Rand and Evolution

[Steve D'Ippolito]

Taking a totally different tack on Tabula Rasa versus instinct.... I don't think we understand what "instinct" is, and that could be leading to confusion.

I am not sure that instinct, as seen in (lower) animals is truly "innate knowlege" but I suspect it is rather "innate behavior". It's the behavior an animal will engage in absent a) some sort of failure to inherit the brain wiring or conditioning by a behaviorist psychologist or a dog trainer.

(Holding that instinct is innate knowlege and that we don't have it, leads to the necessity of explaining *why* natural selection would favor our losing all "innate knowlege" at the same time we gained a rational capacity which would be far more powerful if it started out with a knowlege base. The simplest answer to this would seem to be that our ancestral primates didn't have innate knowlege either, therefore we didn't have to lose it in our evolutionary past.)

I suspect we do have a very small amount of innate behavior in our makeup (e.g., the suckling "instinct", the tendency to value family members such as your own children) but it is totally overwhelmed by c) our ability to think and our volition.

[John McVey]

It's been mentioned that Rand was uncomfortable with evolution, because she didn't like the idea that humans were related to other animals.

I think that got dealt with nicely in September and October, particularly with Steve's post #11.

As a staunch atheist, she didn't believe in divine creation. Well...what else is there? This doesn't strike me as an issue where you can just say "maybe the real answer hasn't been found yet." This seems like a pretty cut and dried dichotomy where it has to be either one or the other

Judging from her journals (p685), she actually went to at least one conference that included a lecture on evolution, in mid 1962. Others with access to more information than I can probably clarify, but the two short notes she wrote about it indicate that her difficulties with evolution are more to do with the how it happened rather than that it happened. That's a distinction that some people just looooove to blur deliberately.

Her criticisms are also directed to the state of the epistemological method of the lecturer and his peers, who (she writes) claimed that evolution (and biology generally) had no laws. Even if I knew nothing of evolution I too would turn up my nose at that assertion and question the validity of what these 'scientists' are espousing. In such circumstances, when there is indeed at least some academic weight behind it and which predates some of the immense corruption in academia, the proper response is what hers actually was - no judgement either way without closer examination.

JJM

ps: Mammon, I do not envy your nasty headache in the making. And anyway, isn't the legal drinking age 21 in the US??

[John McVey]

I don't think we understand what "instinct" is, and that could be leading to confusion.

My own opinion is that there is no such thing as instinct anywhere, and that the word is just a fancy hand-wavy way of saying "just knowing" tossed around by people who in fact don't know the mechanics and lack the good grace to say so openly.

I suspect (that instinct) is rather "innate behavior".

Sometimes not even that. Among some bees there is an infestation called foul brood, which harms bee larvae. The bees deal with it by opening up larval cells and then ejecting the infected larvae from the hive. It was pointed out where I read this that all that is required to have the cell-opening part is for the bees to have a taste for eating wax triggered by the presence of chemical markers (it didn't discuss the mechanics of the larva ejection part). The bees don't even have to "know" there is an infestation, they just need exposure to a substance that sets in motion a chain of chemical causes and effects within their feeding mechanisms. I would not call that instinct at all, any more than I would the arrival of an elevator on the right floor after someone presses the 'up' button.

Holding that instinct is innate knowlege and that we don't have it, leads to the necessity of explaining *why* natural selection would favor our losing all "innate knowlege" at the same time we gained a rational capacity which would be far more powerful if it started out with a knowlege base. The simplest answer to this would seem to be that our ancestral primates didn't have innate knowlege either, therefore we didn't have to lose it in our evolutionary past.

It goes back much much further than our primate ancestors. Consider the evolution of any consciousness at all. Everything sensible I read on the matter keeps saying the same thing, that there was strong evolutionary pressure in favour of it expressly as an alternative to innate knowledge because the structures set by DNA could not change fast enough to adapt to changing circumstances. Even totally leaving aside the meaning of the word information, this still nixes the entire premise behind the idea of innate knowledge: any creature that relies upon innate knowledge for its living is in time going to be seriously outcompeted by creatures that instead rely upon possession of the ability to learn.

It's the behavior an animal will engage in absent some sort of failure to inherit the brain wiring or conditioning by a behaviorist psychologist or a dog trainer.

