Re: Predicting the Future and Kolmogorov Complexity

On Mar 14, 8:29 pm, "Nic" <harrisonda...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

So, you see, if your selected UTM has to increase its size as the size
of the string increases in order to make the string's KCC equal to
zero, then there seems to be a relationship here to predictability.
For example, certain UTMs do not have to increase in size to reproduce
a specific sequence of increasing size. Such a situation is capable
of providing a great deal of predictive value with regard to what will
come next.

This paragraph seems to be a rebuttal of the previous one about k.
Specifically that for favourably chosen reference machines (favourable
to the source string), k scales with the string, thus destroying the
argument.

If the KC of U relative to U0 starts out at zero plus k and then stays
that way as the length of the string in question increases, one can be
more and more certain (though never perfectly certain) of the
hypothesis that states that the string is unlikely the be the result
of a truly random source. If, on the other hand, the KC of U relative
to U0 starts to increase toward maximum KC or algorithmic entropy, one
becomes less and less able to use the program in question as a better-
than-even-odds martingale or predictor. At the same time, the ability
to say that the string is most likely non-random decreases (but never
reaches absolute certainty).

Is your actual position that patterns in a string are *not* reference
machine relative, and that there is therefore such a thing as complex
specified information?

If the UTM is selected based on a small subsection of a string, then
the KC of the entire string is not significantly subject to the choice
of UTM. Regardless of the UTM chosen a randomly produced string will
show increasing KC toward maximum as more and more of the string is
evaluated - as noted above.

Leaving aside the obvious corollary that such
strings seem to be distinguished by *lack* of information, what
exactly do you want to argue for?

The term "information" is relative to the type of information you are
talking about. In this particular thread, we are talking about
"information" in the Shannon sense of the term.

Shannon information is not really a theory of information in the usual
sense of the word. Rather, it is more a theory of maximum information
transmission or sequence "complexity" or "randomness". For example,
consider a short children's storybook. Such a book contains more
Shannon information than a book of equal size composed entirely of a
string of As, but less Shannon information that a book of randomly
produced letters. In other words, a series of random letters has more
Shannon information than is contained in a meaningful storybook. Of
course, for most people, this description is very confusing since it
seems counterintuitive for a string of random letters to have more
information content than a meaningful storybook with the same number
of letters.

Richard Feynman summed up this little problem in his 1999 Lectures on
Computation when he asked, "How can a random string contain any
information, let alone the maximum amount? Surely we must be using the
wrong definition of 'information'?" In fact, it seems to me quite
unfortunate that Shannon used the term "information" at all when it
might have saved a lot of confusion to use the term "compressibility"
or "maximum information transfer" instead. In fact, Warren Weaver
(coauthor with Shannon of The Mathematical Theory of Communication)
noted, "The word information, in Shannon's theory, is used in a
special sense that must not be confused with its ordinary usage. In
particular, information must not be confused with meaning..."

http://www.detectingdesign.com/meaningfulinformation.html#Shannon

I mean I don't see whether it is an
excess of symmetry or a lack of it that strikes you as particularly
designed about say, a rotating flagellum. Paradoxically, it would be
absence of symmetry that equates to more information, and therfore
more unlikeliness in such a structure.

Again, it depends on the type of information you are looking for.
Symmetry itself is a type of information that has lower algorithmic
complexity. The greater the degree of symmetry of an object or
pattern the lower the algorithmic complexity or randomness. Non-
directed natural processes can produce a very high degree of certain
types of symmetry in certain types of materials. However, many types
of materials seem immune to symmetrical manipulation by all known non-
deliberate forms of natural forces.

For example, the material of granite does not lend itself to a high
degree of symmetrical manipulation by any known non-deliberate force
of nature when it comes to surface irregularities. For example,
imagine a highly symmetrical polished granite cube measuring 10 meters
on each side. On each face of this cube there are apparently
irregular geometric etchings. What is interesting though is that
opposing faces have the identical etchings.

Such a cube has a very high degree of symmetry with regard to surface
irregularities (corners and etchings). Because the material is known
to be granite, this degree of symmetry in granite, if ever found,
would be a very good clue as to its artifactual nature even if found
on an alien planet before the discovery of the aliens themselves or
any suggestion of how such a cube was actually manufactured. Simply
knowing that its degree of symmetry goes far beyond what any known non-
deliberate process is capable of achieving with granite, combined with
the fact that human-level intelligence is capable of producing such a
phenomenon, is enough to reasonably propose the hypothesis of
deliberate artifact.

