly intelligent system (information

The Alpha and Omega, beginning and the end

2007-04-12T18:53:00.000-07:00

Wow, this is at the very least incredibly interesting. I wish I had the technical expertise to understand the equations.check this out

Science of Intelligent Design

2007-04-12T16:21:00.000-07:00

If after I show the scientific nature of ID in this post, you still disagree with me as to the scientific status of ID, then we are just going to have to agree to disagree on that issue. However, I hope that I have been able to at least articulate and explain how ID and my resulting hypothesis below, as well as the ideas I have postulated on my blog, are logically coherent and consistent

Discussion with Thought Provoker

2007-04-08T08:45:00.000-07:00

Hello Thought Provoker,Welcome to my blog. Here is a continuation of our discussion of ID from somewhere in this huge posting at Telic Thoughts.Quote myself:“According to the dictionary defintion, I think that my own definition of intelligence is almost "bang on," since all of those processes mentioned by Merriam-Webster can be seen to be related to the ability to process non-quantum

5 Point Summary

2007-04-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

1. The only scientific verification we have of probabilities being CONSISTENTLY overcome in a direction where further information is being created is through designed programs. Thus, evolutionary algorithms (which in our experience must be designed with a goal with which to generate and converge information) are one major verification of ID theory. 2. Furthermore, the nature of information

The birth of Modern Intelligent Design Theory

2007-04-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

"From 1953 onward, Willy Fowler and I have always been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 Mev energy level in the nucleus of 12C to the 7.12 Mev level in 16O. If you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities by stellar nucleosynthesis, these are the two levels you would have to fix, and your fixing would have to be just where these levels are actually found to

A summary

2007-03-16T12:13:00.000-07:00

First, for the purpose of this blog post, I am going to define “faith.” Faith = trust based on a rational reflection which causes corresponding belief and action.Now, as I begin, I want to make it clear that the theory of intelligent design is not an argument against evolution. It merely asks the question “can the result of intelligence (design) be scientifically detected and if so what is

Designed to Evolve

2007-03-16T12:09:00.000-07:00

Evolution was supposed to do away with the concept of design, or at least explain how to get the appearance of design for free without intelligence, but how could evolution itself be anything other than designed?The relevant question is: “Do replicating information processors (life) have to be programmed with the ability to evolve in order to evolve or is evolution a necessary result of a

Definitions

2007-03-16T12:03:00.000-07:00

These are my definitions and extra comments for the concepts I have been using to explain the theory of Intelligent Design. If I have borrowed definitions from elsewhere, the reference will be linked.-Intelligent Design theory = the study of patterns in nature, which are best explained as the result of intelligence. from here"ID theory states that many features of nature are best explained by

My view of ID verification

2007-03-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

One way that ID, as it relates to the universe’s origin, will begin to be verified scientifically is by a model which shows how the universe, or any information processor, can be programmed to produce life (replicating information processors). The discovery of the fine tuning of the universe is the first step toward this.One way that ID, as it relates to the universe's origin, has begun to be

My view of ID falsification

2007-03-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

One way ID can be falsified is if anyone shows that information processors can accidentally, and randomly self-organize no matter the laws of the system within which the information processor is generated. This will show that any set of laws can accidentally and randomly generate information processing systems, thus negating the concept of the necessity of fine tuning and previous intelligence

ID predictions and further information

2007-03-16T11:51:00.000-07:00

www.researchintelligentdesign.org

Is TRUTH an accident

2007-03-10T10:06:00.000-08:00

“If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s.

law/life -> information/processing system -> mind

2007-02-09T13:23:00.000-08:00

Before there is even any discussion of random mutation of information causing evolution, three systems must already exist. An information storage system, an information processing system, and a replication system must be present.Information can not exist alone, for it is the compatible information processing system which defines the information as such by converting it into a functioning,

The imperfect and flawed mind

2007-02-04T14:36:00.000-08:00

I would like to discuss an opinion presented by Dr. Wilczek in:“ON MY MIND”Frank Wilczek on Magic Momentsfrom SEED November 2006 issue, pg. 39 He begins by stating:“Natural selection drives us to keep going, but its mechanism is haphazard and crude. The mind it has sculpted for us is imperfect: Our self-awareness is flawed as is our self-control.”First, I will have to very strongly disagree

Christianity Kills!?!?!?

2007-01-15T15:11:00.000-08:00

I'd like to add that any statement that says that "the Christian religion is responsible for horrible murderous atrocities throught history" is the largest heaping pile of maggot infested BS that I have ever heard!It is human nature, rather than Christianity which causes people to murder others. People who call themselves Christians have the potential ability to murder and torture others just as

some more re: morality

2007-01-05T10:36:00.000-08:00

By John West.from here.1. Darwinism and Traditional MoralityIn my book, I challenge the attempt to locate a non-relative justification for morality in Darwinism. According to a Darwinian conception of ethics, every behavior regularly practiced by at least some subpopulation of human beings is ultimately a product of natural selection. Thus, while the maternal instinct is “natural” according to

What IS Morality?