I strongly dispute even that much. The most you will get is a set of built-in behaviours triggered by concrete-level cues (*), but as you point out even they will be modified by learning. Additionally, the more advanced the creature the less it relies upon the built-in responses and the more it relies upon learning and honing skills. Many creatures have to be taught by parents or learn on their own the vital skills they need to survive. The problem of creatures having to learn their skills is a common one for people dealing with creatures raised in captivity or other lack of parental guidance. If there was ever going to be innate knowledge in any meaningful sense of the word then it would relate to these survival skills - but the facts say that there is nothing beyond simple responses because more complication from the genetic level means less ability to change with sufficient speed. So much for innate knowledge, even in non-volitional creatures!

* The cues and responses can be quite complicated, with what humans are capable of as among the most complicated (such as a strong pattern detection and recognition ability) but they are all still concrete level.

The mere fact of the existence of biochemical and biomechanical responses to concrete-level cues does not mean knowledge of the existence of what makes those cues. Plants are programmed to respond to cues about gravity, nutrients, and sunlight - but not one bit of that is knowledge (or even instinct) as plants have no consciousness whatsoever. I would go so far as to say that there is no innate knowledge in any creature, never mind innate knowledge of the kind of abstractions that have philosophical importance. Philosophically, the issue of innate knowledge should be treated as dead as far as ethical and moral theory is concerned, with what philosophy having to offer on the matter being about helping biologists et al get their terminology and ideas right.

JJM

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

I think a great deal of confusion about evolution arises because some people insist that physiological processes are the same as knowledge; and so they claim that animals have a lot of knowledge built in -- i.e. that their brain is pre-wired with knowledge. I don't think this is the case at all. It is not knowledge that leads, say a dog, to sniff out edible foods with its nose and only eat (for the most part) that which is good for it. I say for the most part, because a dog will try to drink cooling fluid, which is poisonous to it; but, of course, ethylene glycol has not been around for millions of years, either. The dog's nose and olfactory systems are far superior to our own, and it is able to detect that which is good for it via the sense of smell better than man can. But it doesn't have to know the chemical make-up of beef in order to sniff it and be attracted to it for eating. It's just physiological, requiring no knowledge whatsoever.

It can be said that man has a sort of head start with his physiological equipment and the pleasure / pain mechanism, such that he doesn't have to actually have his flesh get burned off before withdrawing from a fire. That is, after millions of years of evolution, a biological mechanism arose -- i.e. nerves -- such that damage and potential damage to the body could be detected before actual damage was done. This was a survival mechanism, and made it possible for animals to flee from fire; but it is not knowledge.

Even though man has this same physiological mechanism -- he, too, can feel the danger to his flesh with regard to a fire, which does not require knowledge -- he can gain actual knowledge with his reasoning abilities to overcome his fear and take control of fire to use it for his own survival purposes; something that animals cannot do. An animal may be able to take advantage of a natural fire and eat cooked food, but they cannot make a fire for that purpose.

It might seem like a disadvantage for man not have have as much survival physiology as a dog, a cat, or a bear -- to not have as much pre-wired physiology as they do geared to his own survival; but look at what man can do by not having as much of that pre-wired physiology and having a conceptual consciousness.

Perhaps it is a biological trade-off. A living being can either be pre-wired or it can have a conceptual consciousness, but it certainly can't be totally pre-wired and have a conceptual consciousness; for I think this would lead to survival conflicts. He couldn't run from a fire and stay there and learn how to use it at one and the same time. Due to his conceptual abilities, man is able to overcome his more short-term physiological reactions -- to overcome his fear of being burnt --and think about the situation, which does require knowledge.

And by thinking about it instead of going by "instincts" or short-term learning abilities (which animals have), he can go on to create civilizations; including encyclopedias, cars, computers, and discussion forums.

If it is a biological trade-off, I don't think man got the short end of the stick.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

This is off-topic a bit, but the attacks on Kant by Objectivists seem misdirected to me. The biggest threat to Objectivism in my view is the interpretation of quantum mechanics, which rejects physical reality beyond the observable and opens it to the possibility of "random" (i.e., non-causal, non-rational) effects. The combination of QM with chaos theory allows for macro effects from non-deterministic causation, which in effect opens the door to mysticism.

It's not as off topic as you might think. Philosophy is more fundamental than any of the special sciences, including evolution. And it was Kant who lead the way to saying that man has no direct connection to reality via his senses or his mind -- the idea that man is completely cut off from reality the way it really is. And this is far more destructive than someone saying that quantum mechanics is driven by non-causality. In fact, it was Kant who made that interpretation conceivable -- the idea that real reality the way it really is would have to be completely different than our everyday perception and conception of reality, as given by perception and understood by a rational consciousness.

