Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Meleagar]

The issue is not complexity, which renders the picture irrelevant. The issue is CSI, and what can successfully generate significant amounts of CSI or FSCI.

[Alun]

Complexity is irrelevant to complex specified information?

[wanabe]

lifegazer,
The growth of the body is not confined to the orders of dna. The construction happens inside the mothers body(not just inside the egg), any chemicals, viruses, bacteria; she takes in, the forming child can take in. In addition mothers going through bouts of depression(thoughts) can produce offspring that is less healthy, or depressed them self.

Our environment plays a significant role in our development. Remember nature and nurture, both (all) must be considered.

Humans attribute meaning to 'each' code of dna(meaning is 'always' subjective). We simplify it down to such.

Every signal has to equate to a definitive instruction: heads must be heads; hearts must be hearts; eyes must be eyes; etc..

No it does not, there are mutations often. There is no rule that says an "eye code of dna" can't be the code for the heart as well, it just hasn't happened, as far as we know. Further more when scientists analyze dna they analyze segments not the entire thing. dna loops back on it self, if we were to look at a living whole, with no real beginning or end. The "egg" is VERY far from being a closed system.

I am a biologist in training; does not mean I am not many other things as well.

[PrivateVoid]

lifegazer, I'm not a (professional) scientist either and I can't give a lesson but here's what I think:

- As others have said: it's not really literally "23,000 bits". The genes are not the same as computer bits that store only a 1 or 0. You can't use the same logic. Analogies and terminology similar to computers and programs are used to describe genes but they are not the same thing. The analogies only help to understand some of their behavior in terms of what we know in our everyday world (just like when analogies are used to explain quantum mechanics which is very unintuitive).

- We need to consider the entire system or collection of cells containing these genes as a whole instead of thinking that all these cells individually are "running the ME program". The genes cause cells to differentiate and specialize. Each individual cell or gene is not self-aware. Each cell does its job whether it is to contract, expand, emit a signal, etc. The collective action of all the billions or trillions (?) of cells together gives rise to the "ME".

- Your toes don't "think" and they are not "you", they're just flesh. Each individual part knows nothing nor cares or worries about tomorrow. They are mechanical. That's why there's a brain so it can direct the other parts. Now how the brain works and what creates the "ME" is called the "hard problem".

[wanabe]

"Each individual cell or gene is not self-aware"(PrivateVoid)...The 'system' works because each individual cell knows of it self!

How can you say:

[analogies only help to understand some] of their behavior in terms of what we know in our everyday world (just like when analogies are used to explain quantum mechanics which is very unintuitive).

and then:

Your toes don't "think" and they are not "you", they're just flesh. Each individual part knows nothing nor cares or worries about tomorrow. They are [mechanical]. That's why there's a brain so it can direct the other parts. Now how the brain works and what creates the "ME" is called the "hard problem".

and not be contradicting your self? ➘

The brain is a conductor of the orchesta, but the musicians have a mind of their own!...Also there are neural cells in other parts of the body that work(multiple orchestras, there are ALOT of musicians) like those in the brain; the heart has these for example I believe the lungs and liver do as well, but we are all different so listing is a bit pointless.

[PrivateVoid]

wanabe,
You're right that I used an analogy there (is that the contradiction you're talking about?) but I wasn't saying it's wrong to use them but that you need to remember they're just analogies and not to take them too far or literally. To actually describe "exactly" how the cells work, etc would not be possible for me and I'm sure it would take longer than a single post to explain.

In this statement:

The 'system' works because each individual cell knows of it self!

please clarify the use of the phrase "knows of itself". Of course each cell "knows" what it needs to do but it is not "aware" as in conscious (at least that's what I think). It "knows" as in that's how it's constructed and the processes that happen in the cell are an outcome of that construction and its surroundings.

The phrase "mind of their own" implies intelligence and consciousness. I don't think each cell is purposely with planning doing their thing.

Anyway, lifegazer's question was "is 23000 bits of information enough" and my short answer was yes because it's not just 23000 "bits" and it's the whole system together that makes a person and not one set of genes.

[wanabe]

PrivateVoid,
The contradiction I am talking about is you making an analogy to prove your point that the brain is a machine, and toes are simply their to serve the brain. The brain is not a machine, and toes do things as part of the brain and as part of the whole of the living experience. You took your own analogy too seriously is my point.

If we can agree on this we can move on.(well, we don't need to agree)
~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
Knows of it self, as in, it is conscious, literally, as we are.

It "knows" as in that's how it's constructed and the processes that happen in the cell are an outcome of that construction and its surroundings.

In the above you have basically said that things are the sum of their parts. going back on what you said here...

it's not just 23000 "bits" and it's the whole system together that makes a person and not one set of genes.

Here you basically say that things are more than the sum of their parts.


My basic understanding of, life that uses bodies 'similar' to ours, is that each organ was once an independent entity. These organs realized they could work together and formed a body. The same holds true on the cellular level.

Of course each cell "knows" what it needs to do but it is not "aware" as in conscious (at least that's what I think).