The same thing is true of radio signals. SETI scientists are
searching for evidence of signal artifact based on what they know
about the limits of non-deliberate natural processes when it comes to
the medium of radio signals.

This concept is in fact behind the mainstream scientific search for
extraterrestrial intelligence (i.e., SETI). H. Paul Shuch, Ph.D., the
executive director of the SETI League, Inc., wrote that intelligent
"artifact" initially involves the detection of an "anti-entropic"
pattern.

"We listed at the outset several of the hallmarks of artificiality,
which we can expect to be exhibited an electromagnetic emission of
intelligent origin. The common denominator of all these
characteristics, in fact of all human (and we anticipate, alien)
existence, is that they are anti-entropic. Any emission which appears
(at least at the outset) to defy entropy is a likely candidate for an
intelligently generated artifact. In that regard, periodicity is a
necessary, though not a sufficient, condition for artificiality
(remembering once again the pulsar)."

"Imagine the roar of the ocean or the rustling of leaves in a high
wind," he says. "For these natural events, the sound is produced
simultaneously from many unsynchronized sources. If we plot the
frequencies present in such natural events and compare them to
artificial sounds, such as a tuning fork or an auto horn, a startling
difference appears. Natural signals have a rather broad frequency
spectrum, but the artificial ones usually don't."

Its the same with radio emissions. "Sure, if we want to, we can
intentionally produce broad messy signals," Cullers notes. "Cell
phones that use spread spectrum technology do this, and the military
sometimes uses broad signals to intentionally hide them. But it seems
that Nature cannot make a pure-tone radio signal." . . .

There's just one trouble with this. A perfect, narrow-band signal can
have no message. A tuning forks steady note is not music. And it seems
only reasonable to assume that if another civilization has troubled to
build a transmitter, they won't waste the megawatts by merely sending
an empty signal into space."

http://www.detectingdesign.com/meaningfulinformation.html#SETI

So, you see, SETI scientists are first looking for a very symmetrical
narrow-band signal or sharp narrow-band whistle. Such a signal, though
very simple in structure, would be evidence suggesting artifactual
production. Why? Because it is so different from what natural non-
deliberate processes usually produce when it comes to the medium of
radio signals. It is the same reasoning as I just used for the
polished granite cube scenario.

Oh, but what about biosystems and meaningful/functional genetic
codes? The reasoning is the essentially the same. Non-deliberate
natural processes simply do not produce higher and higher levels of
functionality, beyond a very low threshold, when it comes to the
medium of organic materials.

What do I mean by levels of functionality? As it turns out, different
types of functional systems require different minimum structural
threshold requirements. Some types of functional systems only require
a handful of specifically arranged amino acid residues before they
will work to a useful level of a particular type of function. Other
functional systems require several dozen specifically arranged
residues, while others require hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands,
and much more.

When it comes to what known non-deliberate processes can achieve with
this material, like random mutation and natural selection, a certain
degree of novel functionality can be produced in observable time.
However, this production never produces any novel functions beyond the
level of functional systems that require a minimum of more than a few
hundred fairly specified amino acid residues working together at the
same time. It just doesn't happen and statistically is very very
unlikely to happen beyond the 1000aa threshold this side of a
practical eternity of time (i.e., trillions upon trillions of
years).

The reason for this is what I like to call the exponentially expanding
non-beneficial gap problem. While the absolute number of potentially
beneficial sequence structures in sequence/structure space may
increase with each step up to higher-level functional systems, the
number of non-beneficial potential structures increases at many fold
the rate. This produces an exponential decrease in the ratio between
potentially beneficial vs. non-beneficial sequences in sequence space
with each step up the ladder of functional complexity. Such a
decreasing ratio rapidly produces vast gaps between what already
exists as beneficial and what might exist as beneficial if it were
ever found via random mutations of any kind. Natural selection is
powerless to help out in this search because it cannot select, in a
positive manner, until a the minimum threshold of a novel beneficial
sequence/structure is actually found via random mutation(s) alone.
The problem is that the edges of the threshold requirements become
more and more separated at higher and higher levels until even the
edges of different island clusters do not touch each other at all, but
are widely separated by a vast ocean of non-beneficial potential
sequences/structures on all sides.

At this point, the non-intelligent natural processes of evolution
simply stall out on the lowest rungs of the ladder of functional
complexity. Look into it. You will find that there are no examples
of evolution in action at or beyond the 1000aa structural threshold.
Therefore, the great many systems that exist beyond this threshold in
all living things are clearly consistent artifactual production.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

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