[DavidOdden]

I'm not getting your meaning here. I thought I could at least get you to agree that "information" in the medium of communication is still information.

My meaning is that DNA is not information, although one might imagine a scientist encoding information by building a strand of DNA in a certain way. The structure of DNA is "information" in the same way that the structure of a cup of petroleum is -- not. You may be able to learn some fact about dinosaurs in Jurassic Park fashion using DNA, just as you might learn something about life on earth millions of years ago by analyzing petroleum. But DNA and petroleum are still not information. Edited January 1, 2008 by DavidOdden

[Maarten]

My meaning is that DNA is not information, although one might imagine a scientist encoding information by building a strand of DNA in a certain way. The structure of DNA is "information" in the same way that the structure of a cup of petroleum is -- not. You may be able to learn some fact about dinosaurs in Jurassic Park fashion using DNA, just as you might learn something about life on earth millions of years ago by analyzing petroleum. But DNA and petroleum are still not information.

But DNA is a language of sorts that can be read and understood, even though it wasn't developed by humans. Perhaps information is not the right word for this, but I honestly cannot think of any other that would describe the meaning of a DNA sequence more accurately. DNA is transcribed into an RNA sequence and then translated into an amino-acid sequence in a way that reminds me a bit of how blind people "read" (i.e. by recognizing shapes). Pretty much any verb we can use to describe this process is normally used for human beings, and implies a certain level of intent or consciousness. Certainly, cellular machinery doesn't have consciousness, but if you keep that in mind, then what is the problem with using these words in that specific context where they have an alternate meaning? Just because reading normally implies a volitional process, doesn't mean that in a completely different context it can still describe a process that is mechanical and non-volitional...

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

I would go so far as to say that there is no innate knowledge in any creature, never mind innate knowledge of the kind of abstractions that have philosophical importance. Philosophically, the issue of innate knowledge should be treated as dead as far as ethical and moral theory is concerned, with what philosophy having to offer on the matter being about helping biologists et al get their terminology and ideas right.

I think you are right about this, but we must be careful of what we mean by knowledge. Very strictly speaking, even the higher-level animals (excluding man) don't have knowledge the way man does -- i.e. they don't have a conceptual consciousness. That is, they don't learn in terms of concepts, but more like they have memory and that memory of past events can lead to behaviors that they wouldn't have without that experience being memorized. But this memory ability is not the same thing as forming abstractions and concepts, and being able to think about things. This is basically how dogs are trained. If one gives them a reward for doing what we want them to do and a punishment for not doing what we don't want them to do, that becomes a memorized reaction to similar events. It is learned in a very concrete type of way, which doesn't lead to a dog having the ability to communicate to us with words.

I think a good example of this is a dog's ability to sit around the camp fire with its owner. Normally, animals will flee a fire, and wild animals do not come near a camp fire -- not even wild dogs. But because a domesticated dog was raised near fire with man, it observes and memorizes that it is safe to sit around the camp fire, and then takes on that behavior of not running away every time a camp fire is lit. But it is learned on a very concrete level.

Higher-level animals do have a consciousness -- they are aware of existence -- but they cannot volitionally consider events outside their immediate surroundings like man can. In other words, the context of their consciousness is the immediate moment and memorizations of past events, coupled with their pleasure / pain mechanism. But memory -- short-term or long-term -- is not the same thing as knowledge.

Memorizing something Miss Rand said, or even memorizing all of Atlas Shrugged is not the same thing as understanding it. Understanding, in the human sense of the term, requires conceptualization and a greater ability to keep context beyond the range of the moment, which is something animals cannot do.

[Tensorman]

I agree with Maarten. The term information may sometimes be used as a synonym for "knowledge", but its general meaning is much wider. In mathematics, computer science, biology and physics the concept information is well-defined and certainly not restricted to what humans may do with information (in the sense of acquiring knowledge about something). Similarly the genetic code is a real code, even if it hasn't been designed by humans.

[DavidOdden]

But DNA is a language of sorts that can be read and understood, even though it wasn't developed by humans.

In the sense that gravity is a "language of sorts", physical conservation laws are a "language of sorts", and any fact of reality like a flock of geese is a "language of sorts". There is language, and then there is "language of sorts". There is no serious argument that DNA is actually a language. I can't judge the claim that it is a "language of sorts" until you tell me what you mean by a "language of sorts". What are the essential properties of a "language of sorts", and what things don't qualify as a "language of sorts"?

