Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft


Wall Of Sleep wrote:
Deadrat wrote:
"Wall Of Sleep" <Sabotage@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:IVqIf.31472$Eq.18754@xxxxxxxxxxx

Deadrat wrote:


"Wall Of Sleep" <Sabotage@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:TiqHf.1655$7C3.1396@xxxxxxxxxxx


Deadrat wrote:


"Wall Of Sleep" <Sabotage@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:fs6Hf.55$Lr.14@xxxxxxxxxxx

<snip>

No, corruption means a "change" basically. Using a language analogy,
changing the letters in any sentence is a "corruption" of that sentence
- whether it changes the meaning or not. Sometimes one change can
completely destroy the meaning, sometimes it makes little difference,
and rarely it makes for a completely different meaning.


I think I understand now. You have been seduced by your analogy, which
like all analogies, is only as useful as it is exact. When you say that a text
has been "corrupted," you mean changed from the original, "true" text. We
know we have such a text because we have the assurances of the author as
to what the text is and what the text means. Thus if we hear the actor playing
Hamlet say

To flee or not to flee. That is the question.

then that is a corruption of a text that we know is about suicide not about running
away.

With an organism, there is no such true copy. There is only the DNA of a
surviving organism. A change to that organism's DNA is simply a change for
good, bad, or indifferent.


I think that's a bit misleading. The DNA sequence is changed, therefore
there are pre and post mutation sequences. They can be compared.


Of course they can be compared, but unless we know what specificity
means, we can't say whether one is more specific than the other.


To improve on your analogy, suppose we have a play in which the actors make
random changes to the text. There isn't expected to be a standard text, but the
critics judge each night's performance (with attendant changes). If the critics like
the changes, they write glowing reviews and audiences attend: those changes stay.
If the critics don't like the changes, they pan the changed version, audiences stay
away, and those versions close.

Let's examine two lines from Thursday's performace.

Alice: Bob is true, kind and brave.
Cathy: Bob is actually one of those things.

On Friday, the dialog goes like this:

Alice: Bob is true, kind, and brave.
Cathy: Bob is actually none of those things.

This is a one-letter change. It's hard to say it's a corruption, since no one expects
there to be a standard version of the play. The only thing that counts is the reviews.
Is the changed text more or less specific? True, Cathy's line means something
different on Friday than it did on Thursday, but that's all you can say.


First, any change is a corruption of the original.
In that example the specificity has not changed though, as there is
essentially "equal" meaning, precision and detail.


There is a change from Thursday's performance, which is just one in a long
string of slightly different plays. There is no "original." There are two different,
intelligible English meanings, but without a definition of "specificity," I don't see
how you can say that the two performances are equally specific. One might
envision, say, that for Cathy to say that Bob is true or kind or brave has a much
different implication for the later acts than were she to say that Bob is none of
these things. For the purposes of the analogy, however, the only thing that matters
is what the critics like.



However what if this
was the change:

Alice: Bob is true, kind, and brave.
Cathy: Bob is actually fne of those things.

Meaning is lost. Precision, detail and exclusiveness are also reduced.
Therefore there is a loss of specificity.



Meaning is lost because you insist that the English semantics is important.
But in the DNA analogy the only things that's important is what the critics
say. Also note that although fne isn't an English word, what matters is how
Cathy pronounces it. The text is the DNA, but the performance is the
expressed protein (if you will).


Exactly. It is the result that matters. You must know the result to
measure specificity.


Then I don't understand why specificity is important. In the example, there
is a text change and an actor speaks a line different from the previous performance.
I guess you can say that the new play isn't as specific to the old play, but so what?
All that matters is whether the critics like it.


That's *not* all that matters. First off, it has to work. If there is no
function - where previously there was - then this mechanism cannot be
the "champion" you claim it to be. It is incapable of building
specialized functions that previously did not exist. Of course "the
critics" might still like it - indeed it *is* possible to lose functions
and survive - perhaps even thrive. But the only type of evolution you
have then is "from man to soup". You need to show that it works the
other way around.

In short, you *need* a mechanism that is robust enough to *build*
specified complexity.


But Wall, that's the "combination lock view".

Let's look at some of what you call "specified complexity" -- The human
heart, for example.

The human heart did _not_ get this way because natural selection
adapted it to _this_ environment. As I think you realise, that would be
impossible, or unlikely. Early hearts did not develop with a view to
becoming what we have now, either.

The "robustness" of evolution is not that it will build "specified
complexity" -- Instead, it will always adapt whilst making the most of
previous development.

In other words, the heart is being built upon as needed, while at the
same time, what already exists of the heart is always improving to
compliment that. If you remember that this is happening under a
changing kaleidoscope of ecosystems, it will "ratchet up" complexity,
because it cannot backtrack with a view to improvement.

This is why the bird genome has all the D.N.A. for a set of teeth,
their growth stifled only by the effects of newer D.N.A..

Secondly, as Deadrat said, one change does not equal one function, or
one feature. The thing that truly changes is the genome, and the
smallest bit of that that can change is a nucleotide.

The genome is more like the instructions for a piece of origami. The
individual instructions don't correspond to features or functions.
Changing a single instruction, especially an early one, can have
manifold effects on the rest of the model. This is a good analogy
because a mutation or damage early in the womb is more likely to have
more drastic effects than a later one.

~Iain

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft
    ... - whether it changes the meaning or not. ... then that is a corruption of a text that we know is about suicide not about running ... Of course they can be compared, but unless we know what specificity ... If mutations rarely produce a more specific coding, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft
    ... - whether it changes the meaning or not. ... then that is a corruption of a text that we know is about suicide not about running ... Of course they can be compared, but unless we know what specificity ... Bob is actually one of those things. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft
    ... - whether it changes the meaning or not. ... Of course they can be compared, but unless we know what specificity ... Bob is actually one of those things. ... The human heart did _not_ get this way because natural selection ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft
    ... - whether it changes the meaning or not. ... Of course they can be compared, but unless we know what specificity ... Bob is actually one of those things. ... The human heart did _not_ get this way because natural selection ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions) 2nd draft
    ... - whether it changes the meaning or not. ... Of course they can be compared, but unless we know what specificity ... Bob is actually one of those things. ... The human heart did _not_ get this way because natural selection ...
    (talk.origins)
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