Specified complexity

[shunyadragon]

No, each face on a fair die has an equal probability of coming up, the pattern is not fractal.

Blessings,
Lee

Further checking and found we are both wrong. No, each ace on a par of dice does not have an equal probability of coming up, therefore it is not totally random. Too many unpredictable variable makes it too difficult to generate a fractal model.

Dungeons and Dragons, Yahtzee, and a huge number of other games all rely on throwing dice--from the 4-sided pyramid shape to the familiar 6-sided cube and the monster 20-sided variety. The dice are meant to introduce an element of chance to these games; we expect that the outcomes of the rolls will be truly random.

Source: https://www.insidescience.org/news/dice-rolls-are-not-completely-random

However, new theoretical models and high-speed movies of dice rolls of numerous shapes and sizes confirm this is not strictly the case. They show that dice thrown with a 1 on the top are slightly more likely to land as a 1 than as the other values for every type of the various kinds of dice they studied. But at the same time, it's usually too hard for someone to predict the outcome of the throw of a single die--you'd have to know the starting conditions of the throw and its environment so precisely that for all practical purposes, the result could be considered random.

© Copyright Original Source

The Laws of Nature and the physical nature of the dice remain the primary cause of the pattern of the outcome of the roll of the dice base don the research.

[Roy]

All gene sequences are independent of DNA, has been my reply, and is still my reply.

To which my reply is still that you haven't shown that red/blue shift patterns are not equally independent of planets, and that your opinions are irrelevant.

[TheLurch]

Then I claim that your points made here in this thread are arbitrary!

You're simply dodging the fact that you're saying it's intuition, which is necessarily arbitrary. You can't have it both ways.

Though the filter embodies our intuitions about design: Is it chance? Is it due to a law? Is it designed? These are the same questions that archeologists will raise, though sometimes implicitly, when they examine artifacts.


Pity the archeologists, then?

But we've already gone over this. Archeologists don't deal with these issues because they know the identity and capabilities of the individuals doing the designing. It's fundamentally different, as demonstrated by the fact that archeologists have used a grand total of zero of the ideas of the ID community.

[lee_merrill]

The Laws of Nature and the physical nature of the dice remain the primary cause of the pattern of the outcome of the roll of the dice base don the research.

Sure, but a uniform probability for each fair die face is what is meant by a chance cause in this case.

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

To which my reply is still that you haven't shown that red/blue shift patterns are not equally independent of planets, and that your opinions are irrelevant.

But the existence of planets in motion causes the shifts, so these two are not independent.

Blessings,
Lee

[lee_merrill]

You're simply dodging the fact that you're saying it's intuition, which is necessarily arbitrary. You can't have it both ways.

Well, say understanding instead of intuition, surely you are not saying we can't make valid judgments.

But we've already gone over this. Archeologists don't deal with these issues because they know the identity and capabilities of the individuals doing the designing.

How then is it that Dembski's explanatory filter doesn't apply to what they are doing?

Blessings,
Lee

[TheLurch]

How then is it that Dembski's explanatory filter doesn't apply to what they are doing?

Because their analysis can start with far more sophisticated questions, like were hominins present in a given location at the relevant time, were they tool-using hominins, did they have the relevant technologies to produce a given artifact, etc. If you know something's 80,000 years old in Australia, then you already know it wasn't made by humans.

Again, find me a single instance of Dembski's ideas being used by an archaeologist.

[Seeker]

Creationist Carl Wieland said:

''A more useful definition is specified complexity, and that is normally what creationists talk about when they say that information is seldom, if ever increased. That is an observational fact, not dependent on the axiom. Even the late chemical evolutionist Leslie Orgel said:

Living things are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals such as granite fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; mixtures of random polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity.

There are forms of specified complexity which can increase in a machine process, even very rarely by ‘chance’. Creationists have gone on record as saying that in a complex world, one might see a little bit of information increase by a random process—but to give the NeoDarwinian theory mathematical credibility, one would need to be able to point to hundreds of such information-increasing mutations happening all around us. One or two would not be enough. We know of one possible example, and even that is interesting and in some respects debatable. I refer to the ability of some bacteria to digest nylon, a manmade material. See www.creation.com/nylon . See also the related Bacteria ‘evolving in the lab’? about citrate-digesting bacteria''.

Is that a reasonable use of the term, or is it circular?

[shunyadragon]

Creationist Carl Wieland said:

''A more useful definition is specified complexity, and that is normally what creationists talk about when they say that information is seldom, if ever increased. That is an observational fact, not dependent on the axiom. Even the late chemical evolutionist Leslie Orgel said:

Living things are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals such as granite fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; mixtures of random polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity.

There are forms of specified complexity which can increase in a machine process, even very rarely by ‘chance’. Creationists have gone on record as saying that in a complex world, one might see a little bit of information increase by a random process—but to give the NeoDarwinian theory mathematical credibility, one would need to be able to point to hundreds of such information-increasing mutations happening all around us. One or two would not be enough. We know of one possible example, and even that is interesting and in some respects debatable. I refer to the ability of some bacteria to digest nylon, a manmade material. See www.creation.com/nylon . See also the related Bacteria ‘evolving in the lab’? about citrate-digesting bacteria''.

Is that a reasonable use of the term, or is it circular?

Terribly circular.

[shunyadragon]

Sure, but a uniform probability for each fair die face is what is meant by a chance cause in this case.

Blessings,
Lee

My reference described that there is not a uniform probability for each face of the dice.

[shunyadragon]

Well, say understanding instead of intuition, surely you are not saying we can't make valid judgments.


How then is it that Dembski's explanatory filter doesn't apply to what they are doing?

Blessings,
Lee

. . . because the evidence for human technology is well understood, and well defined in archaeology as a product of 'human' intelligence. If you use Dempski's explanatory filter here for evidence of Intelligent Design, all I have to add is so what?

The problem with Dempski's explanatory filter beyond human Intelligent Design there is no way objective way to differentiate what is simply a product of natural causes, and some other intelligent source, except maybe aliens.

[Seeker]

Terribly circular.

But is this use of "specified complexity" different from the one Dembski proposes? Or it's (essentially) the same argument? Plus, does Dembski mentions Leslie Orgel at all in his argument/book/monograph/whatever?

Thanks.

[shunyadragon]

But is this use of "specified complexity" different from the one Dembski proposes? Or it's (essentially) the same argument? Plus, does Dembski mentions Leslie Orgel at all in his argument/book/monograph/whatever?

Thanks.

The quote is incomplete concerning Leslie Orgel's view on abiogenesis. Leslie Orgel supported catalyst abiogenesis origins of the first RNA than life. His work is a little old, mostly 60's and 70's, but his work has a very sound scientific basis. He would not support Dempski's Intelligent Design, nor would Dempski cite Leslie Orgel.

[shunyadragon]

Sure, but a uniform probability for each fair die face is what is meant by a chance cause in this case.

Blessings,
Lee

. . . to add, yes the result is not by total chance as per reference, and the cause described in the reference, but the Laws of Nature concerning the environment, materials, and design of the dice, which are not determined by chance.

The cause is, of course is not chance, but your interpretation of the variation in the outcomes as chance, which is not accurate.

[lee_merrill]

Again, find me a single instance of Dembski's ideas being used by an archaeologist.

Well, here, an archeologist will certainly reject any object that is caused by chance or a law of nature, this should be self-evident.

Blessings,
Lee