Perhaps information is not the right word for this, but I honestly cannot think of any other that would describe the meaning of a DNA sequence more accurately.

I agree that 'information' is not the right word for this. Now you've introduced the further complication of "meaning". DNA does not have a "meaning". It has a physical structure, just like a hydrogen ion has a physical structure. And as a consequence of its physical structure, it causes certain things to happen, just like the structure of a hydrogen ion causes things to happen. Would you analogously talk about the meaning of a hydrogen ion? The meaning of gravity?

Certainly, cellular machinery doesn't have consciousness, but if you keep that in mind, then what is the problem with using these words in that specific context where they have an alternate meaning?

Because the concept "meaning" in fact has as an essential component the presence of a consciousness, and the same goes for "information".

The deal is this. The word "information" has a meaning, and it is one that crucially depends on a mind. The Platonic approach that became popular starting with Shannon started by saying "We can represent information in lots of different ways" (quite correct) "and can translate the knowledge encoded in one way into another encoding and back into actual knowledge transmitted elsewhere" (correct), and "therefore the knowledge encoded by the encoder takes on a new status as numbers termed 'information'" (uh, no) "so that anything that you could use as the basis for gaining knowledge is itself information, even when not encoded by an encoder for the purpose of representing knowledge" (rubbish).

I understand that mathematicians have corrupted various previously well-defined words. But you know, we have a plan to expand this linguistic corruption, so that "integer" will get contextually redefined so that pi and 1/7 are "integers", we can finally have three-sided squares, and DNA will simply be a worm, of sorts.

[Maarten]

I agree that 'information' is not the right word for this. Now you've introduced the further complication of "meaning". DNA does not have a "meaning". It has a physical structure, just like a hydrogen ion has a physical structure. And as a consequence of its physical structure, it causes certain things to happen, just like the structure of a hydrogen ion causes things to happen. Would you analogously talk about the meaning of a hydrogen ion? The meaning of gravity?Because the concept "meaning" in fact has as an essential component the presence of a consciousness, and the same goes for "information".

DNA itself doesn't cause anything to happen. And to a large extent, it is very similar to our own languages, because you have base-pairs that combine together to form codons, and these codons are recognized by the correct tRNA molecule, which causes a certain amino-acid to be put into its place. And there are certain grammatical rules present, so to speak, that allow for certain combinations and not others. Yes your "sentences" are longer than in most human languages (except maybe German ), but there is a definite order to it that is followed.

Whether the language was designed by man or not doesn't matter one bit. I am not suggesting that this implies intent on the part of the machinery; but the process is very similar to letting a machine read a language and translate it into another language. Again, the only difference is that instead of the machine being programmed by human beings, it functions in the way it functions because that best aided the life of whatever organism it is in.

The way you're describing the whole process makes no sense at all from a perspective of trying to understand what is actually going on there; that is why it is helpful to use the terms people use because it is far easier to grasp the process that way. All you need to do is keep in mind that it is a different kind of translation that is occurring there than when I would translate a language manually. The fact is, there simply aren't any good words to describe these processes in a way that's completely free from our own point of view. Why would we go to a lot of extra trouble inventing all sorts of new terms for this when the old ones apply just as well?

[DavidOdden]

DNA itself doesn't cause anything to happen.

That's true, and a hydrogen ion does not by itself cause anything to happen. DNA is still nothing more than a really big and complex hydrogen ion.

And to a large extent, it is very similar to our own languages, because you have base-pairs that combine together to form codons, and these codons are recognized by the correct tRNA molecule, which causes a certain amino-acid to be put into its place.

Language is not just a syntactic system for manipulating the combinatorics of objects, it is also a system that relates propositional content held by a consciousness to those strings of objects. Even seen as a strictly syntactic system, DNA has no important similarity to language except that which is universally there in anything that can be called a "system". Language does not have base-pairs or codons. Atoms combine electrons, protons and neutrons according to rules which even includes recursion (is there a DNA analog to recursion?).