This depends how one defines, and then identifies, consciousness.

We evolved from 'conscious' single cell organisms; to what ever you want to call what we are now, because conscious entities realized they could work-together. Consciousness doesn't stop in the individual parts because they have started working together. Our 'conciseness' grows, so does theirs, we are a team. This is why the 'depth'* of our conciseness is so.

*depth is relative.

Code: Select all

http://www.heartmath.org/research/research-our-heart-brain.html

as an example...

[PrivateVoid]

wanabe,
I'm sorry but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to agree on. If you feel I've contradicted myself ok but even with your explanation it's still too subtle for me to see it. Do you mean the "mechanical" analogy I used lead to an "invalid" conclusion that the brain is a machine? If it's a contradiction only because you think the brain is "not a machine", ok. I did say the matter of how the brain works is the hard problem but, in my opinion, it's still a machine--only one that is too hard for us to understand at the moment. In any case, we should move on.

Regarding the "sum of their parts" (your words): The individual cells are simple enough that their observed behavior seems to be the "sum of their parts". The 2nd quote says that what we call a "person" is the behavior resulting from a network of billions of cells. The cells PLUS the connections and communication between them gives what appears to be "more than the sum of their parts".

Yes if you use a certain definition of consciousness then the individual cells are conscious but at a different level.

[wanabe]

PrivateVoid you think: brain=machine.

Do you mean the "mechanical" analogy I used lead to an "invalid" conclusion that the brain is a machine? If it's a contradiction only because you think the brain is "not a machine", ok.

Yes... If it's not a contradiction it's only because you think that the brain is a machine. The reason that the brain is too hard to understand is because there is infinite potential in it, unlike a machine.

The brain is connected to everything. A machine has a set input/output (rage if it's advanced) and cannot evolve without the help of people and can only be affected not connected to everything. A living thing operates in no bounds and acts differently each time.

When machines can make copies of them self under their own independent power and respond on their own to change, then I can begin to agree with you, but that would make them alive, and is along time off, if ever to the same plasticity as life.

Cells, living things are not the sum of their parts, they turn their errors in to successes, or change intentionally just for the sake of it. Where a machine will simply stop and flash error at best. The communication between them IS what makes them more than the sum of their parts. Look at what communication does for humans, it's no illusion.

By the same token: If you use a certain definition of machine than the brain is one but at a different level.

If carbon based 'organic' life is possible than silicon based 'inorganic' life is possible, and so on. This is to say that the brain is not a machine, but that we strive to make machine like life. We have a trait, only seen in life, emotion; that gives us the audacity to think that we can make some thing that functions to the same or more complexity. I hope we can.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree.

[Belinda]

#10 Meleagar

The chances of this universe computing this aperiodic, complex, meaningful post from the big bang to now by random interference and natural law would be 75^350, which exceeds the computational capacity not only of this universe, but of trillions of universes like this one

But the universe did not get to the stage of your post in one gi-normous computation. The universe got to your post in countless mini-computations. Consequent upon the result of each mini-computation the conditions for the subsequent computation were built.This how natural selection happens.

[Meleagar]

But the universe did not get to the stage of your post in one gi-normous computation. The universe got to your post in countless mini-computations. Consequent upon the result of each mini-computation the conditions for the subsequent computation were built.This how natural selection happens.

You don't understand the nature of the problem. It has been estimated that ther have only been 10^120 accumulated quantum events in the entire history of the universe. An accumulation of mini-events would still require trillions of universes to accommodate the production of one lengthy post here.

Imagine what "War and Peace" would require.

[Alun]

Once again Meleagar, you're misusing the computation of Complex Specified Information:

Kolmogorov complexity of a string is the length of the shortest program on a reference Universal Turing Machine or UTM (a sort of generalized computer) that will produce that string. It depends on two things: (1) the contents of the string, and (2) the reference computer, neither of which relate to the probability of the string’s occurrence. There is an infinite number of UTMs to choose from. Given an arbitrary finite string, we can find a UTM on which the Kolmogorov complexity of the string is arbitrarily low or arbitrarily high. Nature has no preference for one UTM over another.

You further haven't shown that stuff in the universe, especially stuff about organisms, is really complex specified information. E.g. virtually each protein in the body would still work if hundreds of amino acids have been modified or exchanged for other amino acids.

[Juice]

Kolmogorov complexity - minimum number of bits into which a string can be compressed without losing information. This is defined with respect to a fixed, but universal decompression scheme, given by a universal Turing machine.

The problem with Turing Machines is that a different one must be "constructed" for every new computation to be performed, for every input output relation.

A Turing Machine is "deterministic" and is best used as an example of artificial evolution since the parameters for replication must be confined, limited and controlled, and develop on either one or two dimensions where they loose viability and variability in open spaces presumably a third dimension.

The more complex the cell the more open spaces exist in one or two dimensional models and the process more resembles cloning since all elements remain in the state.

Is the discussion on information technology or information theory and is the implication that material data structures are superior to biological data structures and are both then programed?