Gitt’s First Law of Information.

[sparc]

Isn't Gitt's coauthor here anymore?

[rwatts]

Isn't Gitt's coauthor here anymore?

Heh. I was hoping that he would pop in and give me a good roasting with one of his rants. Jorge is still around but for some reason has not been posting much over the past week or so.

[shunyadragon]

I am just know reading the reference and now realize how bizarrely contrived and ridiculous Gitt's Laws are. I will put on my hip waders and go for it again before I reply.

[shunyadragon]

From the article referenced the laws SL-1 and SL-2 are as follows:

Source: http://creation.com/laws-of-information-1

SLI-110

A material entity cannot generate a non-material entity

In our common experience we observe that an apple tree bears apples, a pear tree yields pears, and a thistle brings forth thistle seeds. Similarly, horses give birth to foals, cows to calves and women to human babies. Likewise, we can observe that something which is itself solely material never creates anything non-material. The universally observable finding of SLI–1 can now be couched in somewhat more specialized form by arriving at SLI–2.

© Copyright Original Source

It does not take much of a search to find that experimentally Neurologists have linked thoughts (non-material entities) with neurological activity (Material entities) as the cause.

Source: http://www.observedimpulse.com/2013/07/the-neurological-process-responsible.html

Abstract

Reciprocal interactions between bottom-up sensory areas and top-down association areas maintain, discard, and transform information resulting in the orchestration of imagery generation and internally guided thought. Representations are temporarily maintained in association areas and utilized as imagery specifications that are fed back into lower-order sensory areas where they are continually used in the construction of successive topographic maps. Salient features from these transient, sensory maps progress up the cortical hierarchy where they activate the corresponding representations in association cortex, adding them to the store of temporarily maintained features. Thus, the most salient, novel, or goal-relevant features from the last several mappings are maintained in association areas. The fact that some representations within association areas remain active for prolonged periods, over the duration of several reciprocal top-down to bottom-up transformations, is taken to account for the continuity found between successive topographic maps. The sustained and dynamically overlapping activity of higher-order association nodes allows consecutive topographic maps to: have related content, exhibit progressive qualities, implement learned algorithms, and carry thematic or narrative continuity over sequential processing states.

© Copyright Original Source

The Neurological Process Responsible for Internally Generated Thought: Short Term Continuity What follows is the text for the poster that I presented at the 2013 conference for the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, ASSC 17, July 12th-15th.

Source: http://creation.com/laws-of-information-1

SLI-2

Universal information is a non-material fundamental entity

The materialistic worldview has widely infiltrated the natural sciences such that it has become the ruling paradigm. However, this is an unjustified dogma. The reality in which we live is divisible into two fundamentally distinguishable realms: namely, the material and the non-material. Matter involves mass, which is weighable in a gravitational field. In contrast, all non-material entities (e.g. information, consciousness, intelligence and will) are massless and thus have zero weight. Information is always based on an idea; it is thus also massless and does not arise from physical or chemical processes. Information is also not correlated with matter in the same way as energy, momentum or electricity is. However, information is stored, transmitted and expressed through matter and energy.

© Copyright Original Source

Note: Ridiculous ridicule rhetoric.

The Laws of Nature are the non-material universal information that determines the nature of our physical existence.

[rwatts]

... how bizarrely contrived and ridiculous Gitt's Laws are.

It seems that way.

[sparc]

I wonder if one should waste time on Gitt's strange ideas. A summary at Creation Ministries International states what he really wants to put forward with his book "Without Excuse":

With his co-authors, information scientist Dr Werner Gitt provides the most rigorous and useful definition of information thus far. He distinguishes this Universal Information (real information) from things often mistakenly called information, and shows how ultimately all biological information comes from God. Gitt’s evangelist heart also shines through this academically rigorous work.

I worked 8 years in Gitt's hometown Braunschweig at one of the biggest German bioscience intitutes and never heard anything about Gitt and I only became aware of him through US creationists and anti-creationist web pages.

[klaus54]

No. It fails your criteria that the sender/source understands the "language".

Roy

Correct. Anthropomorphic language misapplied.

K54

[Roy]

Correct. Anthropomorphic language misapplied.