The way you're describing the whole process makes no sense at all from a perspective of trying to understand what is actually going on there;

On the contrary, the way I am describing things makes perfect sense. I'm simply trying to preserve the sense that actually exists, by encouraging people to not sloppily redefine words as a way of avoiding serious thought. Years ago, I jokingly talked about how one of these days, somebody was going to come up with a generative grammar of DNA, or a grammar of the atom. And now here we are. Of course you can apply a formal analytical method to language, atoms, DNA... anything. Anything that is a system can be described in terms of rules that resemble a grammar. That means -- everything is a language. And that's an absurd conclusion.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

I think I agree with David Odden on the issue of DNA not containing information, if we are going to be strict about what the term "information" refers to in reality. For it to be information, some intelligent being would have had to form the DNA for the purpose of encoding its knowledge -- similar to the way we use the machinery of a hard drive to encode our knowledge onto the disk, or the way we use letters and words as a visual auditory symbols in physical form. For it to be information, some mind had to create it and some mind must be able to interpret it (by some means open to it).

DNA is a very large molecule, and certain biochemical reactions occur in its presence in a cell. But those biochemical agents -- say the enzymes that move along the DNA chain leading to chemical reactions based on what the DNA enzyme interaction results in -- are not reading the DNA; it's just a biochemical reaction.

Figuratively speaking, we can say that the head of a hard drive "reads" the hard drive, or that a credit card reader "reads" the information encoded onto to the credit card; but surely one has to understand that neither the hard drive nor the credit card reader understands anything that it is "reading" or doing. It's just electro-mechanical processes not requiring any intelligence on the part of the hard drive or the card reader.

Similarly, DNA simply sets forth various bio-chemical processes, that, fortunately for us, leads to cell repair and other living processes on the bio-chemical level, with no intelligent guidance. It's bio-chemical causality, not intelligence.

And as remarkable as it is that a DNA molecule can consistently repair cell damage or lead to the generation of replacement cells; it is only a very complex bio-chemical process that occurs under the right conditions. The DNA of a human, mine for example, does not know that it is making it possible for me to be able to have the biological tools with which to write this essay. Under the right conditions, bio-chemical processes occurred in my mother's womb leading to my eventual birth. Just how that works in the details, we just don't know at this point, but it does happen consistently.

The whole issue of life comes down to self-sustaining, self-generative action. Those living beings that were able to do this continued to populate the earth, while the others either died out or where eaten. This can be achieved via more simple processes (bacteria) or more complicated processes (the higher-level animals, and man which is the most complex of all the living beings). But it all comes down to the survivability of the living being.

So, the question is not, "How did our DNA know that we would be able to understand the whole universe some day?" but rather, "By what natural process did it arise that there would be living beings with a conceptual consciousness?" It can be said that the conceptual consciousness was brought about by DNA of a certain type, but it had no knowledge beforehand of what it was going to lead to -- it just happened in a biologically causal manner. A conceptual consciousness greatly increases the possibility of survival -- which is why man can live just about anywhere on earth -- but that was not pre-designed into our DNA.

It wasn't designed at all; it came about naturally.

[agrippa1]

I think I agree with David Odden on the issue of DNA not containing information, if we are going to be strict about what the term "information" refers to in reality. For it to be information, some intelligent being would have had to form the DNA for the purpose of encoding its knowledge.

I agree with what you say here about information, but what David is saying (or what I understand) is that information is not contained in the medium used to communicate knowledge from one consciousness to another, it only exists in the consciousness, and what is in the message, or what have you, is something else, but not "information."

I think what is trying to be avoided here is the possibility that we'll have to, at some point, determine whether something encoded in a message is, in fact, "information," i.e., that it was originated from a conscious being. DNA is one example of this, but it is clear enough from our limited knowledge of evolution that the stuff encoded in DNA strands is not "information." An ID'er, however, if allowed to use "information" in this sense, could argue that DNA is "God's language, manifested through the process of genetic evolution" (or some such rubbish), and claim that it is, in fact, information. Another example that comes to mind is the automated story generators written by programmers a few years ago, or the million monkeys with typewriters. I think that the parallel between DNA and the million monkeys is a valid one, allowing that the monkeys' product was passed through an editor, and each draft was created through random changes, with the editor selecting the best drafts for redraft, and trashing the rest. (The editor being natural selection)

This all brings us back to the interesting parallel between our conscious thought and the automatic "logic" of Darwinism, which Rand alludes to in PWNI (I'm listening on iPod, and just heard an exploration of the "value" system of plants and animals and how it relates and differs from our rational conscious, not sure exactly where it is in the book). There seems to be (just to drive David a little more nuts) an intelligence of sorts at work in evolution guiding the survival and development of species on Earth. This parallel appears to be recognized by some as a differentiator integrating conscious rational intelligence with the natural evolutionary process, a misintegration which causes confusion in a lot of people's minds.