2007-01-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

From here.Mesk:What makes you think that the notion that all evolutionary processes are good is a premise for Dawkins? I've seen nothing in his writing to suggest this; indeed, in The Selfish Gene, he states that, "We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators [i.e. our genes]" and urges us, "Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish".

Life is not a subsystem of natural laws

2007-01-01T11:14:00.000-08:00

Here is a published article that seems to give a more scientifically detailed account of the idea that information is not created by natural laws, yet is a subsystem of mind, as I have blogged about earlier.Here is another relevant published article.

Religion = BAD? (part 2)

2007-01-01T00:23:00.000-08:00

If religion is thriving then it must have been selected by natural selection. If it was selected by natural selection it must help us propogate our selfish genes. This is at least true -- look at Catholic overall reproductive rate.So, religion was obviously created and is being used by the selfish gene in order to propogate itself. If it is the case that our only moral obligation is to our

Religion = BAD? (part 1)

2007-01-01T00:18:00.000-08:00

It was a simple sentence, as posted by macht on Telic Thoughts, that inspired me.What I'm more interested in is the idea that religion is bad.Here is the first part of my reply:Well, then we'll have to first start off by examining what is "bad." If we are looking at the concept of "bad" from the vantage point of a purposeless universe which created the concept in question through a random process

My "encouragement" mail to FSM

2006-12-30T10:31:00.000-08:00

So, I finally decided to send the infamous FSM some mail; here it is:Excellent satire of the criticisms of religion and Intelligent Design … unless you guys actually think the creation of the FSM and its subsequent religion is a valid critique of religion and Intelligent Design in the form of satire or actual truth for that matter. In that case, try studying and understanding your “opponents”

Why disprove anti-materialism?

2006-12-27T21:19:00.000-08:00

This is in reference to a post on Telic Thoughts.I start off my comments as follows:I think that the biggest question here is: Why should one bag of chemicals give two holy snorts about what another group of bags of chemicals “believes,” especially when both bags’ beliefs are determined by a complex array of natural laws that accidentally popped into existence?Seriously, why “disprove” theism or

SETI, archaeology and relevance to ID

2006-12-18T06:38:00.000-08:00

Here’s the interesting continuing discussion that I am having with Skeptico at his blog, http://skeptico.blogs.com found under the title: “SETI, archeology and other sciences.”My quotes that are being responded to are in blue."Skeptico's reponses are in centred block quotes"My responses follow (not centred).My apologies for not having read through your original post fully. I think I was only

Science and Teleology

2006-12-17T12:39:00.000-08:00

If both purpose and consciousness are illusions, then who are they fooling?I have heard it said before that it is the glory of science to eliminate teleological processes. Well, if that is true, then is it the glory of science to eliminate teleology from archaeology and SETI regardless of its relevance to the intelligent design debate? Or does that statement need to be qualified?Does it really

In materialistic worldview truth may not be discoverable (part 1)

2006-12-14T08:52:00.000-08:00

Understood basically, natural selection edits that which accidentaly functions to aid survival and reproduction in its given environment. The correlation between this and the ability to logically judge truth from falsehood, I can not see.Is everyone’s reasoning ability ultimately based on random chance, accidental mutations, and survival. Is reasoning the result of blind interactions between

My view of ID in a nutshell

2006-12-13T08:40:00.000-08:00

Information has only ever been seen to be the result of a mind and has never been seen and actually does not make any logical sense to be a result of any process (especially natural laws) other than that -- purposeful process -- produced by mind. In fact, one of the defining points of mind is that it produces information.Information = a seemingly random, yet also non-repetitive arrangement of

The inspiration for this Blog (part 2)

2006-12-13T08:10:00.000-08:00

An interview with the aliens responsible for the signal.CJYman: Did you create the signal?Aliens: Not directly.Cjyman: What do you mean by that?Aliens: Well, we planned the end product, yet it took some calculations that to mere earthlings would seem to be extremely complex, near impossible.CJYman: Please do explain ...Aliens: Well, we had to create a project for our High School science fair. We

The inspiration for this Blog

2006-12-12T18:01:00.000-08:00

This blog and it's possible subtitle "Reality Deficit" is in large inspired by the blog "Imagination Deficit."Here is a very short story that I would like to dedicate to "Imagination Deficit." Be advised that the author of this short story (myself) received less than excellent grades in High School short story writing class. Please look past the lack of dialogue and adventure and into the