Comments on Gpuccio: Functional Information Methodology

[Dan_Eastwood]

@Roy

The number of possible combinations of 28 letters/spaces is more than 10^40.
“METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL” is only one of those possible combinations.
[…]
My python weasel implementation found it easily.*
[…]
No doubt gpuccio would say that this is possible because I knew the target sequence. Unfortunately for him it would work just as well if I didn’t know the target sequence - if it was generated randomly, for instance, or typed by some-one else.

GA’s can also find good solutions to problems that do not have specific targets. There are many examples. I’ve used a GA for constrained maximization problems, resulting in unexpected answers.

@colewd

There are a couple issues with Josh’s analogy. He is not looking at a translated sequence. He is also not looking at a changing or potentially changing configuration over time.

This change allows you to look at comparative data and make a judgement about cause of the configuration.

In much the same way the observation of 500 heads is significant in that we have something to compare it to. That is the normal statistical expectation of the quantity of heads and tails after tossing a coin 500 times.

I have an issue with your issue - where is there any requirement for a translated sequence. Star positions change over time, just very slowly as we see them. Weather configurations change very quickly!

“This change” is the difference from a hypothesis of random generation, which in no way resembles evolution. All it means is that natural selection is unlikely to be a purely random process. Do No Even Think About Moving The Goal Posts To Abiogenesis, that is not the current discussion.
The comparison here is to a strawman of a “normal expectation of randomness”, but no one expects evolution to be random.

@Giltil

Well for starters, I can use the same argument to prove that it’s impossible (…beyond probabilistic resources…) to flip a coin 500 times

This seems quite a strange statement ! Can you explain?

This seems obvious to me, yet it comes up over and over. Perhaps a new thread is in order? (I might start one later, or you can).

It seems obvious because if I generate a sequence by flipping a coin 500 times, or any equivalent random series, I will have just exceeded the probabilistic resources of the universe.

You may respond that I haven’t specified the pattern in advance, but neither does this common argument from ID. Independent specification after the fact is difficult, since there may be patterns providing the same function that are never observed.

On a grander scale, the question of the Design or evolution of life itself, I seriously question the possibility of any independent specification when that specification is conditional on our own history and current existence. Our ability to ask these questions constitutes after the fact information, and no post hoc specification can be independent of our existence.

@Ashwin_s

If evolution is like EAs, then as far as we know, there is a limit to the innovation possible.

There will be limits to any physical system, true. If we applied an EA to some mathematical maximization problem, the algorithm may happily climb to infinity (or unto someone stops a runaway process). It would be better to say that FI will be monotonically increasing with time.

@Timothy_Horton

Actual evolutionary processes utilize the feedback from selection to produce increasing complexity over time. Where in your 747 junkyard analogy is the feedback from selection?

If we consider the history of aviation as an analogy to evolution, we see LOTS of feedback and selection from the first gliders to the most modern aircraft.

@Ashwin_s

Not established by any empirical studies in computer science.

Are you sure about that? That’s surprising because it should be simple to demonstrate. It’s not really worth arguing about, or I’d bet I could Google some examples. ($20 maximum)