[Tensorman]

The deal is this. The word "information" has a meaning, and it is one that crucially depends on a mind. The Platonic approach that became popular starting with Shannon started by saying "We can represent information in lots of different ways" (quite correct) "and can translate the knowledge encoded in one way into another encoding and back into actual knowledge transmitted elsewhere" (correct), and "therefore the knowledge encoded by the encoder takes on a new status as numbers termed 'information'" (uh, no) "so that anything that you could use as the basis for gaining knowledge is itself information, even when not encoded by an encoder for the purpose of representing knowledge" (rubbish).

That is not rubbish, that is a very sensible definition. Example: light rays (photons) coming to us from the stars contain information: we can derive from those light rays the temperature, velocity, chemical composition, size, mass, age, etc. of the stars. By extracting that information from the light rays we create knowledge (about those stars). Knowledge is always something that pertains to a conscious mind, information is not - there was no conscious encoder who encoded the information about the stars for the purpose of representing knowledge; nevertheless the light rays definitely contain information. Whether that information is used by some conscious being is not relevant for the fact that it does exist.

I understand that mathematicians have corrupted various previously well-defined words.

Please tell us which words the mathematicians have "corrupted".

[DavidOdden]

I agree with what you say here about information, but what David is saying (or what I understand) is that information is not contained in the medium used to communicate knowledge from one consciousness to another, it only exists in the consciousness, and what is in the message, or what have you, is something else, but not "information."

No, you do not understand what I am saying. Information must be created by a consciousness. A book contains information, it was created by a consciousness as a means of representing knowledge, it contains information. A lump of clay or DNA is not created by a consciousness as a means of representing knowledge, and it is not / does not contain information. And the fact that you can look at the physical structure of clay or DNA and derive some knowledge from that structure about the DNA or the animal whose DNA it is does not make DNA contain information. Information does not mean "anything that we could potentially learn" -- that has a name, "fact".

[agrippa1]

No, you do not understand what I am saying. Information must be created by a consciousness. A book contains information, it was created by a consciousness as a means of representing knowledge, it contains information. A lump of clay or DNA is not created by a consciousness as a means of representing knowledge, and it is not / does not contain information. And the fact that you can look at the physical structure of clay or DNA and derive some knowledge from that structure about the DNA or the animal whose DNA it is does not make DNA contain information. Information does not mean "anything that we could potentially learn" -- that has a name, "fact".

Sorry, I took that meaning from this comment:

"therefore the knowledge encoded by the encoder takes on a new status as numbers termed 'information'" (uh, no)

Would you say that one of the requirements of "information" is prior bi-directional flow, that is, verification of a conscious source? This is clearly required for languages (to synchronize the users), but is absent from the DNA and the million monkeys examples.

Edited January 2, 2008 by agrippa1

[agrippa1]

It's not as off topic as you might think. Philosophy is more fundamental than any of the special sciences, including evolution. And it was Kant who lead the way to saying that man has no direct connection to reality via his senses or his mind -- the idea that man is completely cut off from reality the way it really is. And this is far more destructive than someone saying that quantum mechanics is driven by non-causality. In fact, it was Kant who made that interpretation conceivable -- the idea that real reality the way it really is would have to be completely different than our everyday perception and conception of reality, as given by perception and understood by a rational consciousness.

Okay, I'll accept that, but if Kant provided the "theory," QM provided the "proof." Until we can recast the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM as a theoretical model and not a fact, and reason our way through Bell's inequalities, there will be rational, intelligent people out there who believe that the cat in the box is both dead and alive until they open the box, and that we are each living in our own universe consisting of the superposition of an infinite number of possible universes, whose specific nature is not determined until we observe it. That is the reality that modern physics gives us.

[Tensorman]

Okay, I'll accept that, but if Kant provided the "theory," QM provided the "proof." Until we can recast the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM as a theoretical model and not a fact, and reason our way through Bell's inequalities, there will be rational, intelligent people out there who believe that the cat in the box is both dead and alive until they open the box, and that we are each living in our own universe consisting of the superposition of an infinite number of possible universes, whose specific nature is not determined until we observe it. That is the reality that modern physics gives us.