Incorrect. Even without the quibble over "understands" there's still an issue in that AFAIK DNA is not anywhere handled as codons. mRNA is segregated into codons by the action of tRNA, but DNA never is. Thus the criterion that the source "understands" the language - i.e that DNA "understands" the genetic code - is not met even if the meaning of "understands" is relaxed to the necessary extent to be applicable to molecular interactions. Strands of DNA do not use the genetic code, therefore they are not encoding a message in it.

Roy

[klaus54]

I wonder if one should waste time on Gitt's strange ideas. A summary at Creation Ministries International states what he really wants to put forward with his book "Without Excuse":

I worked 8 years in Gitt's hometown Braunschweig at one of the biggest German bioscience intitutes and never heard anything about Gitt and I only became aware of him through US creationists and anti-creationist web pages.

I used to like Braunschweig on toast with hot mustard (or "Senf")

K54

[rwatts]

I worked 8 years in Gitt's hometown Braunschweig at one of the biggest German bioscience intitutes and never heard anything about Gitt and I only became aware of him through US creationists and anti-creationist web pages.

Jorge is going to be disappointed, given that he was one of the co-authors. Imagine when he gets his complete theory of information all worked out and published. And no one knows about him.

[shunyadragon]

Git's stuff is actually a less sophisticated rework of Plantinga's argument presented by Adrift.

Because that's all that it takes to show Maximal Excellence? Again, here's Plantinga's formulation of the argument (as presented in The Nature of Necessity).

1. There is a possible world W in which there exists a being with maximal greatness.

2. Maximal greatness entails having maximal excellence in every possible world.

3. Maximal excellence entails omniscience, omnipotence, and moral perfection in every possible world.

4. So in W there exists a being which is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect in every possible world.

5. So in W the proposition “There is no omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect being” is impossible.

6. But what is impossible in one possible world is impossible in every possible world.

7. So the proposition “There is no omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect being” is impossible in the actual world.

8. So there is in the actual world an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect being.

Again, I recommend reading Plantinga's work on the subject. In my opinion, he's very thorough, and can probably help answer any questions you have. I haven't read everything he has to say on the subject myself. I also, again, recommend reading Edward Feser's blog. Here Feser discusses the fact that Plantinga himself "concedes that a rational person need not accept this argument, and claims only that a rational person could accept it."

Again, just as the non-material information can possibly be simply Natural Law, so can the 'maximal greatness' may be Natural Law.

( Git - an unpleasant or contemptible foolish person. Also Gastrointestinal Tract)

[Duragizer]

I used to like Braunschweig on toast with hot mustard (or "Senf")

Doesn't sound too kosher.

[Roy]

Git's stuff is actually a less sophisticated rework of Plantinga's argument presented by Adrift.

I have a counterexample for #6.

Also, #2 is an equivocation, #1 and #3 are inconsistent, #3 omits several aspects which trivially refute #8 and all except #5 use 'world' inappropriately.

Maybe someday I'll see encounter an apologetics argument that doesn't collapse immediately, but I doubt it.

Roy

[firstfloor]

This may have something to do with something or other. It caught my eye because of “universal constructor” and link to Templeton Foundation. David Deutsch usually knows what he’s talking about; in this case a new theory concerning information.
http://constructortheory.org/

[shunyadragon]

This may have something to do with something or other. It caught my eye because of “universal constructor” and link to Templeton Foundation. David Deutsch usually knows what he’s talking about; in this case a new theory concerning information.
http://constructortheory.org/

WHAT IS CONSTRUCTOR THEORY?

Source: http://constructortheory.org/

The basic principle of constructor theory is that all fundamental laws of nature are expressible entirely in terms of statements of which tasks (i.e. classes of physical transformations) are possible and which are impossible, and why. This is a new mode of explanation, intended to supersede the prevailing conception of fundamental physics which seeks to explain the world in terms of its state (describing everything that is there) and laws of motion (describing how the everything changes with time). By regarding counter-factuals ('X is possible' or 'X is impossible') as first-class, exact statements, constructor theory brings all sorts of interesting fields, currently regarded as inherently approximative, potentially into fundamental physics. These include the theories of information, knowledge, thermodynamics, life, and of course the universal constructor.

© Copyright Original Source

This may be a matter of semantics, but I disagree with the use of 'possible and impossible' in the context as a 'new mode of an explanation' for formulation of 'Natural Laws.'

More to follow . . .