Today no physicist thinks that the cat is really both dead and alive. Schrödinger devised this thought experiment in 1935 to point out a problem with the formalism of QM (the transition from the quantummechanical microworld to the classical macroworld). At the time no solution was known and in fact the problem was ignored, as it was not relevant to a succesful application of QM to microscopic systems, the transition was treated as a black box (the collapse of the wavefunction). Today we know that the phenomenon of decoherence will ensure that the cat cannot be in a superposition of states, so that it is either alive or dead before the box is opened. Superpositions of states of large molecules have been experimentally verified, however.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

That is not rubbish, that is a very sensible definition. Example: light rays (photons) coming to us from the stars contain information: we can derive from those light rays the temperature, velocity, chemical composition, size, mass, age, etc. of the stars.

Well, it's definitely data and evidence; and data that can be used to calculate out those other parameters.

I'm just curious, but if we ever discovered radio waves or other communications from extraterrestrials, would that be considered "information" as well? How would we distinguish the two, star light and actual communications, if they are both to be referred to as information?

I realize the word can be used that way, for example, one can look at the rings of a tree and derive "information" about its growth history and climate. But if someone writes down the data into a notebook or inputs it into a computer, we would definitely refer to that as information about the tree growth and conditions leading to that growth. But is information there if no one analyzes it? The facts are still there, even if no one knows about it or understands it, but are facts qua facts information? Or does that require a consciousness understanding it?

It's definitely the proper use of the term "information" if someone writes it down -- as in I am writing information in this posting, though that does not require someone else being able to understand it.

I'm not absolutely sure of this, but what I am thinking of is the idea that someone might say that the red of an apple contains information about the apple; instead of saying that we perceive the apple. Information makes it sound like we are guessing about what the apple is -- you know, the Kantian approach, that it is all just maybe indications about what is really there. Instead of, as David Odden pointed out, a fact of reality.

Is the light coming from a distant star a fact, or is it merely information about a fact? In other words, is the light a real existent or is it merely a carrier pigeon for information?

Does one say that the information for the chemical composition of an apple is within the apple, or does one say that the apple is composed of such and such chemicals? Likewise, is the DNA a large molecule, or is it information?

I'll have to think about this some more. But I guess the question comes down to is this: Are undigested facts information? and once they become digested by a mind does it only then become information?

This might, and I stress might, be another instance where science has gone awry in terminology, just as they smear epistemology into metaphysics when they say reality is uncertain due to the uncertainty principle. That is, just because we cannot measure sub-atomic reactions to the infinitude degree of exactness, doesn't mean that there isn't something going on there, in between our ability to measure.

Is calling a fact "information" making the same mistake of confusing epistemology with metaphysics?

[agrippa1]

I'm just curious, but if we ever discovered radio waves or other communications from extraterrestrials, would that be considered "information" as well? How would we distinguish the two, star light and actual communications, if they are both to be referred to as information?

The broadening of concepts is as important as the narrowing of concepts, so in and of itself, it's no sin to call both information, so long as the concept referred to by "information" encompasses both examples. (though it would be nice to have one, static meaning stuck to each term)

But how in heaven's name would we know that the radio waves originated from an extraterrestrial intelligence?

[agrippa1]

I'll have to think about this some more. But I guess the question comes down to is this: Are undigested facts information? and once they become digested by a mind does it only then become information?

Restated: Does a book contain information? (Also, does information need to be true to qualify as information?)

This might, and I stress might, be another instance where science has gone awry in terminology, just as they smear epistemology into metaphysics when they say reality is uncertain due to the uncertainty principle. That is, just because we cannot measure sub-atomic reactions to the infinitude degree of exactness, doesn't mean that there isn't something going on there, in between our ability to measure.

It's more fundamental that that. Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen tried to refute QM with the so-called EPR paradox. Bell came back with an answer that seems to shut their objections up, if it turns out that Bell is correct. The experimental data is still incomplete (as far as I know) but if Bell is right, it means we have to look deeper into the issue to find the truth. I'm with Einstein on this, but Bell's inequality is a tough one to reason through. (How does one photon "know" that the other photon was measured a certain way?) The ramifications lead to much more weirdness than the smearing of velocity by position and vice versa.

Edited January 3, 2008 by agrippa1

[Tensorman]

The broadening of concepts is as important as the narrowing of concepts, so in and of itself, it's no sin to call both information, so long as the concept referred to by "information" encompasses both examples. (though it would be nice to have one, static meaning stuck to each term)

But how in heaven's name would we know that the radio waves originated from an extraterrestrial intelligence?

That is an interesting question, that can be answered at two levels: (1) how do we know that the radio signal comes from outer space and not from a source on Earth? (2) If we know that its origin lies outside the solar system, how do we know that it comes from an intelligent source and that is isn't caused by some natural phenomenon? The first question isn't difficult: with our radio telescopes we can easily determine where the signal comes from - if it is from outer space, the position of the source will move with the apparent daily motion of the stars. The second question is more difficult to answer. Suppose it is a signal that is deliberately sent to announce the existence of an extraterrestrial intelligence, how could we recognize it as such? We can make a guess by thinking how we would announce our existence via a radio signal to possible extraterrestrial civilizations. The general consensus is that a mathematical approach is the best way. An extraterrestrial intelligence might be quite different from us, but one thing is certain: if they are advanced enough to listen to radio signals from outer space, they must have a knowledge of mathematics that is comparable to ours. They must know for example what prime numbers are and they'll probably know the characteristics of finite groups. Such knowledge can easily be coded, for example by enumerating the first 1000 prime numbers or the orders of the finite simple sporadic groups. A binary code will be understood universally, as it is the simplest code. There are systems for building a message, starting from scratch by showing a simple code, and use this to generate more complex codes. In the 1960's Hans Freudenthal designed such a language, which he called LINCOS.

Suppose we receive a signal from outer space which we can decode with a simple decoding system into a list of the first 1000 prime numbers, how certain can we be that it comes from an intelligent source and that it is not the accidental result of a random signal? An analogy may be helpful here. Suppose in a bridge game, where the cards are supposed to be shuffled well before being dealt, we get the "perfect" bridge deal: every player has a complete suit in one color. We may then safely assume that this deal is not the result of a random shuffling, but that someone has been tampering with the cards. Why do we know that? After all the probability of the perfect deal is exactly the same as that of any other particular, average, deal. The point is that the perfect deal has a very special significance to us, it would for example be a good "fisherman's yarn" to tell, or it could be a joke. Even if we estimate the probability that someone will rig the cards for this reason as very small, it is still enormously larger (literally trillions of times) than the probability that this special deal will come up by chance, so our conclusion that someone has rigged the cards is warranted (you should never believe someone who tells you he got such a deal accidentally!). The same argument may be used when we receive information from an extraterrestrial source that we recognize as something very special. The difference is that we have no data for an estimate of the probability that an extraterrestrial intelligence exists and will announce its existence. But if the message seems to build up a system of communication in a way that is similar to LINCOS and if the amount of meaningful information that we can extract is large enough, the conclusion that it comes from an intelligent extraterrestrial source will become inescapable.

[Tensorman]

Is the light coming from a distant star a fact, or is it merely information about a fact? In other words, is the light a real existent or is it merely a carrier pigeon for information?

It's both of course! There is no dichotomy. Just as a letter (or the radio waves of a broadcast) you receive is a fact and a carrier pigeon for information. Whether it originates from a natural source or from an intelligent source makes no difference in this respect.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

But how in heaven's name would we know that the radio waves originated from an extraterrestrial intelligence?

I don't know that it would be all that difficult to tell a natural signal versus an intelligently created signal; I would think that it would be structured in a specific way that one couldn't get naturally. Although, I have heard some of the radio signals coming from Jupiter, and at first glance (listen) they almost sounded like someone playing with a radio tuner, but that occurs naturally due to Jupiter's very high magnitude magnetosphere and charged particles falling into it and spiraling into the planet or going around it.

Getting back to the topic of Rand and evolution, unless we have evidence to the contrary, which we don't, then evolution, including the formation of cells and DNA, occur naturally; so I would think that it would have to have happened on at least a few other planets in our galaxy. Of course, they might be so far away, that it would be useless to try to communicate with them, let alone meet them in person. But I do think the scifi Trekkie idea that all intelligent life forms will look more or less like man is probably not going to be the case, unless someone can come up with some scientific principle that specifies via evidence that only manlike living beings can have volition.

Of course, it may even be possible for there to be life forms out there that do not have DNA, at least not recognizably similar to DNA found in terrestrial living beings. And they may not necessarily think like we do at all (integrate by similarities). We just don't know enough about extra-terrestrial life to say much about them. I think we are not going to know until we discover them.

When one considers that it took about two billion years for man to evolve, it's quite the rarity even on earth But I don't know that this is enough information to assess that it will necessarily take billions of years for intelligence to occur on some other planet. In other words, even if we find an earth like planet, we might have to watch it for a very long time before somebody waves back at us.

It's basically all speculations at this point.